A 1.15.07 N.Y. Times piece by Katherine Seelye and Richard Siklos quotes Time, Inc. executives saying that “while Time Inc. remains profitable, with margins of about 18 percent, it is witnessing a downturn in print advertising revenue and increasingly fierce competition from the internet .” One result, expected to happen later this week, is that “more than 150 people” are going to lose their jobs, including a big chunk of editorial staffers, as party of of a general cost-cutting move.
A friend who works at Time Inc., is going through “torture” waiting to find out if he’s going to be one of them. People in the office are on pins and needles…”going into each other’s offices, shutting the door and weeping,”
The general pruning process “is prompting big changes to the standard newsweekly formula of many correspondents contributing to heavily processed articles at magazines like Time and People. People magazine has one of the last vestiges of the classic newsmagazine reporting structure, in which several correspondents send files to a writer in New York, where stories are fact-checked by yet another department.” [Note: I remember it well!] “The new model, which is standard at most news organizations, will be for one person to report, write and fact-check the article.”
“Time Inc. is taking other steps to save money. Within a year or two, most of the company√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s corporate offices and magazines at the Time-Life Building in midtown Manhattan will have moved to lower floors so that the more valuable upper floors can be leased out. Time magazine is shutting some of its bureau buildings overseas, including in Paris, although it expects to maintain √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ö‚Äúlaptop√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù correspondents, who can work from home.
“They’re amputating in order to save the patient,” said an executive at a competing publishing company.