Let’s see if the paper’s executives can turn that around during their earnings call. We’ll also be looking for any updates the Times can provide on its pay wall plans, and, of course, its role in the launch of the Apple iPad.

UPDATE: As I noted below, though the New York Times (NYT) was a featured partner at the launch of Apple’s (AAPL) iPad, even sending a small team to Cupertino to create an app a few weeks before the event, there was zero discussion about iPads today.

CEO Janet Robinson made a generalized comment about the growth of the Times’s mobile distribution, but that was it. And not a single analyst showed any interest in this stuff–a good reminder that neither the Times nor Wall Street expects the iPad to be material to the company’s business for quite some time.

Liveblog

On the call: CEO Janet Robinson, CFO Jim Follo, Times Media Group boss Scott Heekin-Canedy, and Digital boss Martin Nisenholtz

In a preamble, CEO Robinson highlights cost-cutting, balance sheet repair, and asset sales (radio station, but not the Boston Globe; the company is still looking at selling its stake in the Boston Red Sox–the process is “complicated” and is “taking longer than anticipated”).

Robinson recaps the pay wall plan, metered approach, etc. Nothing new here so far.

The paper is waiting until 2011 to deploy the pay wall, she explains, because it wants to make “subscribing as smooth and easy as possible….It will take some time to build, deploy and test the best systems.”

Robinson offers a few revenue details, primarily a recap of the earnings release.

Ads by category: National ads down 12 percent, retail down 23 percent, classifieds down 27 percent.

News media online grew four percent, primarily from display advertising (the rest of online growth comes from About.com).

Print ad category decreases came from Hollywood, among others. Ad category increases: Print auto, health care, packaged goods.

Circulation revenue is up because of newsstand, price increases. The Times is benefiting from declines at other papers, because as local papers cut back, it is offering more info than ever. Robinson notes expansion by the paper into local news in the Chicago and San Francisco markets, adding that there are plans on going local in “several” other key markets

Time to brag about new mobile products and applications. The paper counted 75 million page views from mobile and apps in December, and the iPhone app has been downloaded three million times since launch.

Back to digital: Display ads are up, classifieds down; they improved “significantly” as Q4 progressed.

About.com is still the Times’s digital cash machine: Revenue is up 22 percent, and operating profit grew from $10 million to $18 million.

Overall, Internet businesses are up 10 percent and accounted for 15 percent of revenue for the quarter. Online advertising revenue accounted for 23 percent of ad revenue of the quarter.

“Limited” visibility for 2010, which is what’s upsetting The Street, supposedly. But the paper is still “realigning” its cost base.

CFO Jim Follo’s comments may not interest all readers except for this part: The Times is continuing to reduce headcount, he notes, which dropped by 18 percent in 2009. The company is also looking at the benefit structure for both employees and retirees. It froze that awesome supplemental retirement plan that pays certain retirees a very lucrative pension.

We’ve been benefiting from a drop in newsprint prices last couple years, Follo notes, though suppliers are trying to raise prices again, but there’s a supply glut, so we think they’ll have a tough time doing that.

No big capital spending projects are planned. [Presumably, the pay wall is not that expensive to build.]

[Aside: Interesting that NYT.com GM Denise Warren, who's normally on these calls, isn't on today's.]

Questions and Answers

Question: More color on advertising, please.

Scott Heekin-Canedy: We have some optimism, but advertisers are “guarded,” and ads are still bought–or retracted–at the last minute, as they were last year.

Tech, media, health care, and auto ad categories all look promising. The mix is “definitely different” from last year “when it seemed like every single category was down.” Now, many categories are showing “flat to significant growth.”

Question: Are you still optimistic that you can reach a deal on the Red Sox?

Robinson: “Yes we are.” Lots of due diligence, lots of different properties (stake in team, stadium, network, etc.).

Q: What are incremental costs of setting up a pay wall?

Robinson: “We feel this is an elegant solution,” but we want to wait the year and make sure we’re well prepared, etc. Again, integrating home delivery and digital is crucial.

Nisenholtz: Regarding cost, there will be a “modest operating cost” to deploy the tech. We’re hiring a “handful” of people to do that and deploying “modest” capital, but it’s not material.

