Time magazine hit the streets last Friday in order to be more competitive (or at least seem that way on some level) and the mag’s website has been agreeably redesigned, but a whole lot of Time, Inc. employees are going to get whacked later this month as part of a major cost-cutting measure.
N.Y. Times guy David Carr has reported that Time Inc. management “is trying to cut costs to reflect brutal realities in the mass magazine business,” and that “at the end of the month there will be significant layoffs at the magazine division, and it will not end with Time‘s 280 editorial employees. Other magazines within the division of Time Warner will also re-engineer and cut as well.”
Suggestion: before cutting people, Time bigwigs should eliminate the expense of maintaining the Time, Inc. corporate jet, which is primarily used by CEO Richard Parsons and Warner Bros. honcho Alan Horn and Warner-allied celebrity fat-cats like George Clooney .
Or whack Parsons, for that matter. Parsons’s bonus was trimmed last year, but in 2005 his compensation was $16 million. Parsons’ four-year compensation plan, according to a 4.20.06 Forbes article, was $32.4 million. Parsons could at least slash his own salary by five million in order to keep a few more Time, Inc. employ- ees off the streets.