Media Companies

After filing for Chapter 11 this August, Reader's Digest Association has been working on a restructuring plan to get itself out of debt. Some of this has been the unfortunate (but par for course) shuttering of titles, like Rick Warren's ill-fated The Purpose Driven Connection magazine.

Yesterday, editor-in-chief Peggy Northrop mentioned at the ASME luncheon that the Reader's Digest brand would never again launch a magazine that wasn't able to perform across different media platforms. And today, RDA continues its attempts to get back in the black, and no it doesn't involve firing staffers. It looks like the company will be moving its staffers from its offices in Pleasantville, N.Y.

As Keith Kelly reported this morning:

"Some of the 600 employees based in [Pleasantville] will be relocated to White Plains, N.Y. But executive offices and Reader's Digest magazine's editorial will move to space at 750 Third Avenue that was recently vacated by S.I. Newhouse's Condé Nast Publications.

So some editorial staffers will be going to White Plains while the corporate headquarters and other editorial staffers move to NYC to share in the same building as Condé Nast. (FishbowlNY previously reported that The Economist is also moving into that building in the second quarter of next year.) While it's always terrible to have to pick up your life and move elsewhere for a job, relocating to New York isn't the worst thing to happen to a magazine staff in the last, oh say, 24 hours. In terms of restructuring, this is one of the more positive moves we've seen in awhile, which it should be obvious by the very un-restructuring phrase in CEO Mary Berner's letter to the staffers, "Some of you will be excited by this change..."

Berner's full memo to RDA staffers after the jump.

Previously: Reader's Digest Files For Ch. 11

Read More: Reader's Digest moving to NYC --New York Post

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Window Media LLC -- publisher of such gay and lesbian-friendly titles as The Washington Blade, Genre Magazine and Southern Voice -- has shut down today, according to our sister site FishbowlDC.

Not only did publication cease today across Window titles, but employees were informed of this decision as they came to work, via a note left on the door that read:

"It is with great regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media LLC and Unite Media LLC have closed down."

One hell of a way to lose a job, but The Washington Blade's employees are bouncing back starting tomorrow, when they hope to recreate their paper as an independent entity. Whether they are allowed to keep the title has yet to be determined.

Read More: The Washington Blade and Several Other Gay Newspapers Are Shut Down --New York Times

In a turbulent year for print titles, only ten magazines managed to show a positive gain for the number of their ad pages. According to min Online, five of those titles happen to belong to the Meredith Corporation, including Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal, Fitness, and More.

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On Friday, Tribune Co. filed papers with the bankruptcy court in Delaware asking for an extension of the time that the bankrupt media company has to exclusively file a reorganization plan. Tribune said it hopes to extend this period, which is due to expire at the end of this month, in order to file a reorganization plan by the end of March and emerge from bankruptcy by May 31.

In a memo to staffers, obtained by Romanesko, COO Randy Michaels and Executive Vice President Gerry Spector focused on the positives, thanking staffers for their hard work during the restructuring:

"With your help, we have stabilized and repositioned our businesses, exceeding the financial results of most of our newspaper and broadcasting peers. This year we project operating cash flow of approximately $400 million -- nearly double our original operating plan."

The memo also said that, traditionally, the fourth quarter is the strongest for Tribune, and "with your continued hard work, we're sure this year will be no different." The memo also advised staff to "Try to tune out the noise and focus on your job."

Full memo, after the jump

Earlier: Tribune's Zell: Newspapers Can't Survive

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After Condé Nast hired consultants McKinsey & Co. to help "realign" the magazine publisher's business, four magazine ended up shuttered and hundreds lost their jobs.

But Dow Jones, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal publisher that last week revealed that it had also enlisted McKinsey's help, insists that this move will help grow the business, not shrink it.

"It is wrong to say we're engaging consultants to cut costs," Journal spokesman Howard Hoffman told Forbes. "Our emphasis is on building and growing our products."

To be fair, the Journal has recently launched new products like its new paid online product aimed at professionals, although cuts have been made -- like the closure of the Boston bureau -- despite the paper's recent claim to the title of number one newspaper in circulation. But even the highest circ paper can be run more efficiently and, like with Condé, we'll be keeping our ear to the ground for big developments coming out of Dow Jones in the next few months. We hope those developments won't include more layoffs.

McKinsey Comes To The House Of Murdoch -- Forbes

One day after Rupert Murdoch's number two Chase Carey was quizzed about the mogul's plans for pay walls and Google, News Corp.'s chief digital officer Jonathan Miller said that the company would be removing its content from Google within a few months.

Speaking before the Monaco Media Forum earlier today, Miller said it would be "months and quarters -- not weeks" before News Corp. moved to take its content from Google and similar search engines, but pointed out that the conglomerate could easily survive without the traffic driven to its sites through search:

"The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us...the economic impact [of not having content indexed by Google] is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it."

Still, Miller did admit News Corp. couldn't make the move alone -- other media companies would have to follow their lead. "There has to be a resolution for the free versus pay debate otherwise we cannot afford to pay for things like news bureaus in Kabul," he said.

We haven't heard of any other companies toying with the idea of removing content from Google News, which claims to drive 100,000 clicks to new sites per minute. If he doesn't get any co-conspirators, will Murdoch still make the leap?

Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp's content from Google 'in months' --Telegraph

Earlier: News Corp.'s Carey: Consistency For Pay Walls Is Key

Stocks soared today after news that Hugh Hefner's publishing house, Playboy Enterprises Inc., was reportedly being negotiated for a sale to Iconix Brand Group Inc. Playboy's struggles with its finances this past year have been well-documented, and Hugh's daughter Christine Hefner stepping down from her role as CEO of the Playboy publisher earlier this year only added to the unraveling faith in the company that had felled 76 percent of their stock in under five years. However, reports of a buy-out jumped the publishing house 33 percent up to $3.80 before noon, and may have closed the company at a 66 percent increase for the day.

Both Playboy and Iconix have refused to talk to reporters about the upcoming sale, since the negotiations have not been finalized.

Related: Blood Surges Back to Playgirl With Johnston Shoot: Former Editor Dishes On Pub's Future

In case you were wondering why everyone is getting fired at Condé Nast and not Hearst Publications, here's a hint: Yesterday we found out that the latter might have $1 bill in their bank account, while today we know that Si Newhouse's publications lost a combined 8,359 ad pages from their monthly magazines in 2009.

Read on for a break down of some of the numbers

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Today Folio magazine posted an interview with Drew Schutte, senior vice president and chief revenue officer of Condé Nast Digital, about the direction of Condé Nast online and the future of the publishing company.

Unsurprisingly, Schutte was defensive about Folio's assertion that Si Newhouse's titles have been late to adapt to the whole World Wide Web thing. At the same time, Schutte's reassertion of the old Condé adage that the Internet will never replace magazines and that any digital content is merely a "supplement" to the print product is really starting to sound stale, considering the major losses Condé's print editions have suffered lately.

Read on for some key points from Schutte's interview

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Yesterday, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch complained that News Corp.'s content was being "stolen" by search engines like Google and Ask.com, and hinted that as soon as all his publications go behind a pay wall, he would force Google to remove them from their site's directory.

And even though it makes little to no sense to take links to your pubs off of Google, today the giant corporation is playing along, telling Murdoch he is free to leave whenever he wants.

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