Real's Rhapsody unit cuts staff

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LAYOFFS

Real's Rhapsody unit cuts staff

John Cook on Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:35am PST

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Bad news | Layoffs | RealNetworks

RealNetworks is laying off less than 20 employees in its Rhapsody USA unit, a move that comes just two months after the Seattle company cut 7.5 percent of its workforce. Spokesman Ryan Luckin said that Rhapsody -- a joint venture of RealNetworks and MTV Networks -- operates on different budget cycle than Real. Because of that, Luckin said the unit recently determined that they needed to "get costs in line with projected revenues."

Luckin said that Rhapsody reported record subscriptions last quarter, in part due to a partnership with Verizon. He didn't have any details on why the budget projections for this year led to layoffs.

Rhapsody offers an online music subscription service, which ranges from $12.99 per month to $14.99 per month. It had about two million subscribers as of the last quarter, including subscribers to its online radio offerings.

RealNetworks owns 51 percent of the joint venture, with Viacom's MTV unit owning the rest. The cuts occurred in Seattle and San Francisco.

Here's our current tally of tech layoffs in the region.

About John Cook

John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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