According to an article by Marc Graser at Variety, online sci-fi giant Fandom.com is expected to lay off 37 people, 20% of its staff today.

According to the article, the move was made necessary because of redundancies at Fandom.com following the acquisition of SF site and magazine Cinescape and convention organiser Creation Entertainment. Nineteen jobs were cut at Fandom.com's merchandising unit in Virginia, what used to be AnotherUniverse, while another eighteen marketing and content positions were axed at the company's main offices in Santa Monica.

Speaking to Variety, Fandom.com CEO Mark Young said that the job cuts were necessary to reduce costs. "The current climate requires us to operate as efficiently as we can. [...] It's tough because these people are like family." Chief Financial Officer Ted Howells added to this, "Following peak holiday earnings, our first quarter revenues will be strong, but we need to be as efficient as possible in order to address the traditional leveling off in the second quarter and to accelerate our goal of reaching profitability in 2001."

These job cuts shouldn't have a negative influence on any of the site's Fandomains, such as Star Trek Central, which are maintained by relatively independent webmasters (or 'Fanatics', as the company calls them). It is not known, however, whether any of the Star Trek writers at the main Fandom.com site were affected by this.

For the original Variety article on the Fandom.com issue, please follow this link.

Fandom.com isn't the only online company with ties to the SF world to announce cost-reducing measures. UGO Networks (with which TrekToday is also affiliated) recently announced a round of lay-offs and a restructuring of its affiliate program, in an effort to reach profitability in mid-2001. In addition, Snowball.com, parent company of sites such as IGN Sci-Fi, also just announced it will reduce its workforce by 20%, after earlier already restructuring its own affiliate program.

2001 promises to be an interesting year for the online SF world. Hopefully for the online SF community, most of these companies will be able to remain standing, as otherwise the internet would be robbed of many of its most interesting sci-fi sites.

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