"While I'm innocent, I'm sorry to all my fans and supporters for this embarrassment," Carter said.
Then he drove off in his shiny black Mercedes.

Ouch.
[NYDN]

According to a story in the New York Times today (in which the NYT tries very hard to suppress its glee), the Post's circulation has fallen by 30% in less than three years, to just a hair over half a million; and its financial losses were around $70 million last year, making the paper an expensive habit even by Rupert Murdoch's standards. And the fact that Rupert's adding local reporting to the WSJ makes Post reporters (reasonably) nervous they're falling out of favor.

We must not let this perpetually money-losing right-wing tabloid fall from grace! New York would be such a boring newspaper city without a loud, drunk voice of opposition. A few helpful suggestions:

• Andrea Peyser's sexxxy, but is she sexxxy enough? Millions of people in New York have sex every day without being mentioned in Andrea Peyser's column. Work on that.
• Col Allan is drunk, but is he drunk enough? Secretly rig the water fountains to emit gin, if you haven't done so already.
• Sean Delonas is racist, but is he racist enough? Racist cartoons are all well and good, but try upping Sean's visibility by getting him out there on the street, among the people, beating up minorities, then quick-sketching it on a blog. After he's all done promoting his children's book.

From the AP's Paul Colford:

You may have misread Michael Calderone ("Calderone estimates they may need hundreds more layoffs before January.")

He says this:

"Early estimates put the 10 percent pay roll cut at roughly 400 staffers. But it's unclear how many would be cut, given that the targeted reduction is in payroll and not headcount."

So hundreds of layoffs would seem logical based on the numbers we have. But it's a guess.

The essence:

We — and the entire media world — have been hit hard by both the severe recession and the seismic shifts wrought by the Web. Given these dramatic events, further layoffs, unfortunately, are necessary across the entire organization...On the editorial side, we will maintain the essential strengths of Forbes while also deepening our relationships with our community. On the advertising side, we are making shifts to fully meet marketers' evolving needs.

More ad cuts than edit cuts? Hard to tell just yet. The real bloodshed will come tomorrow and/or Wednesday, we hear. If you know more, email us.

[Full Forbes Memo]

WWD says so today:

Some describe the atmosphere inside of the magazine's offices as business as usual, while others are more resigned and have begun packing up their things. Bloomberg LP remains the front-runner, although the company is expected to only take on the BusinessWeek name and Web site, and none of its staff or bureaus.

Jesus, that's pretty harsh. WWD goes on to say that Bloomberg would essentially toss BW's magazine staff out and replace it with current Bloomberg employees, and the only real sticking point left is who'll pay the severance for all the BW layoffs.

But another informed source we spoke to called WWD's version "nuts." The bidders on Businessweek have only had a chance to do very preliminary assessments of the company's staff, and final decisions on layoffs would come only after a winner had been declared and allowed to do more exploration of the company's direction. But the winning bidder would have a commitment to keeping BW in operation as a print magazine (and a decent one), our source said—otherwise, why bid on the company at all? That would mean, at the very least, not coming in and gutting the company's editorial side immediately.

So, Businessweek employees: You should certainly be living in fear. But maybe not total fear. A Bloomberg purchase of BW would probably not result in immediate mass layoffs of most BW staffers, to be replaced by Bloomberg's own current employees. Although some of that could certainly happen! On the other hand, current BW staffers could then have a chance to jump over to Bloomberg—one of the few major media companies not currently mired in mass budget cuts.

Logic seems to dictate that there will be layoffs once Businessweek is sold. After all, the place isn't doing too well with its current staffing levels. The question is how many. A buyer like Bloomberg that could afford to spare a few resources would presumably be a bit better for the BW staff than a buyer intent on slashing right away—which could mean a drastic reduction in frequency for the magazine and a skeleton staff. We'll see!

But if you work at Businessweek and you get an outside job offer soon, you might wanna take it.

With all those rumors, you knew it had to be accurate. More or less. John Koblin talks to insiders who have seen McKinsey's proposals, and comes up with the following summary. Which is bad, but not as bad as it could be for the Nasties:

• Budget reductions of around 25% at Details, Traveler, Glamour, Gourmet, and Teen Vogue.
• Unknown budget cuts at the rest of the Conde mags—except the New Yorker, which is escaping unscathed, according to the NYO.
• The various mag editors get to determine how to achieve their budget cuts.
• No immediate magazine closures are predicted, but some of the weaker titles may reduce their frequency.
• Layoffs are coming.

