According to Reuters, CBS is trimming its staff "amid a tough media environment and declines in television and print news outlets." According to the article, CBS is cutting one percent of its 1,200 employee workforce, including the news division. This includes many layoffs for anchors and reporters, including several who supposedly make salaries in the millions of dollars.

Most interesting is the observations of Barrington Research analyst James Goss: "My sense is that the layoffs extended to some high-priced and highly visible local talent with an eye toward applying some of the same return on investment-focused expense disciplines that started at the network level."

Much as I'm sorry to hear that CBS has to lay off some staffers, given the current state of the economy and the changing nature of news broadcasting, it's not really surprising. It does always seem like the news departments are the first to be cut in any sort of network economic crisis. Still, I do wonder if they could have cut costs a little more and had some more layoffs at the executive levels.