Yesterday, Fortune chief Andy Serwer sent staffers a memo asking for senior level mastheaders to consider voluntary buyouts. Up to 15 people could be eliminated, and the staff has until May 27 to decide whether they want to take the deal. [WWD] Granted, there's an overall shift going on in parent Time Warner – cut jobs – so the search for buyout takers make sense.
In various recent cost saving measures, Time Warner has shuttered film studios Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, slashing 70 jobs there, after cutting 450 New Line jobs as it folds the brand into Warner Bros. Jeff Bewkes is also splitting from its cable division. And the company's HBO unit is even hiking prices on iTunes downloads to pad the coffers with a few extra pennies.
But the cuts at Fortune are particularly surprising. CONTINUED »
Finance magazines, like any other glossy fighting for your attention on the newsstand, know the power of listicles. Throw digits on the cover and travelers rushing through the airport and moms browsing through Barnes & Noble are more likely to pick up your rag. Which explains why, in December, Fortune gave you a list of 10 stocks they thought were sure bets to increase the value of your portfolio in 2008.
Sure, we're only four months in, by how is Andy Serwer's team measuring up so far? CONTINUED »
COMINGS & GOINGS O, The Oprah Magazine editor Amy Gross is leaving the magazine after an eight-year tenure. Time Inc.'s Fortune continues to hire high profiles, including Liz Spiers and the WSJ's James Bandler. [KK]
Though an irate Fortune chief Andy Serwer called us last week to demand we retract our claim that his magazine was about to deliver a blowjobby piece on CNBC, the current issue's Jessi Hempel article on the network does little to counter our report. Fortune is in love with CNBC!
To be perfectly fair, many of Fortune's bullet points are on target: The launch of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Business Network hasn't been much of an attack at all; ratings are, generally, up; income streams are fattening.
But the fawning over CNBC charge Mark Hoffman, that we imagined Hempel would deliver, is clearly there: "Mark Hoffman has added edge and emotion to a network that was heavily criticized in the run-up to the tech bust for its rah-rah business take on the news." Adds Jim Cramer: "Mark is remarkable because he says, 'Tell me what you need.' And we get it." Just get on his leg and start humping already.
Then again, Hoffman has overseen profits skyrocket 36 percent since taking over in 2005, so maybe he is entirely crush-worthy. Or they got some awesome new informericals to play on Saturdays. Fortune even gives Fox Business props: "On Martin Luther King Day the network aired live as the international markets melted down; CNBC stuck to its policy of airing taped programming when the U.S. markets close. And on Good Friday, FBN had live coverage when Standard & Poor's released a ratings cut of Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Lehman (LEH, Fortune 500). Again, CNBC wasn't live."
Ugh! Distinguishing between bias and fact-based favoritism is HARD.
How to get Fortune magazine to pen a puff piece on you? Complain that they did the same for the competition.
The Time Inc. business title is said to be working on a softball story on CNBC, hitting in the April 14 issue. This comes after Fortune published, in October, a blowjobby piece on the just-launching Fox Business Network, penned by then-staffer Tim Arango.
When that article hit, Kevin Goldman (then the VP of CNBC publicity and a former Wall Street Journal reporter) fired off an angry three-page letter to Fortune's editors, we're told, complaining about the rival network receiving such gratuitous coverage just out of the gate and demanding "better treatment" for CNBC.
Now, it could be argued, Fortune is offering a make good: The GE finance network is set to receive its own lauding coverage in the magazine.
We're told Jessi Hempel is penning the piece and, according to cable industry sources she spoke with, promised the article will be "extremely positive." After all, relays a source, Hempel says she was "told to write a positive piece about CNBC" and has declared she's a fan of CNBC chief Mark Hoffman.
When asked about the situation, Fortune chief Andy Serwer responded in a statement: "This article is an in-depth snapshot of CNBC, the only one that has been written in the last 5 years, with the kind of reporting, fact-checking and honesty that readers have come to expect from Fortune."
There are some positives to shutting down a magazine under your own corporate umbrella. For Time Inc. title Fortune, the demise of Business 2.0 was dollar-sign-filled music to Fortune/Money Group chief Vivek Shah. Thanks to the abrupt absence of competition from its corporate cousin, Fortune is cashing in; ad revenue from technology advertisers is up 35 percent.
For a long time, we had trouble distinguishing between Forbes and Fortune. They both start with “For,” both cover business and are both kind of boring.
But over time, we learned that Forbes is the one that puts out web hit generating lists and Fortune is the other one. Forbes love of lists has extended to a partnership with E!. Forbes 20 Richest Women in Entertainment wasn’t exactly the Frontline quality TV journalism.
If Forbes wants to let E! siphon off its gravitas, so be it. Until now.
