AOL Time Warner Cuts 1,000 Jobs

Wednesday, January 24th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Less than a week after a major revamp at CNN, newly formed media giant AOL Time Warner is shaking up the entire organization in a move that will result in at least 1,000 more jobs being lost, sources said.

The cuts, announced Tuesday, are affecting the company's music business, its America Online division and its movie studio New Line Cinema, according to several sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The cuts are part of an overall belt-tightening drive to make good on a promise to investors that the merger would deliver a major boost to earnings.

Two top executives at AOL Time Warner discussed the cuts in a several media outlets, putting the number of layoffs at more than 2,000.

Richard D. Parsons and Robert W. Pittman, the company's co-chief operating officers, told The New York Times that 2,025 jobs would definitely be cut. Layoffs will take place at the Time Inc. magazine company and the 130 Warner Brothers retail outlets will be shut down or sold, the executives were quoted as saying.

Spokespeople at Time and Warner Brothers did not return calls seeking comment.

Tricia Primrose, a spokeswoman for AOL Time Warner, would not provide details about the number of people being laid off. ``The company has put in place a number of company-wide initiatives to integrate operations, but we have no additional announcements at this point,'' she said.

Still, a person familiar with the matter said New Line Cinema let about 100 people go, or nearly 20 percent of its work force. New Line has had a poor showing at the box office recently and Michael de Luca was fired as the studio's president last week, with Toby Emmerich replacing him.

Warner Music Group, another division that senior management has singled out for poor performance, will lose 600 jobs through attrition and early retirement packages, or about 5 percent of its work force, according to an industry source.

AOL, which is now a division of the merged company AOL Time Warner Inc., will also see some job reductions, at least 300 positions, and as many as 725. Layoffs will occur at the Dulles, Va. campus and at other AOL locations.

Some 400 jobs are expected to be trimmed from the staff of the Time magazine unit, according to media reports.

The cuts came less than a week after a major reorganization at CNN, where about 400 jobs are being cut. CNN is also installing several new executives, overhauling its newsgathering infrastructure and shaking up its programming schedule in an effort to get ratings out of a slump.

Competitors MSNBC and Fox News Channel have been chipping away at CNN's audience with feisty talk show hosts like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly, and several new shows on CNN's lineup are aimed squarely at winning those viewers back.

AOL Time Warner has made a number of other executive changes in the 10 days since the merger closed, including a new management lineup at AOL. A source confirmed Tuesday that Sarah Crichton is leaving as head of Little, Brown & Co., an imprint Time Warner Trade Publishing. Michael Pietsch was promoted to replace her.

AOL Time Warner has more than 80,000 employees.

As part of the restructuring announced on Tuesday, nearly all of AOL Time Warner's remaining employees will receive stock options in the new company, Parsons and Pittman told the Times.

Shares of AOL finished regular trading Tuesday at $54.15, up 31 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.