CONDE Nast is reeling from what is expected to be a loss of 5,000 ad pages this year, translating into a revenue shortfall of between $275 million and $350 million — and very likely pushing the publishing giant into the red.
After Condé Nast’s ad-page tally last year fell 10.5 percent to 34,966 from the previous year, according to Media Industry Newsletter, the company behind mags like Vogue and Vanity Fair is expected to see the ad-page count fall more than 20 percent this year.
But while the outlook for this year is grim, the Condé Nasties can take solace in the fact that it appears the hemorrhaging seen in the first half — when the ad-page count was down 30 percent — is expected to slow in the fourth quarter.
Privately held Condé Nast would not comment on the numbers.
Those declines, more than any other reason, are why McKinsey & Co., the management-consulting firm, has been unleashed inside the company as part of an 11-week corporate blitzkrieg that Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend and Chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. hope will result in the company cutting costs and raising revenue.
The latest signs of those cost cuts came yesterday, when the company let go nine people from its editorial desk and receptionist pool. Earlier, the company announced it would cancel reimbursements for all newspaper subscriptions as of Monday.
The most eyebrow-raising of the cuts was The New Yorker’s jack-of-all-trades, Charles Stanley Ledbetter, who had been praised in book forwards as a beloved figure by The New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick.
A 20-year veteran, Ledbetter had been a curator of The New Yorker Gallery, and had worked on several book projects, including the humor book collection “Fierce Pajamas” and a collection of business cartoons from the weekly magazine.
McKinsey usually specializes in deep systemic changes starting at the top, and the expectation is that far more jobs will evaporate.
However, some observers wonder whether McKinsey’s analysis will delve into Condé Nast’s strict policy not to discount off its rate card. For years, execs at the company trumpeted their ad rates and share of the market as barometers of its dominance.
Empty chair
Rodale President Steve Murphy, who last week announced he was stepping down at the end of the month, is also leaving Rodale’s board of directors.
The move is significant because Murphy’s predecessor, Robert Teufel, served on the Rodale board for another year after he retired.
This time, however, Murphy’s spot on the board, which is chaired by new CEO Maria Rodale, is not being filled. Maria Rodale is the granddaughter of company founder J. I. Rodale.
Re-shuffle
Curtis Circulation, a big national distributor of magazines, has shuffled its ranks and promoted President Robert Castardi to chairman and CEO, replacing Joe Walsh, who is becoming chairman emeritus.
Dennis Porti will replace Castardi as president and chief operating officer.
In the wholesaler crisis that disrupted weekly magazine sales in February, Curtis and Time Warner Retail Sales were among the companies that refused to ship maga zines to Anderson News and later Source Interlink Cos. when Anderson and Source tried to force a price hike onto publishers.
Info boom
And now for some good news, sort of.
Veronis Suhler Stevenson, in its just released 10-year outlook report, said the communications industry — which takes in a broad swath of media companies from direct marketing to publishing to the Internet — will be the third-fastest growing economic sec tor in the country going forward, rising from fourth place.
Broadly speaking, after a 1 percent decline was predicted across all sectors in 2009, the industry will grow faster than the gross domestic product for the next five years, posting 3.6 percent gains to reach $1 trillion.
It is no surprise, however, that Veronis predicts newspapers, consumer magazines, broadcast television, consumer books and recorded music will likely decline over the period.
The growth sectors include Internet media, professional and business information, subscription television, event marketing, direct marketing, mobile advertising and content and e-books, among other areas.
“The prolonged economic downturn has accelerated changes already underway in the communications industry,” said Jim Rutherford, executive vice president and managing director of Veronis.
“Notwithstanding significant declines in traditional media, the industry taken as a whole will continue to show relatively solid performance compared to the overall economy.”
On the down side, advertising will only begin growing again in 2011.
Advertising, which fell 2.8 percent last year, will be off another 7.6 percent across all sectors this year and off another 1 percent in 2010, the report said. keith.kelly@nypost.com