minOnline is reporting that Reader’s Digest publisher Tracey Altman has been let go, as the magazine’s publisher, Reader’s Digest Association, struggles to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, where its been since August.

“I was laid off,” Altman told min, which added that she has “retained a lawyer to deal with severance and other legal matters.”

A Reader’s Digest spokesperson confirmed that Altman had left the company and said Eva Dillon, president of Reader’s Digest Community, will be assuming her responsibilities. Altman had been named vice president and publisher of the magazine in September 2008.

Since entering Chapter 11, RDA has reshuffled execs, and has made plans to move its offices to New York City.

Tracey Altman Out as Reader’s Digest Publisher –minOnline

Previously: Reader’s Digest Moves To NYC As Part of Restructuring Plan

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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The American Society of Magazine Editors is gearing up for submissions to its 2010 National Magazine Awards. For the first time ever, the awards will include a separate ceremony for digital media, which last year included four categories. This year, they have been expanded into 12 different awards, including blogging and podcasting.

This afternoon at The Princeton Club, members of ASME gathered to hear Will Dana of Rolling Stone, Peggy Northrop of Reader’s Digest, and John Rasmus of <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/National-Geographic-Adventure-profile.html"National Geographic Adventure give their opinions to moderator Cindi Leive of Glamour on what it takes to win both the digital and traditional awards, arguably the most prestigious in the industry. All three of the panelists have both judged and won previous magazine awards.

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Even as the media industry is seeming falling apart all around us, the industry still insists on honoring its members. There’s no better time than the present to look on the bright side, we suppose.

This morning, min announced the winners of its first Editorial & Design Awards, awarding prizes in 27 different editorial and design categories. The award breakfast also celebrated the induction of several notable magazine industry movers and shakers into min’s Hall of Fame, including keynote speaker Jackie Leo, formerly of Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal‘s Sally Lee, Ellen Levine of Hearst, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia chief creative officer Gael Towey and John Rasmus of National Geographic Adventure, as well as Vogue editrix Anna Wintour and former Variety editor Peter Bart.

Other top winners of the day included Food Network Magazine‘s win for Best Launch and Fortune, which nabbed the Best Feature award for its “Three Days that Shook the World” piece on the economic collapse of last fall. BusinessWeek won for Best Investigative & News Coverage for its cover story on subprime mortgages (and snagged a prize for best use of social media), while epicurean pub Saveur was honored for best design for a single issue for its Dining in America issue.

Entertainment Weekly, which recently cut staffers as part of Time Inc.‘s budget slashing, took home a number of awards including best photojournalism for its special Photo Issue, the best blog award for its PopWatch blog, best online column for Ken Tucker‘s “Watching TV” column and the top profile or Q&A prize for a feature story on Cheeta the chimp’s life after Hollywood. Self magazine, a Conde Nast title also recently plagued by staff cuts, took home two prizes.

See a full list of the winners here.

min Announces Editorial & Design Award Winners –min Online

Jodie Green joins Meredith Corp.‘s More brand as director of its Web site, More.com. Lesley Jane Seymour, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, announced the appointment today.

The former vice president of editorial at Waterfront Media, Green will be charged with the overall editorial direction of the site, including developing traffic-building content and strategic partnerships.

In her two decades’ worth of experience, Green has worked for such companies as Rodale, Reader’s Digest and Comcast.

Press release after the jump.

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Mark Wildman is leaving Reader’s Digest to join magazine publisher Bonnier Corp. as senior vice president of corporate sales and marketing. Wildman was most recently vice president of integrated marketing at Reader’s Digest Association, but his replacement, Maureen Polo, was announced last week. He will start at Bonnier on November 6.

While at RDA, Wildman worked to establish the integrated sales and marketing group for the company’s Food & Entertaining Affinity. Before joining Reader’s Digest in 2007, Wildman worked as executive director at Conde Nast Media Group.

“Bonnier is a strong, forward-thinking organization with more than 50 consumer media brands like Saveur, Popular Science, Field & Stream and Parenting,” Wildman said. “As consumers continue their shift toward real and meaningful, the Bonnier brands are very well-positioned, delivering specific well-defined audiences which are highly engaged and emotionally invested in the content.”

Full release after the jump

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Reader’s Digest Association is making good on its promise of major restructuring after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.

