Music video platform Vevo has had significant layoffs, and lost another key executive, roughly four months after the departure of its CEO: CTO Alex Nunes left the company in recent weeks, which subsequently made significant cuts to its San Francisco-based product and engineering teams, Variety has learned.
A Vevo spokesperson confirmed staff cuts in a statement sent to Variety Friday:
“We can confirm there has been a reduction of personnel across the Product & Engineering teams at Vevo. This decision allows for greater focus to drive increased growth in the promotional and commercial value of videos. This will build on what was a very strong 2017 for us with growth in the scale and reach of the music video.”
Vevo is now working on creating a new product and growth team helmed by its VP of engineering, Andy Smith, under Vevo senior VP Will Jackson, the company’s spokesperson said.
These layoffs come four months after former Vevo CEO Erik Huggers left the company, and three months after the company’s head of product Mark Hall left for a new job at Bandcamp. A number of other product and engineering staffers left as well over the past few months, according to sources close to the company.
Popular on Variety
When Huggers joined Vevo back in 2015, it had been primary focused on distributing music videos from its major-label owners Universal Music and Sony on YouTube. Under Huggers, the company massively expanded its San Francisco operations, and put a big emphasis on building out its own apps separately from its YouTube presence.
Some of these efforts included revamped mobile apps as well as apps for Roku, Fire TV, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Huggers was also looking for other monetization strategies for Vevo content, and at one point even floated the idea of a music video subscription service.
However, Vevo continued to bring in the vast majority of its revenue via it’s YouTube partnership. Now, all signs point to a course correction to focus on its distribution relationship with the Google-owned video platform, which puts the future of Vevo’s own apps in question.
