BusinessWeek yesterday said it was pulling the plug on its nationally syndicated, personal-finance TV show at the end of the year.
As part of the closing, nine people will lose their jobs, including Eric Gonon, the executive producer of “BusinessWeek TV” who was recruited for the job from CNBC’s “Mad Money.”
“As we compete for both readers and ad revenue, it is critical that we focus on our core assets that best serve and reach global business professionals,” said BusinessWeek President Keith Fox. “As a result, we have decided to concentrate on developing digital-video content and will exit ‘BusinessWeek TV’ at the end of the year.”
The latest round of job cuts brings the headcount reduction on McGraw-Hill’s flagship title to 25 this year, including 16 positions on the magazine that will remain unfilled as part of a hiring freeze, said one inside source.
“We did not reach this decision lightly,” said Fox. “However, the best strategy is for us to remain focused on those aspects of our business that are repositioned to capture growth in both audience and revenue.”
The print edition, which lost money in 2007, has seen its ad pages tumble 14 percent in the first three quarters of this year, to 1,316.
The cutbacks came only two days after parent company McGraw-Hill revealed during its third-quarter earnings report that it was eliminating 270 jobs in the period, adding to a 1,000-person head-count reduction earlier this year.
But the worst may be over at BusinessWeek, at least in terms of staff cuts.
Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler said in staff meeting yesterday that there will be no more cuts this year.
But one source said, “Nobody believes him.”
Virtually all the publications in the category are reeling. Fortune Small Business last month fired its entire 17-person editorial staff and assigned the editorial to its custom-publishing division, which uses freelancers.
Condé Nast Portfolio on Thursday said it was chopping 20 percent of the magazine’s staff, and all but five people at Portfolio.com, as the company reduced the magazine’s frequency to 10 times a year from 12.