The future of Levittown Patch is uncertain as of Wednesday.
The national network of local news sites cut most, if not all, of it’s staff in Bucks County during a conference call.
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Media reporter Jim Romenesko wrote Wednesday morning that tipsters told him at least two thirds of company was let go. Former employees posted on Twitter that nearly all editorial and sales staff are gone from the company’s roughly 900 sites.
A source familiar with Hale’s plans for Patch says the network will shrink to 250 sites from nearly 1,000. In Connecticut, for example, Patch’s staff has been reduced from ~100 to ~5. The This source says the 750 or so zombie sites will aggregate regional news and try to partner with local bloggers.
Patch was sold by AOL a few weeks ago to Hale Global, which “committed to bringing users, local businesses, writers and advertisers together into a Patch experience full of innovation and growth.” AOL became a minority owner of the company once the sale of Hale Global was announced. The financial terms of the deal were not released.
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The network of sites features local news articles produced by a staff of one editor to two or three sites and information uploaded by users. The Levittown site launched 2010 and James Boyle is currently listed as its editor.
The sale was part of AOL’s plan to stop financial losses incurred by the Patch network. Patch operates eight websites in Bucks County and more than 50 throughout the region.
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Local Patch sites have seen a decrease in freelance and full-time editors over the past few years since launching locally.
The Patch network rapidly expanded and was touted for hiring such a large amount of journalist. The company turned away from the heavy amount of local news content and slowly turned toward posts from the community that were mixed in with content produced by professional journalists.
Patch was founded in New England by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in 2007 and sold to AOL in 2009.
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Disclosure: LevittownNow.com Publishers and Editors Jeff Bohen and Tom Sofield were both previously employed by Patch and the AOL/Huffington Post Media Group. Bohen covered local news in a freelance capacity for several Patch sites starting in 2011. Sofield worked as a freelancer reporter across Bucks County and Montgomery County and editor later, running the Newtown and Levittown Patches for a period of time.
