The cutbacks began Tuesday as expected at Time Inc. and they took a heavy toll among some of the top-echelon executives as the magazine publisher abolished its three-cluster system centered around brands and put everything into one pot.
One source said that while the number of cuts did not hit 500 on Tuesday, that was only because a lot of the pink slips will rain down over the next several weeks or months as the reorganized company makes moves to be spun off from Time Warner.
That is supposed to happen in June.
“I won’t breath easy until May,” said one insider who was spared on Tuesday but is not so sure of surviving until summer.
“These guys are not finished yet,” the insider said.
The big winners are Evelyn Webster, an executive vice president who was heading the Lifestyle Group and London’s IPC Group, and Todd Larsen, an EVP who was heading the News and Sports Group that includes Time and Sports Illustrated.
Gone in the cutbacks are David Geithner, an executive vice president who was in charge of the style and entertainment group that included No. 1 moneymaker People and top monthly In Style. Geithner is the brother of former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
People was spared any edit cuts on Tuesday, but the two biggest titles in the group were split up.
In Style, the company’s No. 1 monthly, went to Webster’s group, while the most profitable magazine in the stable, People, was awarded to Larsen’s group.
Also out is American Express Publishing CEO Ed Kelly, who had been at the group that includes Travel & Leisure and Food & Wine for 25 years. But Kelly was seen as vulnerable once Time Inc. purchased the company from AmEx on Oct. 1.
Said Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp: “We are launching initiatives to grow our digital scale and revenue, to generate new revenue streams and to enhance our core print business. We have a direction, and I am confident we will be positioned to succeed when we become a stand-alone public company.”
Ripp went on to say, ”Part of positioning ourselves for transformation means we must also make some substantive and sometimes painful changes to the way we operate and approach our business. We need to dissolve the complex matrixed organization created several years ago, remove layers that slow us down and free up investment dollars to deploy in growth areas.”
Although there is no official division, Webster has the monthly titles and Larsen has the weeklies.
Mark Ford, who was also an executive vice president running Sports Illustrated, is now going to be executive vice president, advertising sales. He will essentially be doing the job of chief revenue officer, a job held by Paul Caine, who left nearly a year ago. Ford had been vying with group publisher Jed Hartman for the job.
A big chunk of the AmEx Pub’s 400 staffers — possibly as many as 60 people — are also getting pink slips, including its CFO Paul Francis.
The company also confirmed that Executive Travel magazine, which is sent to AmEx Platinum card holders, is closing. Its staff got laid off.
Ripp, in a memo to staffers, said Webster will manage All You, Black Ink, Cooking Light, Coastal Living, Departures, Essence, Food & Wine, Health, In Style, People StyleWatch, People en Español, Real Simple, Southern Living, Sunset, This Old House, Travel + Leisure and IPC.
Larsen will manage People, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, CNNMoney, Money, Golf, SI for Kids, Time for Kids and GEx in Mexico.
Webster served as CEO of IPC in London before moving to New York to run the lifestyle titles. Larsen served as president of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal before joining Time Inc.
Ongoing cuts
Dozens of editorial cuts will be included in the downsizing.
The Sports Illustrated library will be closed, sources said.
The Newspaper Guild, the union representing print journalists on the core weeklies, including Time and People, said the company wants to reduce the Guild-covered workforce by 13 people.
“We’ve been notified that there will be 13 Guild positions that are impacted — most of them at Sports Illustrated and, to a minor degree, at Fortune,” said Guild president William O’Meara.
Nine of the Guild-covered employees and another four management jobs are being eliminated at SI.
Fortune is expected to lose at least three people from its editorial side, as is Time magazine.
Janet Libert, AmEx’s Executive Travel chief editor, is among those let go Tuesday.
A Time Inc. spokesperson declined to comment on how many at Executive Travel were laid off or how many other editorial people within that group got pink-slipped.
The Guild’s O’Meara said the company would go through the process of asking for volunteers from its unionized ranks to take buyout packages, and if there were not enough people stepping forward the company would then go to mandatory layoffs several weeks from now.
Website launch
Time.com, which has had its relaunch delayed several times since it missed its initial fall 2013 target, is now tentatively set to blast off Feb. 18, according to one well-placed source.
The project has become more complicated as the company pushes to incorporate a greater amount of video into the formula, since that is where it can charge premium prices for ads.
It is expected to incorporate native advertising — which is sponsored content made to look like it is part of the native editorial content.