The biggest magazines in the Time Inc. empire — People, Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money — should find out today how many volunteers have stepped forward to accept buyout packages.
Time Inc. is said to be looking to slash more than 500 jobs from its ranks, with the bulk of the layoffs to happen next week before the process is wrapped up by year-end.
While not all titles outlined how many volunteers they need, sources said that Time Inc.’s biggest magazines could eliminate as many as 90 editorial positions.
Fortune is expected to see the deepest cuts at about 40 positions. However, with just over 20 volunteers having stepped up so far, Managing Editor Andy Serwer is widely expected to impose layoffs to make up the shortfall.
So far, the highest-ranking person on the masthead to accept a buyout is Deputy Managing Editor Steve Koepp, a 29-year veteran who spent 26 years at Time and the past three at Fortune.
At the Sports Illustrated group, which includes Golf Magazine, the damage was expected to be slightly less severe. Though there were no estimates of how many have volunteered, it’s widely expected that Editorial Director Terry McDonell will have to make involuntary cuts to reach the target believed to be around 30 jobs.
Time magazine is looking for only 12 volunteers to accept buyouts, and the early signs are the magazine should meet that goal.
There had been talk that Deputy Managing Editor Romesh Ratnesar was leaning toward taking a buyout but might have been talked out of it in light of Josh Tyrangiel‘s decision to leave Time to run the Bloomberg LP-owned BusinessWeek.
Sarah’s sales
Fueled by her appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” Monday, Sarah Palin‘s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” is going the publishing equivalent of platinum.
The highly anticipated book, which officially went on sale nationally yesterday, has already gone back to press for another 100,000 copies. That pumps the total number in print to 1.6 million copies, according to a spokeswoman for publisher HarperCollins, which like The Post is owned by News Corp.
It means that Palin now has about 100,000 more copies in print than Hillary Rodham Clinton did in the first week of her record-shattering memoir, “Living History,” in 2004.
Palin snagged a $5 million advance, vs. $8 million that Simon & Schuster forked over to Clinton.
Clinton opened with a 1 million-copy first printing and then as demand surged went back to press for 500,000 more within the week.
AP cuts
The Associated Press, which has about 4,000 employees worldwide, axed 16 editorial people in New York yesterday as part of a year-end downsizing, sources said.
It is estimated that close to 100 editorial positions will be cut globally.
A company spokesman referred to AP President and CEO Tom Curley‘s statement a year ago that said it was working toward a goal of reducing the AP’s global payroll costs by 10 percent in 2009, but declined to discuss the latest round of layoffs.
A hiring freeze has been in ef fect for more than a year and a voluntary-retire ment program with 100 takers was concluded in July.
Insiders were hop ing that would be it, but apparently not.
“The stress is just awful,” said one insider yesterday.
New York Bureau Chief Howard Goldberg was said to be en route to Albany yesterday to make cuts, and sources said a handful of people in the Washington office were given pink slips.
While it has not been hit with the same problems that have battered other media tied closely to advertising, the AP has suffered pain because its cooperative members are hurting.
The AP, whose top line totaled $748 million last year, gets about 42 percent of its revenue from US newspapers and broadcasters. To retain members, the AP lowered its fees for US newspapers by $30 million this year.
The AP also is renegotiating deals with Web giants Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and other providers of news on the Internet.
Mag cuts
Mayor Mike Bloomberg company Bloomberg LP yesterday quietly began the downsizing of BusinessWeek’s 400-person staff.
All editorial staffers were being interviewed for new roles at the magazine, and will find out their fate this week.
Ultimately, the majority of the employees are expected to be offered jobs, but it is believed that about three dozen people on the 200-person editorial staff will hear they are not being offered jobs at the new BusinessWeek or the parent company.
keith.kelly@nypost.com