Media
Slowing economy brings layoffs at Fast Company
Boston Business Journal - by Donna L. Goodison
Layoffs at Fast Company magazine late last month slipped under the local radar.
The new-economy magazine, which was purchased in December by New York-based Gruner+Jahr USA, held a meeting on June 25 to announce to staffers that 10 people had been laid off--seven editorial team members and three employees from the live-events group that ran Fast Company's conferences and trade shows.
Michael Slind, the magazine's former managing editor, who joined Fast Company in 1997, was the most high-profile of those laid off, although the magazine repositioned Slind as senior editor in charge of the Net Company section about six months ago. The Net Company is a back-of-the-book section that covers web-related businesses.
The moves were characterized as a "measured response to a difficult situation, one that responds to market realities without overreacting" by David Carey, president and chief executive officer of G+J USA's Business Information Group.
"The advertising climate is difficult for business-oriented media, and it has affected every property, from the Wall Street Journal to Fortune to Fast Company," Carey said in a prepared release.
Fast Company's year-to-date advertising pages through May decreased 43.4 percent from the same period last year to 422.68 pages, according to Publishers Information Bureau, a New York membership organization that tracks magazine advertising.
"A year ago, when the economy was rolling along, we were running magazines in the neighborhood of 400 pages," said Fast Company founding editor Alan Webber, who noted the page count now is in the 200 range.
Year-to-date advertising revenue--the magazine raised advertising rates on the strength of increased circulation--decreased 21 percent to $21.08 million during the same period.
According to one source, the magazine had been "cost-cutting like crazy" to avoid layoffs.
The magazine formed a committee to brainstorm cost-cutting ideas that included Post-It notes on light switches to remind employees to turn them off when not in use.
Writers were asked to reduce their travel expenses by using a centralized travel agent, scheduling multiple interviews in far-flung cities and using those trips to mine other stories for the magazine.
Quarterly outings, for which people were flown in from San Francisco and New York, also were eliminated as too expensive. For the hungry staff members and those who crave caffeine, free snacks and soda were eliminated, and the magazine switched its office coffee from Starbucks to a less expensive brand. The magazine also no longer foots the bill for teams ordering Chinese food, sushi or pizza for lunch meetings.
Founding editors Webber and William Taylor are using their own out-of-pocket money to assist those employees who were laid off.
"We created a little alumni association fund for people who wanted to take a class that would take them in a new direction," Webber said.
"The fact that we had to lay people off was not good news for anybody. We weren't laying people off for performances, it was just a matter of the economy sucking. If it was going to happen, we'd thought we would make it more in the spirit that Fast Company operates in, in good times and bad times," Webber continued.
The employees can access up to $5,000 each if they believe a class is necessary to move on from Fast Company, they need airfare to other parts of the country for new jobs or they take jobs in the nonprofit sector, which pays less than their Fast Company salaries.
This past Friday morning, Fast Company lost another employee when the magazine's information technology director, Dan Fulton, stepped down.
Consolidation has occurred now that Fast Company is considered part of a "business innovator group" with Inc. magazine, which was purchased by G+J in June of 2000.
"Inc.'s IT director became director of the group, which left him (Fulton) in an awkward position," a source said. "Rather than invent a new role for himself, he's decided to step down."
The search goes on
The search continues for an editor at Boston Magazine, where a revolving exit door has been attributed to clashes with the magazine's Philadelphia-based owner, D. Hebert Lipson.
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