[Apology: I missed a question on ad categories, though it seems to reprise the earlier question.]

Q: Can you give us a sense of additional cost-savings you can extract this year?

Follo: Nope.

Q: Will your headcount go down again in 2010?

Follo: Yes.

[Missed another question here.]

Next a question about the tax rate, which I can’t imagine anyone reading this cares about.

Q: Can you tell us more about January ad trends, i.e., how much is national vs. local?

Robinson: We won’t break that out (anymore).

Q: Was it materially better than Q4?

Robinson: She repeats her earlier comments from the release. “Very good performance” on the digital side of business. December was particularly good, but we’re not going to be more specific about January.

Heekin-Canedy: That said, we don’t think January is much of an indicator about the rest of the year, anyway. Different beast, not much connection between December [when people were dumping leftover dollars].

[There's a giant disconnect between analysts and the chattering classes here. If the latter ran the call, this would be about nothing but iPad, iPad, iPad. But we're 48 minutes in, and zilch so far. Which is a good reminder: No matter what launches with the tablet this year, this stuff isn't going to have a big impact on Big Media for quite some time.]

Q: Where is growth coming from at About.com?

Robinson: Both consumer packaged goods and display ads. We’ve upgraded the sales channel to go after display and that’s helped a lot.

Nisenholtz: Strong categories include CPC, travel, education and financial services. There’s also retail strength.

Q: Are CPGs new to About.com?

Nisenholtz: Yeah. Well, not exactly. It’s a big site, lots of reach. But we’ve updgraded the sales team and the increase there is part of the payoff. We reach a lot of moms. The Web site skews female.

Q: You may end up paying $60 million to $80 million back into the pension plan. When could that come? Q4?

Follo: Could be sooner than that. We’re in a good position regarding liquidity.

[The final question is about joint ventures that you don't care about.]

And that’s it for the call.

But Condé, like other publishers, says Apple (AAPL) won’t actually talk to the company about its plans for the device, or even acknowledge that it has plans.*

Condé’s plan, meanwhile, is to create digital versions of its magazines that will work on all the upcoming tablets, using new software from Adobe (ADBE). Those tablets aren’t actually on the market yet, but the publisher says it’s confident that we’ll soon see multiple versions of machines featuring large color touchscreens and wireless connections.

So who’s going to make those gadgets? Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend says his company is working closely with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and that it has also been communicating its plans to Apple. But Townsend made a point of saying that Apple executives themselves refuse to acknowledge that they’re actually planning a tablet: “They’re not talking to anybody openly,” he says.

Adobe is creating a publishing tool for the new format, as well as magazine-reader software that may come pre-installed on the devices or may require a download. The software company says it is working exclusively with Condé now, but will offer its tools to other publishers next year.

[Important technical point several readers have brought up: Adobe says its new reader software will run using its AIR platform, which works on multiple operating systems, including Apple's desktop system. But neither AIR nor Adobe's flash software works on Apple's iPhone, so if the new mystery device runs on that operating system, there's a problem. I'm following up with Adobe to see what it has to say. UPDATE: Here's Adobe's response.]

Condé says its work with Adobe won’t preclude the company from joining the “Hulu for magazines” storefront/distribution joint venture it has been discussing with Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. and other publishers. “Those discussions are ongoing and important and imminent,” Townsend says.

Okay. So what will Condé’s magazines look like once the tablets appear? The publisher has been showing a demo video to advertisers, industry executives and employees, and I’m trying to convince the company to show it to the rest of the world. (UPDATE: Here’s a partial, low-quality version of the video).

But until then, you can get a sense of it by checking out the publisher’s first attempt to port a magazine to the iPhone, which was released today at the iTunes App Store.

Like the iPhone version of GQ’s December issue, Condé says its tablet magazines will feature the same content found in the print versions, including original advertising, with the ability to view pages in their original form or in formats designed specifically for the device. They will also import multimedia content, like videos, and offer the ability to synch up with social networks and other Web sites.

Condé also thinks the business model for its tablet mags will mirror that of its iPhone app. The company intends to charge readers for each title, and it plans to convince the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the magazine industry’s standards board, that its online sales are equivalent to newsstand sales. That will allow Condé to charge advertisers the same rate as for print ads.

