What Will The Morning Bring For Condé Nast?

Heard they're getting rid of Talk of the Town to make more room for Roz Chast's enormous cartoons.

Here's what the reality will be:

More cuts to the expense accounts. Many entry-level people will be cut. Some mid-level management will be let-go. A couple of senior level people close to retirement will be bought out. They might shutter a couple more of the low performing titles. They might insist on some arbitrary percent value (5-7%), across the board cost reductions.

That's about it.

lionel-mandrake

"Everything is fine. Well, I'm off."

@triplethreat: I think that Conde Naste will do the same thing every other business in New York has done and start by cutting administration and back office services, secretaries, etc. They won't touch most of the people directly responsible for editorial content.

When Elsevier cut back it decimated its secretarial pool and back office services and kept every single writer and editor for its magazines and newspapers.

The big expenses at CNP are not editorial. The marketing, operations, and business sides are also huge money wasters. Especially now with the newspapers gone/going, a lot of that part of the company needs to be rethought. Edit side has had big cuts, will probably have more, but I am told the consultants will have deep reorganizational suggestions for the other aspects of the company--which no one will report on because it's not as sexy as "Ooh what will Anna do?"

To save money New Yorker cartoons will be 40% less inscrutable, Christopher Hitchens will be required to write his columns 33% less drunk and with 65% more coherence; and Annie Leibovitz will now literally work for peanuts.

Pesti-Esti

@lionel-mandrake: For the magazines where advertising is down as much as 50% I think they may need to make the cuts deeper.

My money says everything up to Masthead will become an unpaid internship position; there are just too many celebrities with useless children lying around on the sofa.

@triplethreat: Actually I've heard the opposite: two rounds of 5% cuts so far on the business side have happened, and now it's time for editorial to follow suit.

TallulahSkankhead

@triplethreat: Amen to that! Everyone focuses on the E-i-C's expenses, but no one looks at the Publishers and, let's face it, when your ad pages are down 30%, someone should.

damiannyc

Well, this will put a bit of a damper on "Fashion's Night Out," eh? www.fashionsnightout.com More like "Fashionistas Night Out at a Dive Bar."

damiannyc

@damiannyc: "Fashion's Last Night Out?"

@TallulahSkankhead: Editorial has had had to trim anything from 5% to 10% every quarter for the past 18 months or so, so whomever you are hearing that from is wrong.