According to Joe Pompeo of the New York Observer it is. This is a whole defined style, allegedly, called Trad, and it means very specific things to very fashionable people in Manhattan, sure, but mostly it means that anyone can take one look at you and say "Why doesn't that rich Ivy League prick go fuck his squash racket or something?"

Perhaps you've noticed Lacoste polos, Ray-Ban eyewear, bow ties and hand-sewn camp moccasins on the streets of Billyburg?

Those who embrace the look say subtlety is key.

Subtlety is key to not getting robbed while walking the streets of South Williamsburg in a $595 navy blue J. Press blazer. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own insecurities! Incredibly, the 52 year-old insurance exec quoted in the story who writes the blog "The Trad" graduated from the same shitty little college in Florida that I did. Dude. You know you were drinking cheap swill at the Milltop and wearing Rip Curl shirts and flip flops and pretending to learn how to surf just like every other bum down there. "Trad" my butt.

The shady ass Rendon Group is profiling journalists who want to embed with the US Army to determine how pro-Army they are. P.J. Tobia got ahold of the profile they did on him! "His most recent article is neutral-to-positive while his previous work has been neutral or neutral-to-negative." Whoever wrote that gets paid way more than actual journalists, btw.


Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks decided to apply for an advertised position at a PR firm like so: "I would be happy to submit an application, but I'd hate to be wasting your time and mine if it turns out this is some minor league position with a paltry salary." Haha! You tell them what is what, Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks.


You will want to be making friends with Amelia Lester, because she is 26 years old and the brand new managing editor of the New Yorker. She's a Harvard alum! And a foreigner. Amelia hey let's go hang out, oh did I mention this story idea I've been kicking around? I did? Here, have another drink while I tell you again.


In the second quarter of '09, newspaper ad sales were down 29% compared to a year ago. But hey, what is a $2.8 billion hole to an industry as strong as newspapers?

This year Conde is not publishing its annual ad-heavy Fashion Rocks supplement, which itself significantly hurts ad pages, apart from the effects of the recession and the decline of print. Of course, Fashion Rocks was killed because of those things, so whether you should factor it into the year-over-year ad page loss is a philosophical question.

But even when giving Conde the benefit of the doubt and not factoring in Fashion Rocks, the losses are grim.

Best performer: Teen Vogue, -17%
Worst performer: W, -47%
Other notables: Vogue, -30%; Allure, -28%; Wired, -26%; Glamour, -25%; Vanity Fair, -24%

Conde Nast Traveler and Architectural Digest both posted losses of well over 30%. If you include Fashion Rocks in your calculations, many of the titles' losses swell to more than 40-50%. Bad news all around.
For a full chart of Conde titles, see Media Memo.

Sergey Aleynikov began working for Goldman in May of 2007 as "vice president for equity strategy." And then he left to go to some firm in Chicago and then the FBI arrested him for "theft of trade secrets" because, they claim, he uploaded all the fancy magical automated trading codes and files to some German website.

According to the affidavit:

"certain features of the [code], such as speed and efficiency by which it obtains and processes market data, gives the Financial Institution a competitive advantage among other firms that also engage in high-volume automated trading.The Financial Institution further believes that, if competing firms were to obtain the [code] and use its features, the Financial Institution's ability to profit from the [code]'s speed and efficiency would be significantly diminished."

Now anyone might have their hands on the Process! It's been sitting on some Germany-based website owned by some Londoner for a month. Meanwhile, "program trading accounted for 49% of all NYSE trading last week, and Goldman as recently as one week ago represented about 60% of all principal program trading". And the NYSE suddenly saw fit to "alter its methodology for reporting program stock trading," leaving Goldman off the list entirely.

Not that we understand any of this but it seems like basically America is even more doomed, now.

Let's let the PR blogger in question, Jennifer Jones, pick it up from there (she posted this last week but we just saw a note about it today on Adrants and it's worthwhile so hey):

Well...last night at 10:00 pm (yes, 10:00 pm), my phone rang. I didn't answer because I was busy watching Sigourney Weaver beat up some Aliens. Then, it rang again. I hit ignore. It rang a third time. Then, I got a text. It said:

"I just read your email blog this is totally a mistake about me and my work...please remove now...kb"

Not recognizing the number and unable to think of any friends with the initials KB, I asked what the person was talking about. Well, as it turns out, it was the "award-winning actor" the bad pitch was about. (I've since removed my phone number from my web site).