If all of this works, it’s a dream scenario for Condé and other publishers. The magazine industry gets to keep the revenue streams its print publications generate without having to make the “analog dollars for digital pennies” discount that the Web requires. Meanwhile, Condé gets to bask in the benefits of digital–lower distribution costs, more engagement with readers.

Or put another way: Publishers hope the new devices will repair all the value destruction the Web has wrought.

But all of this assumes that consumers, who’ve shown no inclination to pay for this stuff on the Web, will be willing to pay for it once it appears on devices no one owns yet. We’ll find out soon enough.

*One possible exception is the New York Times (NYT), where editor Bill Keller refuses to talk about possible talks with Steve Jobs and company.

Tough times have forced many papers to rethink their circulation strategies. An obvious conclusion: Much of the money publishers were spending to print and deliver dead trees has gone to waste. New strategy: Print fewer copies, and charge more for the ones you do sell.

That’s a tactic, not a strategy, but in the near-term it might work.

In its last quarter, for instance, the New York Times (NYT),  saw its daily circulation drop by more than seven percent, but saw circulation revenue jump 6.7 percent, due to price increases. Last spring a single copy of the Times at a newsstand jumped from $1.50 to $2.00, and a Sunday Times now costs a staggering $6. But people are buying them.

Meanwhile, News Corp. (NWS), which owns The Wall Street Journal as well as this Web site, has been steadily increasing the WSJ price. And circulation revenue is up at the McClatchy (MNI) and Media General (MEG) chains.

Again, the industry can’t shrink its way to recovery. There are fewer people paying for news–on or offline–than there have been in decades, and there’s no way to paint this as a positive. But the people who still subscribe to papers value them, and it would be foolish not to capitalize on that. Editor & Publisher:

There are several reasons as to why circulation keeps dropping, aside from former readers who have kicked the print edition to the curb. Publishers have been purposely pulling back on certain types of circulation, including hotel, employee and third-party sponsored copies. No longer are they distributing newspapers to the outer reaches of the core market. The cost of delivery and the cost of materials have forced publishers to scale back.

Another shift has occurred: volume has taken a back seat to dollars.

Several major newspapers across the country have aggressively hiked prices of single-copy and home-delivered papers in search of circulation revenue and a renewed focus on loyal readers. Circulation is guaranteed to go down as prices go up, but publishers have opted to wring more revenue from readers as advertisers keep their coffers closed.

The publisher plans to start selling digital copies of its print titles via a yet-to-be-approved app. Condé will start with the December issue of GQ, which it will sell for $2.99 (versus a newsstand price of $4.99), but the idea is that the publisher can use the same technology to sell other issues of other magazines down the road.

Condé says the GQ digital issue will replicate the print one on a page-by-page basis, including the ads. Digital bonuses include related videos, as well as links to sites for products (clothing, music, etc.) featured in the issue.

I wasn’t able to attend Condé’s presentation this morning, so I can’t tell you how its attempt to transfer a rich glossy magazine onto a phone (or iPod touch) actually works. But for now, I’ll take the company’s word for it and assume that it’s a nice alternative to carrying around some dead trees.

The interesting question is the business model, which I think has some real potential. This doesn’t solve Condé’s core problem–its costs are too high to support its shrinking ad revenue–but it does have several things going for it.

For one, this approach reaches its potential readers where they are: I don’t want to read a magazine at my desk, and I’m far from sold on the idea of buying a specialized reader to consume it digitally. Getting it to me on my phone, which goes wherever I do, is the way to go.

It also generates some (potential) additional revenue for Condé Nast right off the bat without creating a channel conflict with its analog product line: Condé will be able to count any magazines sold via its app platform toward its audited circulation numbers, a trick that no publisher has been able to pull off with Web products so far. Meanwhile advertisers in the print publication who want to add digital links to the iPhone version will pay a premium, Condé says. And the publisher has been able to extract additional dollars from Grey Goose and Gillette, which will be “premium sponsors” of the GQ issue.

