CINCINNATI — The E.W. Scripps Co. has entered what President/CEO Adam Symson labels “the implementation phase” of a previously announced “transformation.” As such, rumors that first had tongues wagging last week in the trendy Over-The-Rhine neighborhood have become reality: a reduction-in-force initiative has commenced as part of “organizational changes” at the publicly traded company.
This means Scripps is making “some difficult decisions,” Symson said in an internal memo distributed Tuesday (8/4) to employees across the company.
In the memo, obtained by RBR+TVBR, “the elimination of roles across several areas of our business” is transpiring. Symson set out to address that reality directly.
Some 268 Scripps employees will no longer be employed by the company.
“These are teammates who have helped build and serve this company in important ways, and we are deeply grateful for everything they have contributed,” Symson said.
Continuing to explain the dismissal of more than 250 colleagues, Symson shared that the work ahead for Scripps is best-described as a “refounding” of the company — one that is guided by a vision to “create connection through trusted news and information, entertainment and sports programming.”
This “refounding,” said Symson, “calls on us to carry forward the mission E.W. Scripps stood for when he launched this company 150 years ago, but to do so for the modern audience, and in a way sustainable in today’s media marketplace.”
That means organizing the company around how people consume media today, “not around how we’ve always done things,” Symson explained. “It means building within a cost structure that sustains our mission over time. And it means difficult choices, including changes to roles, workflows and team structures. These decisions are being made in service to a mission that is too important to let fade because we weren’t willing to do the hard work of evolving.”
With Scripps’ Q2 2026 earnings call scheduled for August 7, Symson has added an all-employee Town Hall to the day’s company events. There, he’ll talk about the changes that did not disclose the names of those impacted but were outlined in detail in the memo.
HOW SCRIPPS WILL STIR UP ‘TRANSFORMATION’
While it was not immediately clear what positions are being eliminated and if any C-Suite level executives are impacted, Symson pointed to 24/7 local news stream launches and how “streaming requires a different model for producing the news.” This, he added, was fueled by the continued consumer shift toward streaming and social platforms for news.
“Our approach focuses on creating connection by putting more reporters in our communities and delivering relevant, trusted local information throughout the day rather than only during traditional broadcast windows,” Symson said.
The new 24/7 streaming news programming is first arriving in about a dozen smaller markets and will expand over time to all local stations, he added.
This doesn’t mean that scheduled local newscasts on stations including KSBY-6 in San Luis Obispo, Calif.; WPTV-5 in West Palm Beach; or hometown flagship property WCPO-9 are disappearing.
“While we will still broadcast on a schedule for those who watch linear TV, we also will be serving audiences on their terms, publishing stories as they’re ready, providing more frequent updates across the day, feeding streaming, broadcast and social platforms, and going live when breaking news demands it,” Symson said, adding that the company’s goal “is to strengthen our connection to the communities we serve with reporters in the neighborhoods, listening to our neighbors and reporting on the stories that matter most.”
Hints at a shift to this news production model came in 2023, Symson added, pointing to investments in technology and automated workflows “that allow us to allocate fewer resources to production tasks and more to reporting from the field.”
And, at a time when many communities “are losing local coverage,” the depth Scripps is bringing even after it cuts 250 jobs “is our competitive advantage,” Symson opined. “New AI systems and other technology designed and developed by Scripps employees is making this possible.”
Meanwhile, local digital production is being reorganized through a hub model, centralizing digital news production work “that doesn’t need to be replicated in every market, creating efficiency and sustainability while preserving our ability to serve local communities across every platform. The move to a centralized approach will make it easier to stay aligned on strategy, execute best practices and evolve at the speed digital demands.”
Symson also addressed this week’s completion of its acquisition from Morris Network Inc. of WTVQ-TV in Lexington, Ky., and a duopoly situation in the Twin Falls, Idaho, market, but noting that the doubling of stations in these locales “gives us the ability to redeploy resources toward broader local coverage rather than competing for the same finite resources and the same set of stories.” In these markets, Symson said, the company is pairing “disciplined consolidation and cost actions with a fundamental change in the product: deeper local coverage, a stronger consumer experience and more sustainable operations.”
Lastly, Symson said the company is “evolving” the Scripps Technology Group “to align more directly with the platforms and systems powering the company.”
He explained, “Today’s changes within the Scripps Technology Group are designed to deliver the speed and integration this work demands. The decisions we shared today about jobs are difficult, but they are made strategically. At a time when many in our industry are responding to economic pressure with cuts alone, our goal is to build a different, more sustainable model for serving audiences. Our work is what separates cost reduction from transformation: One protects an ineffective status quo; the other builds something new and impactful.”
