Yahoo Finance Candle Media Cuts Costs: Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden to Oversee All Live-Action Production
Candle Media, the fledging media company backed by private equity player Blackstone, is undergoing a restructure in order to cut costs.
Founded in 2021 by former Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, the venture made several splashy acquisitions – including Reese Witherspoon’s production label Hello Sunshine – at the offset. Flash forward three years, and free-spending content buyers have cratered back to earth (along with their individual stock prices).
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Variety has confirmed that Mayer and Staggs have moved to consolidate their production businesses into two verticals: live-action production will now fall under Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine, who will also retain her title at Witherspoon’s shotp; and animation will now exist solely within Candle’s profitable MoonBug, the label behind family juggernaut “CocoMelon.”
Details of cost cuts and potential job losses were not immediately clear. Mayer and Staggs first disclosed the new structure at a Semafor event last week.
Harden’s new operation will be called Candle Studios. Her purview will include Hello Sunshine (producer of “The Morning Show” and “Little Fires Everywhere”) and the banners Exile, True Stories and Faraway Road (“Fauda”).
More to come …
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