Bonus upside: Condé says the technology it has assembled for this effort should work well for future Apple (AAPL) products, like, say, its mythical tablet. “We think that the minute Apple is ready, if they ever are, to announce that they’re going forward with a tablet, that we’ll be ahead of everybody,” says Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital.

This doesn’t solve the distribution issue that Condé and other publishers have with Apple, Amazon (AMZN) and other potential digital delivery outfits: Apple, not Condé, will control the billing relationship for the app. But then again, Condé doesn’t get to interact with you when you buy a magazine at a newsstand either, so at least it’s not getting disintermediated.

The question, as always, is whether customers are willing to pay anything at all for content they’ve been getting free on the Web. I still think we’re going to end up with a small segment of people willing to pay up for specialized stuff and a very large group that are going to end up with free things of dubious value. It would be great to be proved wrong, though.

Say it ain’t so.

Having fully embraced the Internet–sometimes to much disdain from old media colleagues back in the day–since the early 1990s as the way of the future in publishing, and even going to far as to abandon a career in print forever some years ago, BoomTown is bereft at the news yesterday that Gourmet magazine was being shish-kababbed.

Gourmet has been, since I started reading it as a young girl, one of the more perfect magazines–full of glamorous travel locales, stunning photos of food and sumptuous prose, all beautifully edited.

Let’s all agree first to blame owner Condé Nast, the famed magazine unit of privately held Advance Publications, for deciding to shutter the elegant and iconic Gourmet–which has been around since 1941–after the November issue.

While circulation remained steady at Gourmet at just under one million monthly paying subscribers, Condé Nast Chief Executive Officer Chuck Townsend pointed to a fall-off in advertising spending by luxury brands that resulted in a money-losing mess.

But, in a follow-up piece in The Wall Street Journal, titled “Gourmet Magazine’s Demise Gives Readers Empty Feeling,” plunging newsstand sales were also noted, apparently due in part to the impact of the Web.

“Gourmet has had to compete with food-related Web sites, which are often free and contain up-to-the-minute content,” said the Journal article.

In other words, the same thing that is occurring in all arenas–from food to tech to fashion to news–was left unsaid.

As in: The scourge of the Internet, laying waste to all those it comes in contact with.

But I dearly hope that this episode with Gourmet does not become another one of those death-by-digital cautionary tales, a case study that no one can sustain this kind of highbrow, expensive-to-make print media anymore, even the free-spending types at Condé Nast.

I am not sure that’s exactly true, though, since the analog experience Gourmet provided was not the same as what’s on the Web, which is what probably kept its circulation steady over the years.

It was clearly an issue of the econalypse–obviously helped along by the fact that people’s reading habits are shifting to online, thought that’s not the root issue.

That’s why Townsend added that Gourmet might live on in books, on television and, most likely of all, on the Internet.

That Gourmet already has a dullish Web site was not mentioned since it is free and not particularly different from the magazine–a decent repurposing, but a repurposing nonetheless.

Now that there is no magazine to fill that Web void, it will be interesting to see if more could be done online with the iconic foodie brand.

Or not.

(That September cover picture above is a quince, by the way, which most would never really know without–um, er–the help of Gourmet.)

The story went up on VF.com six days ago and has generated just under two million page views since then, says executive online editor Michael Hogan. (Disclosure: I’ve been a free-lance contributor to Vanity Fair’s “New Establishment” list in the past and will be again this year). Had Palin not made her blockbuster announcement on the Friday before the Fourth of July, the piece would be doing even better: Vanity Fair generated more traffic on the Tuesday the story was posted than the day after Palin made her news.

Still, it’s a big coup for the magazine’s site. The only way to generate more attention would be to run a slideshow featuring young attractive women.

Which the site can also do: Its story-and-photo package on Jessica Simpson, which ran in May, attracted 5.5 million page views to the site over a two-day period. Vanity Fair has generated 85 million page views so far this year, Hogan says.

And if you really want to generate traffic, run slideshows featuring very young attractive women. Last year the magazine’s 18-picture slideshow featuring a kind-of-topless Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus attracted some 18 million page views in a couple of days.

None of that will be terribly surprising to people who’ve wallowed in Web publishing for any amount of time. What surprised me a bit, though, was Vanity Fair’s decision to publish the piece in its entirety from the start. Doesn’t that cannibalize newsstand sales?