Despite layoffs late last month, today the news is good at the Reader’s Digest publisher, with Maureen Polo announced as the new VP of Integrated Sales and Marketing for the company’s U.S. Affinities, replacing Mark Wildman as of November 9.

Before joining RDA in 2007, Polo worked in sales for Condé Nast Media Group, Domino and Self, and she started her career at This Old House.

Polo will be working in RDA’s recently created U.S. Affinities division, led by Suzanne Grimes, which combined the company’s Food & Entertaining group with a Home & Garden affinity last month.

Full press release, after the jump.

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We’ve heard that they have been doing some restructuring over at Reader’s Digest‘s Web site, RD.com, resulting in layoffs. It looks like Gawker has been hearing from the same people.

We tried to reach out to Beth Turner, the executive editor of ReadersDigest.com as recently as July, but an operator at the company told us her name is no longer in the system. Not a good sign.

We have put in a call to the company, and will keep you posted as news develops. Know anything? Send us your tips via email or the anonymous tip box at right.

And in possibly related news, The New York Post reported today that the company — which recently filed for Chapter 11 — may be searching for a less expensive place to house its headquarters.

Update: A Reader’s Digest spokesman told us there were some layoffs from the digital team, two or three weeks ago, which may explain why one anonymous tipster told us Turner had been among those let go. “Sad to say, because the entire team loved her and it was a huge surprise,” our tipster said.

But we’ve been assured the layoffs were part of a realignment at the company that we have been covering for the past few weeks, which is intended to build up the Web teams at the company’s various businesses and refocusing a smaller corporate team. A dozen or so people from the corporate staff have been brought over to the other businesses, including ReadersDigest.com, we’ve been told. So, in the end, the digital team at ReadersDigest.com has actually grown in size, and will now be overseen by general manager Jonathan Hills.

Earlier: Reader’s Digest Reorganizes, Shuffles Execs

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released its important report for the first half of the year today, and the findings are not that surprising: total paid and verified circulation, single-copy sales and verified subscriptions are down overall.

However, the ABC said total paid subscriptions were basically flat in the past year. Compared to historical numbers, between the December 2007 and December 2008 reports, paid and verified circ was flat and single-copy sales were down 11.12 percent. Between June 2007 and June 2008, circulation was unchanged and single-copy sales declined 6.34 percent.

Single-copy sales were down the most in this report — more than 12 percent — with almost all of the top 25 top sellers suffering a decline. The biggest newsstand seller, Cosmopolitan, saw a 7.8 drop, although Woman’s Day, OK!, Family Circle and In Style saw the biggest declines in single-copy sales among the top 25, with each logging a more than 20 percent drop.

Meanwhile, the consumer magazines that saw the biggest newsstand growth included Mother Earth News, Women’s Health, Ebony, GQ, Essence, Sporting News, Time, National Geographic International, Real Simple and Runner’s World.

Despite its recent financial challenges, Reader’s Digest remained one of the top 25 consumer magazines in regards to paid and verified subscriptions, along with AARP, which saw a 400 percent jump in subscriptions.

We’ve also been tracking epicurean magazine Saveur since sitting down with its publisher Merri Lee Kingsly last week. Today, Kingsly told us the magazine’s circ is up 4.3 percent, while its epicurean competitors, Food & Wine, Gourmet and Bon Appetit have all seen double-digit declines.

Related: So What Do You Do, Merri Lee Kingsly, Publisher of Saveur?

Also: Listen to Fishbowl NY editor Amanda Ernst talk about Kingsly, Saveur and the upcoming ABC numbers on Friday’s podcast.

One week after announcing its intention to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Reader’s Digest Association Inc. filed the necessary paperwork with the bankruptcy court yesterday.

In a release about the filing, the Reader’s Digest publisher said that 80 percent of its senior secured lenders had already agreed to the restructuring plan that was part of the filing. The Chapter 11 filing will only affect the company’s U.S. operations, the company added.

“Our business operations remain solid, with anticipated Fiscal 2009 revenue only down by low single digits, currency neutral, despite the recession,” said Mary Berner, the company’s president and CEO, in a statement. “We look forward to emerging with a restructured balance sheet and as a financially stronger organization that is positioned to pursue our growth and transformational initiatives.”

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