Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend is shaking things up inside the Newhouse-owned magazine empire, the Post has learned, and sweeping changes could be unveiled as early as today.
As part of the shuffle, The New Yorker Publisher Drew Schutte, who only last year joined the weekly after serving as publisher of Wired, is moving back into the high-tech world serving as chief revenue officer of the newly created Condé Nast Digital, sources said.
A Conde Nast spokeswoman has confirmed a story first reported by nypost.com that the New Yorker publisher Drew Schutte has been named to chief revenue office of the new Conde Nast Digital operation. The former Wired publisher will also become a senior vice president in the company.
One of his principal tasks will be breaking down the silos that have held back the company’s digital efforts in favor of the print editions.
Meanwhile, Condé Nast Traveler Publisher Lisa Hughes will be dispatched to The New Yorker as Schutte’s replacement. The New Yorker has been hurt by a decline in ad revenue that has once again made the title unprofitable.
Conde Nast officials insisted that The New Yorker had stayed profitable last year, despite a 26.8 percent decline ad pages to 1,478 pages.
The ad hemorrhage has worsened this year, leading to fears that the magazine would return to the type of losses last experienced in the early 1990s.
Those changes come as the controlling Newhouse family’s Advance Publications unit has told employees at the ailing Jersey Journal newspaper that the paper may close by April 13 if it doesn’t meet certain performance goals.
The company had gone through a dramatic downsizing a year ago in a bid to save the paper, but it has not kept pace with the deteriorating ad environment.
Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend had originally planned to announced the shuffle on Monday because Schutte was on the road attending the TED conference. Nypost.com broke the story at 1:04 p.m. today, forcing the company to speed up its announcement.