Food Network Magazine Beefs Up Staff

It looks like there is at least one magazine in New York that is not cutting back staff. In fact, new magazine Food Network Magazine is actually promoting current staff and bringing on new hires.

Despite being introduced in the midst of the great magazine die off last year with two newsstand-only test issues in October 2008 and January 2009, Food Network is thriving. The magazine, which recently announced a huge rate base increase, revealed some staff promotions and new hires today on both the edit and business sides.

Editor-in-chief Maile Carpenter is promoting features editor Tracy Saelinger to deputy editor and moving senior editor Liz Sgroi up to food editor. In addition, two new senior editors are being brought on board: Mary Kate McGrath — former design market editor at InStyle — and Jonathan Stern – formerly of Joshspear.com, Stuff magazine and Penthouse.

Read on to learn more about Food Network‘s staffing changes and the state of some other culinary magazines.

On the business side, Food Network has brought on Julie Amalfi (formerly of Rodale) and Stacy Walker (from CosmoGirl) as Los Angeles account director and executive account director, respectively.

The news comes one month after first quarter advertising revenue and ad pages numbers were released, showing a decline in revenue for food magazines like Bon Appetit (down 20 percent), Cooking Light (11.4 percent), Everyday with Rachael Ray (21.8 percent), Everyday Food (37.4 percent), Food & Wine (23 percent) and Gourmet (36.7 percent).

But the news isn’t all bad for culinary books. Saveur’s ad revenues were basically flat, although its ad pages were down 6.8 percent for the quarter. And La Cucina Italiana said today that its ad pages and revenues were both up 48% in the first three issues of 2009. Following that good news, La Cucina publisher George Hirsch has decided to increase the frequency of the magazine from six to eight times a year.

Earlier: Food Network Magazine Raises Rate Base

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