Conde Nast US shuts four magazines following McKinsey review

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 06-Oct-09, 09:20

LONDON - Conde Nast is closing four magazines in the US, including prestigious food title Gourmet, following a three-month review by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Parenting magazine Cookie is also getting the chop, along with Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. Around 180 employees will lose their jobs.

The closures follow industry-wide declines in circulation and ad revenue, caused as a result of readers moving online and advertisers slashing their budgets amid the recession.

Ad pages at 14 of Conde Nast's 23 print publications fell by more than the industry average of 29.5% in the second quarter, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Conde Nast hired McKinsey consultants in July to help "realign" the company.

Chief executive Chuck Townsend told staff in a memo yesterday that the latest magazine closures "combined with cost and workforce reductions now under way throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures".

Conde Nast said it will increase the publication schedule of its third wedding magazine, Brides, to monthly from once every two months to compensate for the closures of Modern Bride and Elegant Bride.

The New York-based publisher, owned by the Newhouse family, also said that it remained committed to the Gourmet brand and would continue the title's book publishing and TV programming.

Gourmet and the other titles are not the first magazines Conde Nast has closed recently. The axing of two-year old business magazine Portfolio in April followed the closure of House & Garden, Jane, Cargo, Vitals and Domino -- all in the previous 12 months.

However the publisher, which is best known for magazines such as Vanity Fair and Vogue, relaunched technology monthly Wired in the UK in April and launched fashion monthly Love in the UK in February.

Comments

Mark Palmer - 06/10/2009

Does it ever occur to anyone that a Management Consultant was also the company that probaly advised so many media owners - particularly magazines - so poorly about what their business model should be in the past. Harvard MBA course had Enron as a case study for sucess one year and a casd study forfailure the next. Got to admire how they make money.