He called and text messaged her about this post of hers on her blog, a post that consisted of pointing out the flaws in a press release written by him. Not a savvy PR move, for a non-psycho! So Jennifer started text messaging back and forth with him, but he would not be dissuaded:

He said he'd issue a National Press Release (yep he capitalized it and everything!) about how I am out to ruin his career. Of course, I did think, "cool, nothing like a media feud to drive some SEO my way!" But, he was sounding increasingly unhinged, so I stopped trying to reason with him and ignored his texts.

Unfortunately, it got really ugly with the guy actually making physical threats against me and even calling me a racist.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Kevin Byrd, that is certainly no way for a man with a one-man show about the risk of prostate cancer to act! Particularly not a man who also "starred as the Cover Model for the Best Selling Paperback Novel "Things In Between" by Nathanial Portis distributed in book stores nationwide including Barnes and Nobles." It's just not right. We've emailed Kevin through his website and we'll let you know what we hear. Though you have to admit his original pitch did have a compelling lead:

On behalf of our client Award Winning Off Broadway Actor [Client Name]; we're requesting a featured front cover story about [Client Name] for Atlanta Journal Constitution Newspaper for June 2009

[SpeakMediaBlog]

Talented young writers, here are your choices in the media world of 2009: Be laid off; pay $13,000 for an internship; or become a Craigslist slave for "valuable" "exposure."

Terrible Ad #1: A mysterious "Mr. Smith" offers you the opportunity to apply for 'Bleue Blood: The Lifestyle Manual For the Modern Gentleman." Hopefully as a copy editor, heh. Modern Gentlemen don't need salaries, but they do need "national exposure," on the internet. And "it would be good if you have a professional pen name." So nobody can associate you with this publication.

Terrible Ad #2: The pay scale here is "sliding." Presumably "$2 (blog posts)-$10 (features)" would be the top of the sliding scale. Something to aspire to! Judging by the site, the writing work's not too intense, but do they have to know so much about your tastes to decide whether you're capable of, say, re-posting a video from another blog? It's not hard, trust us! "Because of the volume of submissions," do not expect a response to your essay-length application for this pauper-esque job.

We'll make it to that mountaintop yet.

The replacement show sounds sorta interesting. It's Community, a single-camera sitcom about community college starring the adorable and lovable and funny Joel McHale (from The Soup). Another installment of that SNL Weekend Update Thursdays will bounce along in the Thursday 8pm slot for a while, hoping to boost Parks & Recreation's 8:30 numbers. Once Community has, in theory, found its footing and the SNL outpost runs out of economy jokes, 30 Rock will return. Sigh. Right now that sounds like a pretty long wait. Why did that damn Peacock have to see its shadow?

Update! An NBC publicist tells us:

The plan for "30 Rock" is to launch its season fairly shortly after the usual fall debuts. We don't have a particular date set, but it's likely to be in the range of three, four or five weeks into the traditional season. There's currently no expectation that the debut would be delayed into the winter.

Hmm. That doesn't actually say that much though, does it? Empty promises, NBC! "Three, four, or five weeks" could still mean mid-November, depending on when this so-called "traditional season" begins. So we're still bummed. We want this shit the day after Labor Day, people!

The other glaring thing on the schedule is just seeing printed, day after day after day, The Jay Leno Show in the 10pm slot. In theory this whole thing sounded infuriating—for us, for Conan, for Boston—but now seeing it actually crammed into the schedule there... Well, it just seems like it's going to be a disaster. Either no one will watch it or everyone will, leaving Conan adrift and lonely there behind the boring buffer of local 11 o'clock news. Only time will tell how it plays out.

In other TV news: Privileged, Without a Trace, and My Name Is Earl have all been canceled. And the Gossip Girl spinoff really has been shot down, as rumored.

Min says that overall ad revenue for the first half is down 23% for monthly magazines. It's the worst ad environment they've seen in 62 years. And Conde, the be-sequined one, is having the hardest time. Still:

Condé Nast, the glitziest of all magazine publishers, is reeling more than any other publisher. Only four of its magazines are off by less than 30 percent.

Industry sources said it is increasingly unlikely that Condé Nast, which does more than $2 billion a year in revenues, will be able to avoid losing millions of dollars this year. The dive is said to be so steep that even decent September issues — traditionally the fattest of the year in the fashion world — will not be able to wipe out the red ink.

That last bit is very bad news, because the September issues are, literally, Conde's only hope this year. And, just like last quarter, Wired's ad sales continue to be the worst of all at Conde. The magazine's publisher tells the NYT, on the record, that his new ad sales strategy is to "pray," which indicates a certain I'm-past-the-point-of-giving-a-fuck-itude.