Maybe, says Hogan. But “it’s an open question as to what costs newsstand and what doesn’t.” And as the magazine tries to figure that out, he says, it has been experimenting. Some stuff goes up online before the magazine hits newsstands, while other pieces won’t appear on the site until a month later.

In the case of the Palin piece, the magazine had originally prepared to run an excerpt/summary of the story at first, then make the whole thing available by the end of the month after the news cycle was extinguished.

But on Friday, June 26, a few days before the excerpt was scheduled to run online, the magazine rethought its plan, assuming that the piece would be widely quoted and discussed before most people would ever see it. “The PR department started getting concerned that it was going to be controversial, and they wanted people to read the whole thing, and draw their own conclusions,” Hogan says. The final call went to Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter, who, I gather, isn’t really much of a Web guy.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting to read Michael Lewis’s latest piece for the magazine, on AIG’s (AIG) notorious “financial products” division. That one’s only available, for now, in excerpt form online, which means I’m actually going to have pay cash to read it, or wait a few hours–Hogan says it should be available in full later today.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the device since I bought my first one about 9 months ago. As a frequent traveler and voracious reader, I’ve found the Kindle to be nearly ideal. I never have fewer than a dozen books in its memory, and they’re always things I want to read.

As someone who believes we should often interact with media instead of passively consuming it, however, I don’t think much of the Kindle for any purpose other than reading a narrative. And given what a disaster “digital rights management” (DRM) is becoming for scholarship, culture and ultimately freedom, the device’s restrictions on how I can use what I’ve purchased are deeply troubling.

Still, I’ve been using it with some degree of satisfaction (as have enough other people to have helped boost Amazon’s stock price, so as the holder of several hundred shares I’m slightly better off in that way, too). The second-generation model improved nicely on the first–among other things, fixing some user-interface quirks, letting me charge it via a USB cable, and boosting the battery life.

The books I load onto the device fall generally under the casual entertainment category. I buy a Kindle book the way I buy a movie ticket (or did before going to theaters became such a crappy experience).

These are books, like most movies, that I’ll read or watch once and forget about. A physical book is more like a DVD–something I want to own and enjoy again and again.

So the kinds of books I tend to buy for the Kindle are the sort I’d often pick up at an airport newsstand, namely mysteries, thrillers and semi-trashy novels that I’d sometimes leave in hotels or airplane seat-back pockets once I’d finished them. (I also subscribe to several magazines, and consider it a favor not to see the advertising.)

Once I got accustomed to reading e-books, I started doing something that had been out of character in the analog era: buying new books that, in print, were available in hardcover only. Why? The price, typically $10 (okay, one penny less), was right. In fact, my new-book purchases soared.

But not for long. In recent weeks, Amazon (AMZN) or the publishers (or both) have done their best to deter me from buying the latest releases. Prices have gone up, way up.

Now, I often find books for which I’d have gladly paid $10 listed at $14 or $15. I save these to a list I keep on the Amazon website, called “Too expensive for Kindle,” and periodically check to see if the price has dropped. So far, not yet on any of these.

Hiking prices this way creates a bad deal for the customer. Amazon’s price for a new hardcover is typically just a couple of dollars higher. This means I could buy the hardcover, read it and donate it to my local library, and–after the tax deduction–come out ahead. I’d do even better taking the book to my local used-book store and getting cash.

But I almost never buy new hardcovers of books I don’t expect to reread or use as a reference, because a) I’m kind of cheap; and b) I can stand waiting for the paperback. So if prices stay high, I stay away.

Now, sellers have every right to charge more for popular books, especially when they’re new. This is basic supply and demand. But when the price only makes sense for people who consider the ultra-portability of an e-book paramount, that’s a turnoff for other potential buyers.

As a customer I also understand supply and demand. My demand is extremely elastic, and in this case it’s snapped.

Last week’s introduction of the Kindle DX was framed in many ways by different constituencies, but I was taken aback by the praise heaped on the device by several newspaper people, including the CEO of the New York Times Co. (NYT) (in which I also own a small amount of stock). Newspapers aren’t going to fix their considerable woes with Kindles, and anyone who thinks so lives in a fantasy world.

