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Friday, October 30, 2009

BusinessWeek’s Future Is Cloudy, but Better Than It Could Have Been: The Grim Non-Bloomberg Scenario

clint-escapesBusinessWeek employees are waiting to hear if they’ll have jobs once Bloomberg takes over the publication, and I’m told that staffers expect to hear their fate shortly after Thanksgiving. That has to be unnerving, but I can at least offer a little bit of comfort in the worst-case scenario employees would be facing had they been purchased by private equity firm ZelnickMedia. The short version: Almost everybody gets fired.

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Yet More Cost-Cutting Coming to Forbes?

forbes-magMy 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.”

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Friday, March 27, 2009

What Do Maxim Magazine, Chrysler and Your Tax Dollars Have to Do With Each Other?

maximMore than you think. Or more precisely, they all have former media bank bigwig Steve Rattner in common.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Condé Nast’s Most Drastic Cuts Yet: The Disappearing Town Car

Sure, fabled magazine publisher Condé Nast has been forced to shutter magazines and trim its staff. But now you know things have really gotten dire: They’re cutting back on cars. Top Condé editors are eschewing the use of chauffeured autos to make their way across Manhattan and beyond. Alas, that kind of cost-cutting likely won’t stave off another round of layoffs.

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Monday, December 29, 2008

The Ad Recession Is Two Years Old. How Long Will It–And Layoffs–Last?

Here’s your obligatory scary stat for the day: The ad recession that’s responsible for so many layoffs has been in effect for two years, by one count, and will extend for at least another year in the U.S. That would mark the first three-year decline in ad spending since the Great Depression. And no matter how you count, we’re in for more layoff pain ahead.

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Thursday, December 4, 2008

More Media Layoff/Shutdown Roundup: Time Inc., Forbes, NBC Universal, IAC

If you had any romantic notion that the beginning of holiday season meant an end to media layoff season, think again. This looks to be a particularly bad few days at Time Inc., where many of the magazines that asked workers to quit last month will now be firing them instead. But there are cuts, or planned cuts, coming to all manner of media companies.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

[UPDATE] Time Inc. Layoffs: Publishers, Top Execs at Southern Progress and Cooking Light Out

Time Inc. is cutting something like 600 employees, but for the past few weeks it has been doing so in small steps: 10 here, 30 there. That will change today when up to 250 people at Time Warner’s magazine unit are expected to get pink-slipped. Leaving the company along with them, executives from Cooking Light and Southern Progress.

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Time Inc. Layoff Update: 30+ From Essence, Entertainment Weekly; Many More to Come

Another day, another few dozen firings at Time Inc. The Time Warner publishing unit let more than 30 people go from its Essence and Entertainment Weekly titles yesterday. That brings the total body count to about 250, which means that CEO Ann Moore still has a long way to go before she gets to her rough target of 600 job cuts this year.

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About Peter

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 »

Ethics Statement

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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