The year 2025 was a bloodbath for film, streaming, television, and news workers in Hollywood as the media continued its downward spiral from its once commanding position as a leading American institution.
The Wrap reports that television and film lost upwards to 17,000 jobs in 2025, a loss 18 percent higher than last year.
News divisions, for instance, cut about 2,254 jobs across television, film, broadcast, news and streaming services through November of 2025. The loss, though, fell below the 4,537 job losses in 2024.
“The most cited reason for layoffs was restructuring and industry consolidation,” the Wrap added.
The FCC approved the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media and as the year came to a close Warner Bros. Discovery also began its move to merge with whatever outfit will end up buying it in the coming year. But job loss was a constant across it all. Even Disney continued its trend of mass layoffs despite still holding out on its own.
The layoffs will continue, too, and Artificial Intelligence might be to blame for much of it.
According to the World Economic Forum, 41 percent of companies worldwide will lay off workers over the next five years because they intend to begin increasing reliance on AI technology. One example is the workforce depletion at Amazon, which castoff 14,000 employees in October.
This AI issue has already cost tens of thousands of current and future jobs in Hollywood, analysts say. A report from June noted that as many as 200,000 Hollywood jobs will either be lost or won’t ever be created thanks to AI.
Still, some new jobs will undoubtedly be created because of AI as some workers will be needed to control the tech. Regardless, The Wrap added that 71,000 layoffs occurred in 2025 thanks to AI.
At year’s end, the biggest loser appears to be Paramount, which shed 2,000 employees. Comcast’s Versant cable shed 150, which was seven percent of its workforce, and Disney laid off less than 800 across its various holdings and divisions worldwide, The Wrap continued.
After years of heavier layoffs, Warner Bros. only shed about 100 across its cable holdings. But that will certainly tick upward once WBD is bought out next year. In fact, some analysts expect WBD to lose upwards to 6,000 employees after its buyout.
The film industry in Los Angeles continued to contract in 2025. Hollywood had lost 100,000 jobs by the end of 2024 — or a 30 percent decline — as film and TV productions moved to other U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, or places overseas. And by April of this year, Hollywood ranked in only 6th place for the number of film and TV productions operating there. And Deadline reported in October that the downward trend in film and TV production continued through the third quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, media otherwise also continued contracting as news and print media either laid off workers, canceled expansion plans, or shut down completely.
Publishers Dotdash Meredith dumped 143 employees, and then after the rebranded to People Inc., shed another 226. The Washington Post eliminated four percent of its workforce, or 100 workers, CNN dumped 200 staffers, PBS laid off 15 percent of its workforce, CBS News cancelled the streaming companions to CBS Mornings and CBS News and eliminated those employees, and Business Insider dumped 21 percent of its staff.
Layoffs were also felt at Variety, Rolling Stone, and Billboard.
The media will continue facing tough times next year and there seems to be no end yet in sight to a leveling.
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