Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight Are on ABC’s Chopping Block

DailyBeast: Famed statistics guru Nate Silver and his website FiveThirtyEight are on the “chopping block,” Confider has learned, as ABC News looks to cut costs.A decision on the future of the famed politics, economics, and sports analysis website is set to be made by the summer when Silver’s contract is up, multiple people with knowledge of the situation told us.

The oft-combative Silver, who has come under renewed scrutiny for his site’s polling selections, now faces an uncertain future as news division boss Kim Godwin reviews the publication, which has never turned a profit.FiveThirtyEight has not backfilled key positions, including that of managing editor (Micah Cohen exited last year for data site Stacker), politics editor (Sarah E. Frostenson defected to The Washington Post), and sports editor (Sara Ziegler was poached by The New York Times).

Insiders lamented to Confider that ABC’s lack of enthusiasm in building a subscription business around FiveThirtyEight has been a “missed opportunity” that could have turned the site into a moneymaker for Disney.But instead, ABC may look to offload the publication. more