Veeps, the ticketed livestreaming platform majority-owned by Live Nation, has started the process of laying off massive swaths of employees across cultural reporting, subculture journalism, and independent artist coverage. These include the gutting of BrooklynVegan, Alternative Press, Revolver, and Goldmine.

All of these publications have served as home bases for coverage of punk, heavy metal, indie, and vinyl record subcultures for decades. BrooklynVegan has documented independent rock music since 2004, while Alternative Press helped define the alt scene beginning in 1985. Revolver has focused on metal and hard rock since 2000, and Goldmine has covered the vinyl collector space since 1974.

Of course, referral traffic losses have had a negative impact on these platforms, driven by changes in search engine optimization and artificial intelligence overviews. That has severely stunted ad-driven revenue models and continues to pummel the digital music journalism space in an unprecedented way.

While the Live Nation angle involved in these layoffs is unique, the matter is part of a broader systematic collapse of corporate-owned music-focused media. Paramount shuttered MTV News in 2023, eventually taking its digital archives offline altogether. The same year, Vice Media filed for bankruptcy, which led to the company laying off hundreds of workers and ceasing publication of Vice.com and its music-oriented Noisey.

Meanwhile, music media consolidation was seriously on the rise in 2024. Conde Nast slurped up Pitchfork and merged it into GQ, firing veteran editorial staff in the process. Warner Music Group removed funding from Uproxx and HipHopDX amid company-wide layoffs, and both were sold off a few months later.

Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Variety all suffered rounds of layoffs at the behest of Penske Media. This April, Sony’s Blast Beat Network reduced headcount at both Metal Injection and MetalSucks.