Joost has not announced the number of layoffs; it employs 100 people in New York, London and the Netherlands.

The firm will move away from its identity as a consumer website due to competition from Hulu, and will concentrate on selling its video platform to media companies. Joost has programming deals with CBS, Viacom and Warner Bros.

Mike Volpi is stepping down as CEO, although he will remain with the firm. Current senior engineering veep Matt Zelesko will take over as CEO.

Joost is an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.

The cable television news network will scale back investment in technologies rather than fire employees. CNN is hiring 30 workers for its newswire service this year, and plans to recruit more for international news.

CNN, owned by Time Warner, is confronting both the recession and competition from MSNBC, which in March overtook it for the number two spot behind News Corp.’s Fox News in weekday primetime ratings.

CNN’s profit more than doubled in the past four years. It ended 2007 and 2008 with more employees than it started with each year, and plans to do the same in 2009.

The network has about 4,000 employees worldwide.

The studio is eliminating 45 positions, or 8% of its 550-person workforce.

The cuts included 27 people laid off Friday, and 10 who were moved into independent contractor consulting jobs and production deals. Eight open positions will not be filled.

The cuts follow the elimination of 41 jobs in early November.

Lions Gate is hoping that its latest release, “The Haunting in Connecticut,” a supernatural thriller that came out this weekend, will continue the studio’s recent winning streak at the box office.

The salary reduction will affect employees who are part of the Dallas-based company’s management-compensation programs. The suspension of the 401(k) matching will apply to all employees.

Belo, which owns 20 television stations, said the layoffs will take effect in mid-April.

Belo’s revenue fell more than 5% in 2008 as higher Internet revenue failed to offset advertising declines.

In response, the company initiated a hiring freeze, reduced staff in some markets and took other cost-cutting steps last year.

HSN, which had about 5,500 full-time employees at the end of 2007, also reported a loss of $2.15 billion, versus a profit of $56.5 million in Q4 2008.

Sales were slightly down in November and December.

Demand for high-ticket items like fashion and jewelry continued to fall in the quarter, while categories like electronics, wellness and fitness did better.

The company, which has two operating segments, HSN and Cornerstone Brands, raised shipping prices during Q4 to offset rising shipping and handling costs and fuel charges.

Sales at its HSN segment dropped 4% to $545.9 million, while Cornerstone Brands sales fell 25% to $232.6 million.

The building that formerly housed the Detroit Free Press, one of the nation’s many troubled newspapers, is now under new ownership.  Richard Gerber of Troy Michigan plans to convert the building into a film-production studio in the hopes of cashing in on Michigan’s recent boom in film production work.  Gerber has formed a venture partnership with the real estate company that bought the Free Press building back in December.

Gerber, owner of technology firm Intelegen Inc., told the Detroit News on Tuesday that he, along with his investment partmer, Luke Investments, are checking to make sure that the venture will qualify for Michigan’s film tax incentives package.  He wants to take the 80,000 square foot of the building that formerly held a printing press and turn it into a fully-functioning soundstage.

Michigan’s new tax incentives, along with recently laid off workers from the auto industry who are now retraining to work on film crews, has caused film, television, and video production to surge in Michigan.

Find a job in Detroit at Employment Crossing.

After falling to 154,000 in 2008 from 157,800 in 2007, industry jobs in the region are forecast to fall to 153,600 in 2009, mostly due to cutbacks in broadcasting.

The television sector was hurt both by the Writers Guild strike that ended in early 2008 and by shrinking audiences for broadcast television.

Workers in feature films are feeling the pinch from cost cuts at the studios and California’s lack of film production incentives. Many productions are going to other states or countries that offer incentives to filmmakers.

The company, which expanded into the market with the 2006 purchase of DMarc Broadcasting, is seeking a buyer for software that arranges ads on radio programs. Google will stop selling radio ads by May 31st, and focus instead on online streaming audio.

Google paid $102 million in cash for DMarc, and agreed to pay as much as $1.14 billion in later installments depending on performance.

The company said last month that it would close a business that sold ad space in newspapers.

Google’s radio ad program helped companies decide where ads would run, on which stations and at what times. The company said it will continue to invest in its television ad business.

The company will withdraw from the TV business by March 2010, and cut 16% of its full-time workforce and 4,000 temporary positions.

As part of the restructuring, Pioneer will cut about 30% of its 30 production units worldwide. The company will shut a plasma panel-making factory in the UK this month, and another in the US in April.

The move ends more than 25 years of TV manufacturing at Pioneer, which shifted its focus from cathode-ray tube sets to developing plasma-screen models in 1991.

Besides layoffs, the Hunt Valley, Maryland broadcaster is cutting back on capital expenditures, freezing salaries, lowering promotional spending and travel.

Such moves are expected to save the company $19 million, but it is not enough to offset the decline in advertising, particularly in a non-election year, Sinclair said.

The Sinclair Broadcast Group is the operator of the largest number of local television stations in the US, with a total of 57 stations across the country in 35 small and medium markets, many of which are located in the South and the Midwest. Broadcasts by SBG stations can be received by 24% of American households.