Six magazines operated by media mogul Barry Diller through his Dotdash Meredith Group will immediately stop publishing in print and move online.
The move, which affects Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español, will result in the loss of 200 jobs, according to a memo sent to employees on Wednesday. The cuts represent less than 5% of the company’s total workforce.
The magazines were acquired by Dotdash, a subsidiary of Mr Diller’s InterActiveCorp, last year when it bought publishing giant Meredith for around $2.7 billion.
“We said from the start that buying Meredith was about buying brands, not magazines or websites,” Neil Vogel, chief executive of Dotdash Meredith, wrote in the memo obtained by The New York Times. . “It is no news to anyone that there has been a pronounced shift in readership and advertising from print to digital, and as a result for a few major brands print no longer serves the purpose. principal of the brand.”
Parents, InStyle and EatingWell’s online audience grew 40% last year, according to the memo, which was the first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Dotdash Meredith also runs People, Better Homes & Gardens, Food & Wine and other publications that will remain in print. Vogel said the company plans to invest more than $80 million in content this year and print more than 350 million magazines.
“Today’s step is not an exercise in cost savings and it’s not about capturing synergies or any other acquisition jargon, it’s about embracing the digital future inevitable for the brands involved,” he said in the memo. “Opponents will interpret this as another nail in the coffin of print. They couldn’t be more wrong – print remains at Dotdash Meredith’s heart.
When Entertainment Weekly debuted in 1990, critics doubted it would last, and even some employees started an office pool, betting on how many problems he could survive. Bets have been capped at 26 numbers.
But on Wednesday, tributes to Entertainment Weekly and its long success flooded social media, including memories of star-studded covers taped inside. high school lockers and posting descriptions as pop culture bible.
InStyle’s avid readers told how they maximum credit cards subscribing to the fashion tome and taking the magazine with them moving. The publication, known for featuring celebrities using a formula it was described as “strapless dress, hand on hip, sellable smile”, was founded in 1994 with Barbra Streisand on her first cover.
The end of print editions follows a now familiar industry trend: many magazine companies are looking for ways to cut costs as circulation of physical copies continues to decline and competition for advertising dollars grows fiercer. Shape, a women’s fitness magazine owned by Meredith, discontinued print editions at the end of last year. In September, the American print version of Marie Claire, owned by UK publisher Future Media, has been shut down. Hearst discontinued regular print editions of O, The Oprah Magazine, in 2020.