Media Week, publishers of the c.c. title that lies unread in hundreds of publishing offices around the country, has given up the ghost according to a report in the Guardian.
Today’s issue of Media Week, dated 17 November, will be the last.
And,
Revolution will cease monthly publication and become a quarterly supplement within Marketing.
Double bubble then for the media boys.
Issue 60 of Scrapbook Inspirations (on sale 13 November 2009) will be the last monthly edition of the magazine.
As the Christmas issues hit the newsstand we can expect a slew of closures to be announced. Another Merry Christmas for the magazine industry!
From the Guardian:
Reed Business Information is to make 18 staff redundant as part of a restructuring that will include the closure of 130-year old Contract Journal.
This follows the pattern of death by a thousand cuts for RBI.
Just when you thought that RBI were getting dull again, up pops this from Press Gazette:
Ian Smith, the chief executive of business publisher Reed Elsevier, has resigned with immediate effect after little more than eight months in the post.
Reed Elsevier announced that Smith resigned “with mutual agreement” and has stepped down today from the company’s board.
Elsevier chief executive Erik Engstrom has been appointed as his replacement.
A company spokesman told Reuters that Smith had been the wrong man for the current economic climate. “Ian and the board decided it wasn’t the right role for him in the current economic circumstances… There is no disagreement on strategy.” [my emphasis]
I love it when everyone agrees about everything, don’t you?
Italy magazine – “Your Bridge to Italy” – has gone ‘online only’. Ciao!
Dennis Publishing has thrown in its hand with Inside Poker magazine.
A totally unsubstantiated rumour (my favourite kind) pops into the inbox. Apparently a publisher of puzzle titles is having a wee bit of trouble making its sums add up. More details welcomed from anyone with inside information.
A neat little summary in PaidContent on some of the bigger publishers’ financials.
- NatMags: a pre-tax loss of £42.8m in 2008 – compared with a £10.8m profit in 2007
- Haymarket: pre-tax profits down from £8m in 2007 to £4.5m in 2008
- Reed Business Information: Profits fell 47% in H109 to £39m.
- UBM: In the first half of 2009, UBM’s profits fell by more than a quarter year on year to £48m.
- Centaur: First-half profits fell by 88% year on year to £1.7m.
- Euromoney: The DMGT-owned publisher has said it will meet its 2008/09 profit target of £57m for the year to 30 September.
- Future: For its H109, announced in May, Future saw its profits fall 70% to £1.2m.
- Economist Group: For the year to March 31, operating profits were 26% higher year on year at £56m.
Another email from our person on the inside regarding the sweetness and light that currently surrounds ‘our’ industry body…
“The announcement of the impending departure of Chief Operating Officer Sarah Tunstall after barely 15 months in the job gives us another glimpse into the increasingly surreal world of the PPA. Not that Ms Tunstall’s departure was unexpected, given her role as wing-man to former PPA Top Gun Jonathan Shephard. (He, you will recall, was shot down in flames last month following 18 months of re-structuring PPA in the image of his former domicile, The Independent Schools Council.) Even the wily Tunstall would (more…)