Forbes put New York as the fourth most miserable American city to live in. Have their editors even visited the rest of the country? CONTINUED »
The Dec. 10 issue of Fortune kicks off the magazine's redesign, which sounds a bit more like the Terror Threat Alert than Andy Serwer's print magic.
Red sets off "First," which includes news, analysis, off-beat items (such as the 2,000 seat auditorium at Google's Silicon Valley's headquarters morphing into a tour stop for musical artists) and financial columnist Allan Sloan. Blue is for "Technology," green is for "Investing" and orange is for "Life at the Top."
The Red, Blue and Green sections run in every issue, while the Orange section runs every other issue.
It seems every time Tim Arango switches jobs, or wants to switch jobs, we hear about it.
The Fortune reporter who may have hinted at wanting a job at Fox Business Network, and definitely hinted at wanting out of the New York Post, has landed a position at the Times.
Arango will take over the corporate media beat for the Times, which has been vacant since Richard Siklos left the paper for Fortune this summer. At Fortune, both Arango and Siklos covered corporate media.
Seems like the two of them just pulled a Dan Patrick-Rick Reilly on Fortune and the Times. Sadly, their switch was probably not as profitable.
Is CNBC sweating through its Old Spice High Endurance because of the Fox Business Network, as Fortune magazine claims? After the biz channel's mostly unimpressive debut, perhaps not. And that's the same sentiment Fortune has about Portfolio.
At last night's "meet the new staffers" (you know, the ones they've been lapping up) cocktail party at Porter House, Fortune chief Andy Serwer could be spotted blowing smoke off his finger gun and making jabs at Joanne Lipman. Machismo!
Si Newhouse may still care about Portfolio's future, but his Time Inc. rivals certainly don't. Or at least that's the face they're wearing in public.
Bringing together the whole meta evening was the Fortune cover story on the Fox Business Network from former New York Post-it Tim Arango, who, it's worth noting, was shopping himself to TV networks not too long ago. CONTINUED »
Good news business programming lovers: Fox Business News starts today. And you what that means: A long piece in Fortune magazine.
Since it’s Monday and you’re busy looking at Facebook pictures from the weekend, here’s what you need to know:
• Small business owners are the target audience. And to appeal to them, FBN is running “Main Street” stories, like the cost of scalped tickets for a Hannah Montana concert. Because really, what else would the owner of a hardware store care about?
CONTINUED »
Senior writer Katrina Brooker ditches Portfolio after being offered a plum position that promises to advance her career and provides her with a lucrative salary boost her old job back.
Brooker, a friend of ousted deputy editor Jim impoco and former "star reporter" at Fortune, will be back at "her old stomping grounds" well before Portfolio's third issue hits the stands.
Still to come: an explanation from EIC Joanne Lipman on why exactly it is that "Portofolio" has already become inextricably linked with word "Exit." [WWD]
• Reuters bullpenner Ty Trippet explains why the news service may have put the lives of 21 South Korean hostages at risk because of a faulty report. ABC, who "confirmed" the report independently, also finds itself backtracking. (Did we mention it was the competition – the Associated Press – that jumped on this story?) [AP]
• Having got a look at Portfolio, it's time for Fortune EIC Andy Serwer to gloat. Then again, it's Jon Friedman's who's suggesting he start gloating, so nevermind. [MW]
• New-ish Elle creative director Joe Zee's biggest problem so far hasn't been how to handle the Lindsay Lohan September issue while the starlet deals with her cocaine bust — but how to get Gilles Bensimon off the masthead once and for all. [NYT]
• In the Manhattan Media-owned New York Press, there won't be any more tranny hooker ads. But there will be a Brooklyn edition! [NYO]
• Dylan Stableford has an exciting skateboard project to work on, which is why he's leaving Mediabistro's FishbowlNY. Perhaps Laurel Touby didn't offer any bonuses? Neal Ungerleider and Ron Mwangaguhunga – both with last names we're not sure how to pronounce – are taking over. (Announce-y type emails after the jump.)
Just what Rupert Murdoch needs when he's readying his $5 billion takeover of Dow Jones: an actual investigative piece from a business publication about his operations! And you thought that those types of articles would disappear forever now that we've got Portfolio to gloss things up.
Any-hoozle-bees, Fortune's Jennifer Reingold is earning her staff paycheck today with a look at News Corp.'s News America marketing division, which "produces newspaper coupon inserts, in-store supermarket ads, and the like." While its profit margins are a whopping 28 percent (on $1.1 billion in sales), not so blissful are the lawsuits accusing it of "anticompetitive behavior to try to drive its rivals out of the market, and the recent emergence of a former employee who claims the company tried to pay him off to keep quiet."
And you can bet that "former employee," Robert Emmel, is going to be the star of this otherwise unexciting show about corporate dominance in a field pockmarked with Suave shampoo coupons.
Editorial Director
