Time Lays Off 250

Time Inc. layoffs hit mastheads hard

By KEITH J. KELLY
Last Updated: 11:37 PM, January 30, 2013
Posted: 11:27 PM, January 30, 2013

Time Inc., home to venerable titles such as Time, People and Sports Illustrated, began a steep round of layoffs yesterday that claimed just under 250 jobs at its New York headquarters.

CEO Laura Lang said she would slash a total of 500 jobs, or 6 percent of the global workforce, as the magazine publisher wrestles with falling print ad revenue.

The highest-profile editorial name to be pink-slipped yesterday was Health Editor-in-Chief Ellen Kunes. Clare McHugh, editor of the custom Walmart magazine All You, will do double duty for both titles.

Real Simple Publisher Sally Preston, who left Martha Stewart Living a little over a year ago, is out on the business side.

Time Inc. veteran Charles Kammerer, who was already doing double duty as group publisher of This Old House and Coastal Living, will jump to Real Simple as publisher. His old job will be filled by an associate publisher.

Meanwhile, People is looking for nine Newspaper Guild volunteers to step forward or it faces involuntary cuts. Time is cutting 12, including six from the guild.

The layoffs are part of Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’s mandate to shave $100 million in costs from the hard-pressed publishing subsidiary.

The problem for Time Inc. and other publishers is that digital revenue — while growing rapidly — isn’t enough to offset the erosion of print advertising.

The company has had bigger cutbacks in terms of absolute numbers, but this latest round is the biggest as a percentage of the workforce.

“With the significant and ongoing changes in our industry, we must continue to transform our company into one that is leaner, more nimble and more innately multi-platform,” said Lang, who joined Time over a year ago from digital ad firm Digitas, where she was CEO.