NEW DIET: Time Inc.’s Food + Wine Magazine has been made to tighten its belt. The glossy, which is edited by Dana Cowin, eliminated six positions on Friday. It is part of a company-wide mandate to “streamline the business” — or, in other words, cut costs.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, six people on the editorial side lost their jobs, including a travel editor. That job would be eliminated and absorbed within the features department, but other roles would likely be combined.
The restructuring will allow Cowin to focus on digital, and put together a masthead that is trimmer and more nimble to traverse print and the Web, an insider told WWD. Time Inc. declined to comment.
It’s been no secret that Time Inc. chief executive officer Joe Ripp is out to trim the fat in order to free up cash for other endeavors.
In February, he laid out the company’s strategy before it was spun off from Time Warner in June. Glossies from the recently acquired American Express Publishing group, which included Food + Wine, had been impacted by the ceo’s mandate. Ripp told staff via memo that the company would eliminate job “redundancies” and streamline the organization. He ended the dour memo on a bittersweet note: “We can continue the recent pattern of annual layoffs for years to come or we can get ahead of and then reverse this trend by developing the investment capital and the ideas to restore our business,” he offered.
Rumor has it that more layoffs may come, as each Time Inc. title is currently in the process of setting its budget for the year ahead.