Well, we've done our part. Did you know Wired editor Chris Anderson makes $2 MILLION per year, giving speeches? Maybe he can buy some ads?
[NYP, NYT]

The Dow was going GREAT GUNS with a BIG RALLY last week which caused economic terrorists to point out, hey, stocks aren't cheap any more, and then because investors are "skittish," everything tanked again this morning, so we're back in the hole as usual.

Luckily Americans just reverted right back to their previous behavior, eating only the cheapest Kool Aid soup and ketchup sandwiches and hoarding pennies in a purloined sock drawer. We've raised the subway fares and stopped hiring new teachers, to assure that it's harder for our kids to get school, and if they do make it, it will suck.

In short, after a few weeks in which the faintest idea of hope glimmered through the clouds, America is comfortably regressing to bleak days of old (late 2008). Orangutans have figured out how to release themselves from their electric cages. The end days draw ever nearer.
[Pic via]

Thirty percent. That's how much advertising analysts say many (most?) big newspaper chains lost, roughly, in the first quarter. To put that in perspective: that is a 30% decline in your fucking advertising, compared to last year. That is the worst quarter many newspaper execs have ever seen in their careers. And the common theme in all the comments: Nobody thought it would be this bad!

[It] is clear that once again, even the most pessimistic predictions were not dark enough...

"This is far worse than anything any of us has seen," said an executive at a major newspaper company. "We can keep cutting, but we need this to start to bottom out."

You people just keep proving Nick Denton right. Stop that. As for magazines, the news is nearly as bad:

Ad pages in consumer magazines dropped 25.9 percent while ad revenue fell 20.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009, according to figures released today by the MPA's Publishers Information Bureau.

With any luck, the first quarter of 09 will go down as the worst quarter for print media in a generation. But don't count on it. This and also this: still alive and hungry, unfortunately.
[NYT, Folio. Pic via]

The Observer today profiles the sad lives and shattered dreams of the NBC pages, who were told that being an NBC page would start you right up the ladder to the Life of Tina Fey, when in fact, these days, it amounts to a bottom-level tour guide job with unlivable pay and far fewer prospects for advancement than ever before. Welcome to the media's recession years.

The combination of factors took a toll on morale. Some pages bristled at a series of disciplinary crackdowns. According to one source, pages were regularly asked to keep an eye on their colleagues for possible infractions. "It's a culture of fear," said the former page.

Those who gave voice to the grievances felt they risked being blacklisted. "You've devoted a year of your life to doing it," said another former page. "You're so expendable that you really can't complain about anything. If you voice feedback that's remotely negative, you don't get recommended for jobs."

Wow, television is even worse than print. Which is not so fantastic itself! Unpaid internships are still around, but where is the payoff? Where is that entry level gig with real promise of advancement? It's been "given away to a nice farm family," that's where. Just getting out of school and dreaming of a fancy magazine job? Instead, why not put that dream on the shelf, in a jar, and show it off as a curio at parties to your friends, who are also drug dealers?

Once upon a time New York Times execs were all former copy boys, New Yorker fact checkers could move up to staff writers, and if you were the assistant to the editor, you were almost guaranteed a decent gig after your indentured servitude.

Now you are not. Budgets are cut. Jobs dry up. Old timers hold onto theirs at the expense of yours. All you have to offer is your cheap, cheap price tag.

There's no real comfort to be offered. Just ride out the bad years, sell your drugs, and bide your time until all the ad money comes flowing back in (6.5 years). At least you're no longer in danger of becoming the pooping intern.

At Conde Nast, the Media Group is the inner sanctum—the people who bring in the vast majority (80%) of the money that keeps the company afloat. Ad Age says that cuts could come this week, although it gives no estimate of how many of the Media Group's 135 employees could go. [Know more? Email us.]

Of course, from a business perspective, this is hardly a surprise. Conde CEO Chuck Townsend told employees in a memo earlier this month that "additional difficult decisions to manage costs" were on the way. They folded Domino in January, and many of the company's biggest titles saw huge ad page declines last year.

One might say that the sun is setting on Conde Nast's fancy culture. One just might.

Fewer magazines and fewer ad pages would naturally mean fewer staffers in the group that handles big advertisers at any normal publishing company. But Conde's not run like a normal, numbers-wise publishing company; it's run as an entrenched bureaucracy. The fact that such a favored department is getting hacked is a dark sign for, oh, editorial staffers, who'll have a much harder time pointing to the bottom line to justify their own existences. Beware, Nasties. [Ad Age]