On Wednesday news broke that the MTV news team would be undergoing a layoff.  The impending restructure represents a shift from traditional news, focusing on more short-form and video content. In a press release to Billboard an MTV spokesperson said, “with MTV News, we're doubling down on where we've seen our biggest successes in youth culture, music and entertainment."

The transition comes just two years after the network hired former Grantland editorial director Dan Fierman to lead a diverse staff of mostly women and minority journalist with a focus on long-form journalism and think pieces geared toward younger audiences. Unfortunately, the 4,000- to 6,000-word written pieces do not resonate with this demographic. According to network insiders, overall traffic for MTV News’ digital content saw significant declines since 2015. According to Omniture web analytics, the average number of unique views for MTV News editorial content was down 64% for the period of October 2016 to June 2017. “Dan was brought in to do a specific thing and he succeeded at it, but it just wasn’t right for MTV," a source told Billboard.

MTV’s pivot from long-form journalism to the development of short-form video and community submitted content represents a larger industry evolution in the rapidly changing digital news landscape. According to a 2016 report by the Pew Research Firm, 62% of U.S. adults get their news on social media with mobile devices as the preferred medium for digital news consumption.  In short, people who are consuming their news on-the-go, tend to prefer quick but informative soundbites with a clear and decipherable tone.