Kidscreen has confirmed that Moonbug Entertainment is eliminating a small number of positions in its London- and LA-based teams. 

“As we continue to plan for 2025 and beyond, we are making changes to our studio team to allow us to be more nimble across aspects of our productions. This means a small number of roles in London and LA will be impacted,” a Moonbug spokesperson shared in a statement. “We’re deeply grateful for the contributions of these employees, and wish them nothing but the best.”

These new layoffs follow two previous rounds of job cuts at Moonbug in November 2023 and April 2024.

The Candle Media-owned company behind CoCoMelon (pictured) and Blippi is apparently shifting to a freelancer-based model. Creative resource manager Richard Johnston published a LinkedIn post last week to share that Moonbug is “looking to expand its pool of freelance and temp content creators in anticipation of future projects.”

Various media reports indicate that these latest layoffs—estimated to affect less than 5% of the total workforce, as per Variety—will mainly affect in-house writers. And according to the LA Times, another change will see the CoComelon production team move to the UK (although the creative team will remain in LA).

Writer Candice Moll highlighted the move to a freelancer model in a LinkedIn post announcing that she was impacted by the layoffs. Other Moonbug staffers including production manager Youko Vignau and CG supervisor Ed Galvan also shared LinkedIn posts this week saying they were currently seeking new work opportunities. 

This story has been updated.