Just because Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners is stepping down from the Forbes Media board, to be replaced by a cost-cutting expert, doesn’t mean more cuts are coming, says CEO Steve Forbes: “Various media outlets today noted that Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners has stepped off the Forbes Media board and that this portends an imminent round of additional cuts. It does not.” Here’s the complete internal memo.
My former co-workers at Forbes are convinced that another round of cuts–it would be the third since November–is coming to the publisher. This won’t assuage their fears: High-profile investor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners is stepping down from Forbes board and giving his seat to a member of his company’s “cost-cutting team.”
Layoffs at Forbes Media, which started yesterday, continued through today. And employees who kept their jobs are getting a pay cut in the form of a mandatory week-long furlough without pay; higher-paid employees will also get an additional cut in salary. Meanwhile fellow publisher Condé Nast continued its cost-cutting push: Yesterday it got rid of some of its secretaries; today it is losing 20 people from its digital team.
Forbes Media has begun a new round of layoffs and will let go of more than 50 people on its editorial and business teams, I’m told. The cuts are roughly proportional to the ones the business publication made in November and January when it consolidated its Web and magazine operations.
The question for the rest of the industry: How many other publishers will have to make a second round of cuts themselves?
Want a break from gloom and doom about the state of the magazine industry? The industry’s trade association is happy to help. Or at least, to try to help, with some sort-of-true but not-that-relevant happy talk.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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