The DX, with its bigger screen, strikes me as potentially useful in several ways, possibly including the textbook function that Amazon hopes to jumpstart with the help of several universities (including the one that employs me). But if textbook publishers don’t radically cut prices on the outrageously expensive books they sell, they will find themselves creating a strong incentive for precisely what they don’t want: unauthorized copying.

I suspect the DX will prove most useful in more prosaic ways. For example, it could be a nearly ideal container and viewer for technical documentation–thick manuals that need periodic updating, where the cost of printing is prohibitive and the bulk of the books is daunting for the user.

Will all of this be made moot by the widely anticipated Apple (AAPL) “NetPad” or whatever it’s going to be called? I refer to a device that looks like a larger version of the iPod Touch, which would be a wonderful mobile multimedia player, among other likely capabilities.

I doubt it. If you enjoy severe eye strain, reading books on a back-lit, glossy display is just the ticket. The passive displays on Kindles, the Sony (SNE) e-reader and other such devices are much better for this kind of reading.

One size does not fit all in the emerging world of devices. Then again, one carry-on bag doesn’t hold all devices. For now, however, the Kindle has a place in mine.

Kelly’s number for today “may be on the high side,” a person familiar with the matter counsels me. In any event, I expect to have more details later in the day. As always, I value your input, and I keep all correspondence anonymous: peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, an update on this week’s cuts: I’m told Time Europe editor William Green and senior editor James Graff were laid off via phone yesterday, and that more cuts in the London office are expected today. And four-year-old Cottage Living magazine has been shut down, which means that 38 out of 47 people who worked on that title are out of work; the remainder will be placed elsewhere in the group. Announced along with the job cuts today were the departures of executives from Cooking Light and Southern Progress. Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light is resigning his position, as are Southern Progress execs Bruce Akin, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner. Here are the memos:

November 18, 2008

To:Time Inc. Employees
From:Sylvia Auton
Re: Cottage Living Magazine

I regret to inform you that we will no longer be producing Cottage Living magazine. The November/December 2008 issue, on newsstands now, will be the magazine’s last. Cottageliving.com will also shutdown. However, the company will keep the brand alive in one of its other leading shelter titles and these plans will be finalized over the next few weeks.

Since its inception, Cottage Living attracted significant advertiser support and fostered a loyal following among readers. However, the economic downturn has particularly affected the shelter market and while the brand was genuinely loved by readers and advertisers alike, the economy inhibited its ability to grow and therefore, sadly, we had to make the decision to close it.

Cottage Living launched with a unique editorial mission. Its readership celebrated community and character over conformity, personality rather than perfection, and informality instead of pretension. The brand’s tagline: ‘life just right,’ showed how one could ‘live large,’ even luxuriously, in a lighter footprint.

Launched in September 2004 with a circulation of 500,000, the brand quickly grew to 650,000 in January/February 2005. One year later, Cottage Living increased its rate base to 900,000, and then to one million in January/February 2007. Cottage Living also produced many one-time special-interest publications including Cottage Christmas and Cottage Makeovers.

Cottage Living also received many industry accolades including AdWeek’s ’2005 Startup of the Year’ and Advertising Age’s ’2005 Launch Worth Watching.’ It was also named to AdWeek’s ‘Hot List’ 10 Under 50 list for two consecutive years: 2006 and 2007.

I want to thank the many dedicated and talented Cottage Living staffers. It was developed, edited and published by some of the best talent in the business and we can remain proud of its many achievements.

S.A.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To:       Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:   Sylvia Auton and Steve Sachs
Re:       Staff Announcement  

With the departure of Bruce Akin, we’re pleased to announce that Bruce Larson will assume the role of Senior Vice President and the lead executive in charge of SPC operations for Time Inc. He will be responsible for the general management of all operations in the Birmingham office, Oxmoor House and Southern Living at HOME.

Bruce joined the company in 1991 as a manager of corporate reporting. Over the last 17 years he has been promoted numerous times and has held jobs in a variety of areas, from corporate accounting to IT to consumer marketing and production.

During his tenure with Southern Progress, Bruce has shown outstanding decision-making and leadership skills and has been a key player responsible for the strong financial growth the company has enjoyed over the years.

