More Media Layoff/Shutdown Roundup: Time Inc., Forbes, NBC Universal, IAC

f you had any romantic notion that the beginning of holiday season meant an end to media layoff season, think again. In addition to the 850 Viacom (VIA) workers who are getting pink-slipped, this looks to be a particularly bad few days at Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., where many of the titles that asked workers to quit last month will now be firing them instead.

The New York Post’s Keith Kelly has already reported that layoffs are in motion at People, Time and Sports Illustrated over the next few days; I am told that cuts are also coming to Fortune magazine today or tomorrow. Here’s a Sports Illustrated employee’s take on the situation there:

We are all expecting the hatchet Thursday or Friday. Morale is dismal. One colleague of mine, uber golf writer John Garrity, told several of us that he’s taking the package but will continue on for a while as a special contributor. We expect two or three photo editors to go, and two or three members of the Sport’s Illustrated Latino staff (the Spanish language SI publication, which posted a net profit of approx. one million in ’07 and broke even in ’08, was inexplicably shuttered). Also photographers are rumored to be being cut to half time service and members of our copy desk have been asked to take up to a 30% pay reduction for which they will work fewer hours. Charlie Leerhsen, one of our two executive editors, told a few staff members that he was going to be leaving.”

In other layoff/shutdown news:

I am told that Forbes (where I worked for many years), is in the final stages of planning cuts as it prepares to merge the editorial operations of its magazine and Web site units. Last month the company began integrating its business groups and laid off about three dozen people in the process.
GE’s (GE) NBC Universal has laid off at least 30 people in its sales group, reports AdAge. The cuts are part of a previously reported mandate from NBC CEO Jeff Zucker to cut three percent of the company’s budget. The Post says another 80 people could be fired at CNBC.
Barry Diller’s IAC (IACI) is breaking up its programming group, which includes ventures like College Humor, 236.com and Tina Brown’s DailyBeast.com. Some but not all of the sites will be closed down or sold off. PaidContent has details.
As always, I value reader input: You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com.

Time Inc. to Layoff 600

We told you last week about major layoffs at Time Inc.'s Southern Progress Magazines and it looks like they may have been an early warning sign for larger cuts to follow. The NYTis reporting that Time Inc. has plans to cut 6% of its workforce, the equivalent of 600 positions and "revamp the organization in a way that could radically alter the culture at the company." Apparently none of the titles are being cut, however an already planned overhaul by Ann S. Moore, Time Inc.'s chairman and chief executive had to be sped up to cope with the fast-changing media environment. Says Moore:

This is a challenge, unlike any we've seen before...And after much careful study and consultation with many of you who run our businesses, I have concluded that it is no longer possible to operate our company with the same decentralized management structure that served us so well during our many years of sustained growth.

As Gawker's Ryan Tate points out perhaps this shouldn't come as such a shock considering the big cuts the magazine has had to make in the last few years, though in the current media environment it's hard not to perceive it as the latest, loudest death knell to the end of print magazines. Further details regarding the changes and reorganization to come, after the jump.

Time Inc.'s 24 magazines in the United States and their Web sites will be organized into three divisions: news, which will include Fortune, Money, Time, and Sports Illustrated; lifestyle titles, which include Real Simple, Cottage Living, Coastal Living, and Southern Living, among others; and style and entertainment, which includesPeople, InStyle, and Entertainment Weekly, which has suffered a severe downturn and is likely to be whittled down under the new structure.

Heads of the news and entertainment units will continue to report to John Huey, the editor in chief of Time Inc. The lifestyle unit, which may be run by Bill Shapiro, who has been development editor, will report to the business side of the company. Martha Nelson, who is editor of the People Group, will head the entertainment division.

Time Inc. Plans About 600 Layoffs

Time Inc., the world’s largest magazine publisher, plans to cut 6 percent of its work force — more than 600 positions — and will revamp the organization in a way that could radically alter the culture at the company.

The company outlined the overhaul on Tuesday evening in a memorandum to employees after The New York Times revealed the cuts on its Web site. The layoffs will begin in about two weeks.

No magazines are scheduled to close, but some are likely to be severely cut back. Ann S. Moore, Time Inc.’s chairman and chief executive, was already planning an overhaul because of the upheavals in print media, but she was forced to speed up those efforts amid the financial crisis and looming recession.

Time Inc.’s 24 magazines in the United States and their Web sites will be organized into three divisions: news, which will include Fortune, Money, Time and Sports Illustrated; lifestyle titles, which include Real Simple, Cottage Living, Coastal Living and Southern Living, among others; and style and entertainment, which includes People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly, which has suffered a severe downturn and is likely to be whittled down under the new structure.

Heads of the news and entertainment units will continue to report to John Huey, the editor in chief of Time Inc. The lifestyle unit, which may be run by Bill Shapiro, who has been development editor, will report to the business side of the company. Martha Nelson, who is editor of the People Group, will head the entertainment division.

Ms. Moore declined to be interviewed, but in an article published in The Times of London a little more than two weeks ago she said, “I don’t know if there will be layoffs.”

The company, a division of Time Warner, the media conglomerate that includes CNN, Turner Broadcasting, HBO, AOL and the Warner Brothers movie studio, is facing the twin perils of a shifting landscape from a severe downturn and a loss of readers and advertisers to the Web.

Time Warner is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Nov. 5, and will announce how much savings it expects to wring from Time Inc. It may take a charge to its earnings to account for the revamping.

Within Time Warner, where Jeffrey L. Bewkes is nearing his one-year anniversary as chief executive, Time Inc., while profitable, has been a lag on growth. In a conference call with Wall Street analysts in August, Mr. Bewkes said both AOL and Time Inc. “are tracking behind our expectations this year.”

Executives said the reorganization was intended partly to allow Time Inc. to focus on its big brands — publications like Sports Illustrated, People, Time and Fortune — on platforms other than print. Examples executives cited were Sports Illustrated-branded kiosks that are popping up in airports and a music festival that was put on by Essence.

Power within Time Inc., which through many mergers over the decades became the modern Time Warner, has long been diffuse, with individual publishers and editors essentially running their own shows. That distinct culture is coming to an end.

Dawn Bridges, senior vice president for corporate communications at Time Inc., said that, in the future, “we’ll have a more centralized management structure that will group together titles that share similar audiences, advertisers and the talents and skills of their staffs.”

The changes will lead to more sharing of writers between magazines within each new division, examples which have already been seen, including a cover story in Time in late September that was written by Andy Serwer, Fortune’s managing editor, and Allan Sloan, a columnist at Fortune.

Even after previous cuts, the company still has 10,200 employees globally, with about 7,000 in the United States. (In addition to its well-known American publications, Time Inc. owns nearly 100 magazines abroad.)

None of this has been enough to fight off the changes roiling the media industry. When Time Warner last reported earnings — on Aug. 6, for the second quarter that ended June 30 — it reported a 6 percent, or $77 million, decline in revenue at Time Inc. to $1.2 billion. Operating income was $218 million, down 15 percent.

In a separate announcement Tuesday, Time Inc. sent a memorandum to employees saying that Edward R. McCarrick, a 35-year veteran, would retire at the end of the year as worldwide publisher for Time magazine.

David Carr contributed reporting.