EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate Alternative Television, the company’s unscripted division, has been hit hard by the latest round of layoffs.
Deadline broke the news earlier today that Lionsgate would be reducing 5% of its companywide staff with around 50 staff thought to be existing.
It’s now emerged that key unscripted executives including Gretchen Stockdale, COO of Pilgrim Media Group, are exiting as a result of the redundancies. Stockdale, who was also general counsel, has been at the company since 2008 and was instrumental in Pilgrim’s 2015 sale to Lionsgate.
Pilgrim Media Group is behind series such as Discovery’s Dirty Jobs and Harpoon Hunters, Netflix’s High on the Hog, Investigation Discovery’s Very Scary People and ABC and Hulu’s recent true-crime docuseries Scamanda.
Elsewhere, Deadline understands that Blackfin has also been hit, although Geno McDermott, who founded the company and serves as Chief Creative Officer, is remaining. Blackfin is behind series including Netflix’s Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, History’s Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre and CNN’s Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury.
Other departures include executives within Lionsgate Alternative Television‘s development team.
In November 2024, CEO Jon Feltheimer said that “our unscripted business is feeling the effects of a continuing market correction”.
At that time, the company also went through a round of layoffs that led to the departure of eOne U.S. boss Dirk Hoogstra, EVP Development Nicole Sorrenti and SVP Development Sam Heng.
Earlier today, Feltheimer said, “We continue to operate in an industry environment characterized by unprecedented change and disruption, and we are continuing to adapt our organization to these changes in order to compete successfully.”