Please join us in congratulating Bruce on his new assignment.”

To:  Southern Progress Colleagues
From:  Bruce Larson

I regret to announce that two longtime, trusted Southern Progress colleagues, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner, have decided to retire at the end of the year.

Karla has been a steady presence in our advertising production circles ever since she joined the company in 1977 as advertising traffic manager for Progressive Farmer. In 1985, she accepted a position as assistant to the editor and advertising/production coordinator for Southern Living Classics, which merged later that year with the newly acquired Southern Accents, where she eventually moved up to advertising production manager. When we launched Coastal Living, Karla began working on both titles, and in 2007 she began helping manage advertising production for Cottage Living as well. And let’s not forget her work on Entrée. With her incredible depth of knowledge of advertising production and her keen eye for detail, it’s no wonder that Karla is so highly regarded. She knows how to best position each ad for space efficiency and visibility, and she knows how to work with our sales staff and advertisers to ensure that everyone is happy with the outcome.

Dick began his Southern Progress career just nine months after Karla, back in 1978. He spent the first 13 years of his SPC career on the corporate side, managing building operations, office services, and purchasing, before moving to the magazine side of the business as financial manager for Southern Living and Southern Accents. In 1995, he was named general manager of Southern Accents. One short year later, he added responsibility for the soon-to-be-launched Coastal Living. In 2004, he was named vice president and general manager for Coastal Living alone, and in 2007 he took on the GM role for Cottage Living as well. Dick is well respected for his wisdom, leadership. and kindness, not to mention his astute business sense. He knows his titles—and his staff—inside and out and never fails to find the right solution to any challenge. Plus, he has a great sense of humor.

There have been several times over the years when both Dick and Karla have been counted on to work on more than one title—a sure sign of how highly they’re valued around here—and each did so while managing to maintain a positive, calm outlook. Please join me in thanking them for all they’ve done for us and letting them know how much they’ll be missed.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To: Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:  Sylvia Auton
Re:  Staff Announcement

After careful consideration, Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light, has decided to leave the company.

A 26-year veteran, Chris first joined Cooking Light in 1991 as eastern advertising sales director and quickly rose through the ranks. Chris’ leadership and expertise resulted in enormous successes for the Cooking Light brand: Under his direction, Cooking Light has grown to become the world’s largest epicurean and healthy lifestyle magazine.

During his tenure, Cooking Light was named to AdWeek’s Hot List four times, Advertising Age’s ‘A List,’ Capell’s Circulation Report’s prestigious ‘Triple Play Award’ three times, and ‘Most Notable Launch of the Past 20 Years’ awarded by Media Industry Newsletter and Samir Husni in 2005. Chris also presided over the launch of several groundbreaking marketing campaigns, including The Cooking Light Cruise, the Cooking Light Fit House, and Cooking Light Supper Clubs.

An avid cook and exercise enthusiast, Chris lived the Cooking Light brand. He’s also a rock star: The Cooking Light band, Way Past Close, has performed throughout New York City and Birmingham to clients and colleagues.

Earlier in his career, Chris spent eight years at PEOPLE rising from salesperson to New York divisional sales manager.

Please join me in thanking Chris for his many contributions to Southern Progress and Time Inc. and wishing him the very best.”

“We’ve heard a lot of complaints from flight attendants and passengers,” union spokesman David Roscow told Bloomberg, though he didn’t offer up any actual incidents as proof. Which isn’t all that surprising, really. After all, travelers have been able to bring pornography on flights for as long as there have been commercial airlines. For crying out loud, airport gift shops and newsstands sell porn. But it’s rarely a problem in-flight because … well, who wants to be the creepy porn guy in seat 21A? And if you don’t mind being that guy and your presence troubles other passengers, your airline obviously have ways of managing that. Said American Airlines (AMR) spokesperson Tim Smith:

Our policy is to provide Wi-Fi capabilities the way customers are most familiar using [them] at home, office, coffee shops and on the road–with unfiltered connections that allow customers to get what they need, when they need it. While it does provide a new access point for information and content, customers viewing inappropriate material on-board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews who have always managed this issue with great success.”