LAYOFFS AT TV GUIDE, FORBES
Forbes and TV Guide separately unveiled sweeping cutbacks yesterday, while The New York Times Co. shut down its critically acclaimed sports magazine Play.
Three-year-old Play, which was an insert into its Sunday paper, published 13 issues since its inception. Mark Bryant, the one-time editor of Outside who was Play's editor-in-chief, blamed the closure on the deteriorating ad picture.
"It comes down to the same thing that seems to be happening on an almost daily basis around the media business," he said.
He said the few editorial staffers at the magazine are being absorbed into other parts of the Times.
TV Guide staff cuts involve 33 people in New York and Radnor, Pa. Deputy Editor Leslie van Buskirk was the highest ranking editorial person ousted in the cutbacks.
Meanwhile, Forbes laid off 43 people, most of whom were on the business side.
As part of the Forbes shakeup, the business and marketing staff of the flagship Forbes magazine and forbes.com Web site will now be under one management team. A similar arrangement might be in the offing for the editorial side, though such moves might be put off until next year.
As part of the changes, Web site forbesautos.com is being discontinued. Matthew De Paula, its editor, was among those let go Friday. Forbestraveler.com will lose three people as part of a scaling back of that Web site.
The combined print and Web site business operation will be split among three groups: Brand intelligence, led by Kevin Gentzel, the former top ad sales executive at forbes.com, who will now carry the title president and group publisher of Forbes Media; the integrated solutions group, led by Mike Woods; and the Forbes media sales and service group, led by Avery Stirratt and Robert Pietsch, who will serve as co-presidents and chief advertising officers.
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