Want to see Condé Nast’s not-so-secret plans to produce tablet-friendly editions of its magazines? Get yourself to New York’s Meatpacking District. Or check out this grainy YouTube clip.
Here’s yet another content creator that’s convinced Apple has a tablet device in the works: Condé Nast says it will have a digital version of Wired magazine ready for the purported gadget by the middle of next year and will eventually create similar versions for all of its 18 titles.
But Condé, like other publishers, says Apple won’t actually talk to the company about its plans for the device–or even acknowledge that it has plans.
BusinessWeek 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.
Many newspaper publishers say the ad sales slump has stopped, but not at Wapo: Both print and Web ad declines accelerated over the last quarter. Newsweek, meanwhile, saw its ad sales drop by half.
All the news we can’t tell you about? Most publishers can’t even get Apple to acknowledge that it’s working on a tablet, but maybe the newspaper of record has more pull. In any event, its top editor is staying mostly mum.
The publisher delivered a pleasant earnings surprise yesterday by cutting costs. Now it’s hoping for a revenue bump, if advertisers will play along.
The New York Times announced plans to cut eight percent of its newsroom payroll this week, citing “economic thunderstorms,” which suggested that this morning’s earnings results were going to be particularly unpleasant. Surprise! They’re not that awful, at least by the diminished standards of the newspaper industry.
As expected, Condé Nast executives are swinging the layoff ax around the fabled magazine publisher. Today’s cuts are at Vogue, where I’m told at least six people have been let go from one of the company’s best-known titles. There will be more to come from the publisher, which shut down four magazines last week and is trying to bring down costs at its remaining titles by 25 percent.
Last month, the New York Times was attacked by hackers who bought fake Web ads from the publisher. And one of the world’s biggest ad companies says that won’t be the last assault. But the solution runs counter to industry trends.
Condé Nast, which shuttered four magazines this week, said it won’t be cutting any more titles. But that won’t be the last of its cuts: The publisher is looking to cut costs by roughly 25 percent at all the magazines it publishes, likely leading to layoffs in many cases.
Today’s example doesn’t come from a magazine per se, but from the company’s digital group, which let go of “more than” 15 people, Expect more to come from Condé, and from other publishers, in coming weeks.
How did the New York Times end up serving a fake–and potentially dangerous–ad from its NYTimes.com site over the weekend? It got paid to do it by someone masquerading as a legitimate ad buyer.
The paper’s Internet operations used to be a bright spot. But last quarter Web advertising dropped more than 15 percent. What gives?
Earlier this year, a top BusinessWeek editor assured me that McGraw-Hill wouldn’t part with the publication–because even if it was losing money it was still a trophy asset for the publisher. But perhaps my source didn’t comprehend how much money his employer was actually losing.
We saw a mini-rally in newspaper shares yesterday, based on the notion that the worst may be over for the industry. But the New York Times’s Q2 results are pretty inconclusive:
The publisher was able to take a big chunk out of costs, but revenue kept plunging, and Web ads dropped by more than 15 percent. The paper did say, though, that things got less bad as the quarter progressed, and that they’ll get slightly less bad next quarter, too.
Here’s why Condé Nast is bringing in McKinsey & Co. for an emergency overhaul: The publisher’s lousy year isn’t getting any better. New numbers out today show that Condé’s September issues will be miserable across the board, with ad pages down anywhere from 17 percent to 47 percent. And that’s if you interpret the data favorably.
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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