Viacom (NYSE: VIA) had some nasty news for about 7% of its human resources. According to this item, 850 people will lose their jobs at the media conglomerate. In addition, those working in senior-management capacities will reportedly not see any increases in their salaries next year.

Let me say right off the bat that I feel badly for anyone who loses a job. It's one of the toughest things a person can go through. That being said, I do have to say that I think Viacom has no choice but to become leaner. In fact, all the media companies need to take a hard look at how many people they have on their payrolls. Even in good times, I find that, businesses associated with Hollywood oftentimes are way too bloated.

But Viacom and the rest of its colleagues need to look beyond job cuts and salary freezes as a way of keeping costs under control. They need to look at every budget for every piece of content in their development pipelines and slash where appropriate. They need to ask themselves if the talent on a particular project is too expensive. Again, this isn't just an exercise for recessionary periods. This is something that should be done all the time. Hollywood does not do enough in terms of operating efficiently. I mean, consider that many media companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal have so many integrated assets at their disposal. Shouldn't they be making better use of them, engaging a bit more synergy? Ah, but synergy is dead, isn't it? At least, that was the theory behind the split of old Viacom into new Viacom and CBS (NYSE: CBS), right?