Sad news today as AOL Music/Spinner has announced that it is shutting down and laying off all of their employees.
Spinner.com, a division of AOL Music, announced earlier today that they were being shut down. All Access reported that a few dozen employees lost their jobs. It was tweeted out earlier today that that the entire music editorial division of the media giant, which owns The Huffington Post, was closing.
Dan Reilly, editor of Spinner, tweeted,
Well, we all just got laid off. AOL Music is finished.
As Fishbowl NY reports, the move comes as AOL has consolidated some of its editorial properties under The Huffington Post Media Group. These included Politics Daily, PopEater and StyleList.
A true pioneer, Spinner has been around since the 1990s. They began as an internet radio service, offering daily downloads, exclusive interviews, album streams and live performance.
In 1999 AOL acquired Spinner for about $400 million dollars. And, at the time, it seemed like a solid acquisition.
However, as Spotify and Pandora have made names for themselves as competitors, AOL has struggled.
That is likely to be what is prompting the layoffs now. AOL has not responded to calls requesting a comment.
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