Conde Nast is shuttering Portfolio — its business-focused glossy–a mere two years since rolling out the title April 2007.
Publisher Conde has been reeling more than its rivals in the media space, as luxury-goods retailers hoard their ad dollars during the economic downturn. It’s a cold harsh reality that’s walloped magazines like Portfolio.
News of Portfolio’s closure was reported on its supplemental Web site Portfolio.com on a blog post by one of its own media writers Jeff Bercovici.
“Our editor in chief, Joanne Lipman, just broke the news to staff, saying the decision had been made ‘because of financial reasons at Advance,’ Condé Nast’s parent company. ‘It’s not anything that the company wanted to do,’ the Portfolio blogger wrote. Lipman was got the bad news of the publication’s cosure from Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. early this morning, according to reports.
Closing down the mag comes as no surprise to business and media observrs given the sad state of media and Condé’s particular challenges with most of its titles being down 30 percent and Portfolio off a staggering 60 percent.
Lipman was a former editor at The Wall Street Journal and observers say she never gained ground in advertising, especially since Portfolio’s launch coincided with the massive upheaval in news media that has toppled many newspapers and magazines.
According to reports Portfolio cut its publication frequency from 12 times a year to 10 back in October. It also laid off the bulk of the staffers on its Web site.