Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Why Time Inc. Is Slashing Jobs: The Chart

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes kicked off his quarterly earnings call by explaining why the company is cutting hundreds of jobs in its Time Inc. magazine unit.

But if you’re impatient, you can simply look at the following table, which details the publisher’s Q3 performance:

Bewkes has a less drastic spin on the cuts, of course: He argues that among other things, they will help “increase consumer utility.” How’s that? Well, Fortune magazine, for instance, will publish less frequently, which will supposedly make each issue that much better. But you can see where this logic leads…

One item of note so far: While Time Inc. has said that it will not be closing titles during this round of cuts, Bewkes left the door wide open for future moves, promising to “take a hard look at non-strategic and unprofitable titles.”

In the meantime, while I’ve read reports that say folks who work in online operations won’t be affected by the cuts, that’s not the case; I’ve heard of a few different staffers on the Web side who are on their way out.

Here’s the full set of slides Time Warner (TWX) used during the earnings call:


time inc slides

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google