Lionsgate Television, an independent movie and television studio, has undergone another round of workforce reductions, laying off five employees from its scripted television group on Thursday; sources confirmed to the Deadline. This cut represents 6% of the division’s approximately 80-person staff, signaling further belt-tightening as the company navigates a challenging media landscape. The layoffs come on the heels of a similar reduction in November, when 5% of Lionsgate Alternative Television’s unscripted team was let go, reflecting an ongoing contraction in the television industry that has disproportionately squeezed indie suppliers like Lionsgate.
The timing of these cuts is notable, arriving just weeks before Lionsgate’s long-anticipated split from its premium network Starz, expected in mid-to-late April. For years, Lionsgate Television has served as Starz’s in-house studio, producing flagship series like the Power franchise and BMF. The separation, delayed by factors including the 2023 Hollywood strikes and the $375 million acquisition of Entertainment One (eOne) from Hasbro, aims to unlock shareholder value by creating two standalone entities. However, the transition has coincided with broader cost-cutting measures, including a 10% workforce reduction at eOne in December 2023 and a voluntary severance program offered to U.S. employees last September amid a “disrupted business environment,” as Lionsgate described it.
Lionsgate Television’s portfolio remains robust despite the layoffs, boasting hits like CBS’s Ghosts, recently renewed for two more seasons, Apple TV+’s Acapulco, and the forthcoming Seth Rogen comedy The Studio. The studio also inherited successful eOne titles such as ABC’s The Rookie and Showtime’s Yellowjackets, though Netflix recently axed another eOne series, The Recruit, after two seasons. Last year, Lionsgate slashed its combined producing deals by 70% post-eOne merger, a move to streamline operations as the TV market shifts away from the Peak TV era of lavish spending toward leaner production models.
The latest layoffs align with a wave of downsizing across Hollywood, as evidenced by recent cuts at Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN, and Disney, which plans to shed nearly 200 jobs across its news and entertainment divisions. Independent studios like Lionsgate face particular pressure, lacking the deep pockets of vertically integrated giants. As Lionsgate prepares to part ways with Starz—whose subscriber base dipped slightly to 19.35 million domestically in Q4 2024 per recent reports—the studio is bracing for a future where agility and efficiency will define survival in a post-strike, post-streaming-boom world.
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