Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 is cutting around 400 roles, as it continues to reshape its business into a digital-first operation.

The number accounts for about 10% of its entire workforce, with the changes focused on the company’s entertainment businesses.

The plan is for a voluntary redundancy program rather than compulsory redundancies “as far as possible.” ProSiebenSat.1 said this had been “agreed on this in talks with employee representatives.”

The network said the “aim is to achieve a more efficient structure, a competitive cost base, and processes clearly geared to digital transformation.”

This follows the full acquisition of entertainment streaming service Joyn last year and more recently after a series of top-level management changes.

ProSieben has been battling a tough financial landscape. Last month it suffered a 7% year-on-year drop in revenue last month, posting €4.1B ($4.4B), It has appointed a new supervisory board in the past month and has said goodbye to long serving entertainment boss Wolfgang Link.

“In a constantly changing media industry, it is only logical that we have realigned our strategy and are constantly questioning our own positioning,” said ProSiebenSat.1 Media CEO Bert Habets. “In addition, we have to operate in an extremely challenging economic environment for the fourth year in a row. It is therefore imperative that we significantly reduce our material and personnel costs. The job cuts are a difficult but entrepreneurially necessary decision, so that ProSiebenSat.1 can increase its earning power and grow sustainably and healthily again.”

“2023 is the year of realignment for our group. We have a clear plan with a focus on our entertainment offering and especially on Joyn. This way, we want to become the number one in the German-speaking entertainment market as a group. And we have now created an agile setup as well as headroom for investments again. This was absolutely essential as a basis for implementing our growth strategy.”

EXCLUSIVE: , the podcast company behind series such as To Live and Die in LA and Up and Vanished, is expanding its slate.

The company has unveiled a raft of new series, including Dear Alana, a dual-narrative series created by Simon Kent Fung about the life and tragic death of devout youth Alana Chen, whose aspiration to become a nun led her to conversion therapy, and a number of weekly series and spinoffs of existing shows.

Dear Alana is an eight-episode series that sees Kent Fung explore the psychological theories behind conversion therapy today, as he goes behind the scenes of an ascendant brand of American Catholicism sweeping college campuses now, and unearths the complicated boundary between earnest faith and spiritual manipulation, the promise of perfection and the price we pay to belong. It features Chen’s extensive journals, which reveal her hidden struggles with her sexuality and faith. Chen died, aged 24, in Boulder, after being hospitalized for depression. The series will launch in August.

Elsewhere, there are spinoffs of Up and Vanished, To Live and Die in LA and Culpable as well as a weekly talk spinoff of Radio Rental, Rattled & Shook, which is hosted by Meredith Stedman and Aprile Ruha that has launched.

Talking To Death sees Tenderfoot co-founder Payne Lindsey take off his investigative hat for a new role as weekly host of his first true crime talk show. The series will see guests talk to him about death and delve into crime, life and mystery. It launches in September and is produced in partnership with iHeartMedia.

The Estate, which launches in September, asks what happens when a Mexican man, a Black man and an Italian man start a business in 1970’s Stockton, CA? One of them ends up murdered, the other in jail, and the third is Alex Estrada’s dad. A serialized true-crime documentary podcast following host Estrada as he tries to solve a family mystery: Was his dad involved in a murder? The series is a co-production with Sonoro in partnership with Audacy.

The Vanishing Point is a spinoff of Up and Vanished and is a five-part series hosted by Celisia Stanton, focusing on a series of unsolved cases, all connected by a single location. In this first installment, the team travels to Hoopa, California to look into several cases of missing indigenous people from the Hoopa Valley Reservation, a small Northern California community with a disproportionate number of missing person’s cases.

Up and Vanished will also launch a weekly series in September that looks not only at past cold cases with a fresh perspective, but also dives into recent cases ripped from the headlines; featuring discussion, case details, interviews, and more. The series is produced in partnership with Audacy.

Elsewhere, season four of Up and Vanished returns in November with a new case of a disappearance in Alaska.

To Live and Die in LA is also getting a new miniseries in December. Hosted by Neil Strauss, the series will explore cold cases that have plagued the Los Angeles area after previously having investigated the the disappearance of aspiring Albanian Macedonian actress Adea Shabani in season one and the case of Elaine Park, a 20-year old aspiring actress and musician who vanished from Malibu in 2018 in season two.

Culpable’s Case Review is a new take on the true-crime series hosted by Dennis Cooper. Launching in August, it covers six new cases over six weeks including the mysterious death of Andrew Thomas Wall. The series is produced in partnership with Audacy.

Down Range, which launches in November, around Veteran’s Day, highlights first-hand narratives of combat. Hosted by retired Navy Seal and actor, Remi Adeleke and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Rich Choppa, the eight-episode series tells the stories of the American Special Forces.

The series, which is produced in partnership with Telegraph Creative, will tell stories such as those of former spy for U.S.  Intelligence, Sergeant Major Hamody Jasim, who became one of America’s most valued assets in the fight against Al-Qaeda’s and ISIS; Lieutenant Jason Redman, who received a dozen medals including the Bronze Star and Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq in 2007 and Tu Lam, aka “Ronin,” an elite Special Forces Green Beret who is a playable character on Call of Duty Modern Warfare.

“Telling powerful and profound stories will always be at the center of what we create, and this slate embodies the repertoire of content that focus on new innovative ways to tell these stories from narrative storytelling to talk format,” said Tenderfoot TV CEO and co-founder, Donald Albright. “We’re excited to continue to diversify the content we’re covering, like the story of Alana Chen in Dear Alana, and give a voice and platform to the marginalized and forgotten.”

“Building on the success of our franchise series through spinoffs is going to allow us to connect to our listeners even more granularly,” said Payne Lindsey, founder of Tenderfoot TV. “Listeners can expect a lot of firsts with this year’s slate, including my first-ever talk show Talking to Death, which is a fresh new approach to covering true crime topics and discussions.”

The San Diego County Medical Examiner has ruled that reality star Denise Russo died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

She was 44 at the time of death. The X-Life ran for one season and chronicled three extreme athletes and their wives as they juggled competitions with their famous careers. Russo was dating professional skateboarder Pierre-Luc Gagnon at the time. They had a son together but had broken up at the time of her death.

She died at a friend’s apartment in San Diego, but was homeless and living in her car at the time.

Before her death, Russo participated in a “cover girl search” for Inked Magazine (she placed sixth in an early round). In a questionnaire for the contest, Russo, asked what she would do with the $25,000 grand prize, indicated she would use the money to “reconnect” with her eight-year-old son.

“I would use the money to build a foundation to reconnect with my son,” she answered. “I went through a grueling custody battle and I am still recovering. The money would help bring the stability in life to reunite us.”

TMZ was the first to report Russo’s cause of death.

Greg Evans contributed to this report.