Fox News Limits Staffing At Offices, Studios

Fox News said in a memo on Thursday that it will be "reducing the staff footprint" at its New York City headquarters and other bureaus starting Monday, with the goal to "limit personal interaction" due to the coronavirus outbreak and protect the health and safety of its employees.

The Hill reports the memo from Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News, and Jay Wallace, its president and executive editor, also says studio audiences for live shows such as "The Greg Gutfeld Show" will be canceled while shows will rely more on Skype interviews to limit the number of people coming in and out of its headquarters.

 "First and foremost, we are reducing the staff footprint at our headquarters in New York and some of our bureaus and will be instituting telecommuting starting Monday, March 16th for all of those departments capable of doing so," reads the joint memo from Scott and Wallace.

"We have been preparing for this over the last week by implementing test days for multiple departments and have found various measures that work well" including telecommuting, it later adds.

The memo also underscores "extensive sanitizing procedures" that have been put into place "more than two weeks ago which include continuous cleaning and disinfecting" throughout facilities, "especially all shared spaces and common areas where we have instituted commercial-grade treatments."

Fox News will also be "reducing in studio bookings across linear platforms and where possible, shows are being directed to rely on remotes or Skype," with all non-essential business travel" being prohibited since a directive was implemented on Monday.