“Access Hollywood” will alter or eliminate more than a dozen positions from its online operation, which will be relaunched in mid-January to focus on video, TheWrap has learned.
The website tied to NBCUniversal’s syndicated daily entertainment show has cut its web staff of around 15 and intends to revamp in the new year with six employees, an individual close to the production said.
A spokesperson for “Access Hollywood” denied the site would see a full-stop relaunch but said it was “shifting its focus towards more video content and additional support for ‘Access Hollywood’ exclusives.” The show declined to comment on staffing.
Low traffic was at the heart of the decision to rethink the department, as numbers were around only 1 million unique users per month, according to an individual with knowledge of the operation, who added that some current editorial staffers may be displaced as soon as January 15.
A second individual close to the “Access” set said layoffs are not yet on the table, but some employees have been reassigned within NBCUniversal while others have been invited to work on the relaunched platform with “updated job descriptions.”
In its current form, the site offers blog content, photo galleries and clips from both the nightly show and its daytime companion “Access Hollywood Live!” The nightly show averages a 1.7 share and 2.4 million viewers per episode.
The shift toward exclusively offering video content is an interesting play, given the success that “Access” competitors have had with full digital publications.
E! Online, another NBCUniversal property, broke traffic records in 2013, passing the numbers of sites like People.com and TMZ.com with 11.1 million unique desktop users. It’s now almost wholly streamlined with the channel’s nightly news broadcast “E! News.”
ET Online, “Entertainment Tonight’s” website, announced Wednesday it had become the fourth largest site in the entertainment news category from ComScore, up 17 spots in the past 18 months.
The streamlining of the “Access” website also comes after almost year-long speculation that the show’s production team will begin sharing resources with sister show “E! News” when that company moves its home to Universal City. “Access” has been on site for months after shuffling from Burbank, Calif.
“I’ve heard there will be two sets, they’re not going to flip them every day, they’ll be two physical sets directly next to each other,” an E! insider told TheWrap earlier this year. “Cameramen and audio will be unionized, and that’s out there, but I’ve also heard we’ll be sharing editors and physical bays on the tech side.”
Both shows have consistently denied that they will ever be more than good neighbors.