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July 2001
- Thomson Learning is shutting down the online
college Harcourt
Higher Education after Harcourt invested over
$10 million in the elearning project.
HHE will no longer operate as as an independent
degree-granting institution after September 28, 2001.
Source: CNET 7-30-01
- Children's
Express News Service, a non-profit organization
which publishes news by reporters (ages 8 to 13)
and editors (ages 14 to 18), is closing
its doors after running out of funds.
Source: Editor & Publisher 7-30-01
- The L.A. Times is cutting 1,611 positions and closing
eight satellite offices. Most of the cuts involve
part-time workers.
Source. SF Gate 7-30-01
- Business Week has laid off 10 employees, about
5% of its 230 employees. Business Week is published
by McGraw-Hill. 7-27-01
- Tribune Interactive, the Internet division
of the Tribune Company, announced it will be making more job cuts in
2001. The number of cuts were not specified. Tribune Interactive
has about 500 employees.
Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune,
announced 1,400 job cuts in June of this year.
Source: Editor & Publisher 7-26-01
- Trinity Mirror, the largest newspapaper group in the U.K.,
announced plans to layoff 800 employees, about 6% of its
12,500 employees. Trinity Mirror blamed the weak
advertising market for its need to cut costs.
Source: Financial Times 7-26-01
- In addition to shutting down Family PC (mentioned below)
Ziff Davis is also shutting down Zcast.TV, a streaming
video news channel, and laying off 5 people.
Source: The New York Post 7-26-01
- RealNetworks, which provides software and services
for streaming audio and video, has laid off 15% of its
workforce.
Source: CNET, TheStandard.com 7-26-01
- Ziff Davis Media
is ceasing publication of Family PC Magazine
and laying off 25 employees. Ziff Davis had recently attempted
to save the publication by renaming it Family Internet Life,
but apparently it was not enough. Ziff
Davis is also rumored to be shopping several of its
consumer magazines,
including Yahoo Internet Life and Expedia Travels.
Source: MediaWeek 7-25-01
- iVillage.com now
plans to take
Women.com, which
it recently acquired, offline on
July, 31st. The content
on Women.com will be replaced with (or linked to)
iVillage content. Writers
of content on Women.com have been advised to print
copies of their work because the archives of Women.com could
be removed.
Source: Media Life Magazine 7-25-01
- The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.
announced it will restructure its
books and entertainment operations, resulting in an unspecified
number of layoffs. The company warned its
4th quarter revenues will be down significantly.
Reader's Digest also recently announced it would
cease publication of Walking magazine.
Source: Financial
Times, MediaWeek 7-25-01
- Wenner Media's US Weekly continues to lose
staff. The
New York Post lists several of the most recent defections.
- CNET announced plans
to cut 15% of its workforce after reporting a loss for
its second quarter. The cuts, which follow layoffs of
10% earlier this year, will be implemented by mid-September.
Source: The Write News 7-25-01
- Spoken word provider Audible.com
is cutting 35 jobs or approximately 40% of its workforce.
The layoffs include employee departures from all
ranks of the company.
Source: The Write News 7-25-01
- Reuters Confirms Layoffs
Reuters confirmed
that it will be laying off a number
of employees. The total cuts will be 1,340, about 7%
of its workforce. Reuters is reducing its staff after its
profits fell by over 20% from January through June, 2001.
The staff reductions will occur in 2001 and 2002.
Source: Newsbytes, Financial Times 7-24-01
- Deceptive Advertising on Search Engines?
Are search engines deceiving web surfers? Commercial Alert has
filed a deceptive advertising complaint with the FTC claiming
that search engines including Altavista, iWon, Direct Hit, Lycos
and others are deceiving web surfers with text ads that are
not listed as advertisements. Unlike Goto.com which lists paid
advertisers first and even includes how much they are paying
per click, Commercial Alert claims the search engines it names
hide the fact that some of its search engine results are
actually advertisements. Click here to read the Commercial Alert
complaint. The Online Journalism Review (OJR) also has an
article on this topic. 7-24-01
- CMP Media, Inc. is closing GamePower.com, a gaming resource providing
news, reviews and other gaming-related features. The online
publication will close on July 31st. 7-24-01
- Next50.com, a resource for seniors, has shut down.
7-24-01
- World news provider
Reuters is
expected to layoff 1,000 - 1,200 of its 18,000
employees worldwide, about 5-6%. Editorial staff
are expected to excluded from this round of layoffs.
Source: The Financial Times 7-23-01
- Easyriders, Inc. has filed Chapter 11. Easyriders
plans to continue business operations and
emerge from Chapter 11 after restructuring
its debt. Some of the company's publications include
Easyriders, Tattoo, Tailgate and V-Twin.
Source: The Write News 7-20-01
- One Magazine, a high-glossy bimonthly
design magazine with 200,000+ subscribers,
has folded and laid off its 44 employees.
The August/September issue of the magazine will be the
last. One's website
will remain online, but will not be updated.
Source: MediaWeek 7-20-01
- iNextTV, a
content producer and syndicator, has won the Dead Dot-com
of the Day award from the New York Post.
iNextTV has closed its doors and will no longer produce
Couch Confessions, a reality-based online program it
was trying to license.
Source: The New York Post 7-20-01
- Business-to-business publisher Cahners has
cut 500 of its employees since February, 2000.
Now, Marc Teren, the CEO of Cahners Publishing
(and the person in charge of the firings),
has resigned.
Source: The New York Post 7-20-01
- Newspapers Cut Book Editorial Space
Book review editorial pages are still shrinking
nationwide. So far cuts have been made at many
papers including the San Francisco Chronicle,
The Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the
Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the
Boston Globe, the New York Times
and the New York Times Book Review,
among others.
In April of this year, The New York Times ran an
article on decreasing newspaper book editorial pages.
Now, Salon has a more extensive article on the diminishing
editorial space set aside for book reviews in its article,
"The Incredible Vanishing Book Review." The reductions
certainly diminish the opportunies available to get books
noticed and could ultimately decrease book sales. 7-19-01
- PlanetOut.com, GLBT media company, has
cut 12 employees. Earlier this year, a planned merger
between PlanetOut and Liberation Publications,
Inc., publisher of The Advocate, was terminated.
Source: PlanetOut 7-18-01
- What Do The Forced Summer Vacations Mean?
In its July issue, CFO magazine examines why some companies
are forcing employees to take vacations this summer -- and suggests
that this measure might foreshadow layoffs.
If ``forced vacation'' sounds like an oxymoron, the reasoning behind the
idea seems equally strange, CFO observes in its NewsWatch section.
Citing labor-cost savings, Sun Microsystems and Adobe Systems,
among others, are requiring employees to take time off with pay for the
first week in July. But explanations about just where the savings lie
have been thin. Since employees will take time off anyway during the
year, notes PricewaterhouseCoopers's James Harrington, ``the only
way to get a cost savings is not to pay for paid vacations.''
So, CFO points out, the company's basic savings would come from
any closure of facilities while the employees are away. That would be
true unless a company is planning to lay off employees later in the year;
then, the accrued vacation of those laid off will have been used up, so
accrued vacation pay wouldn't be paid at termination. More optimistically,
CFO notes, forcing vacations during slack operating periods does allow
companies to be at full strength, with less overtime to pay, when
business picks up.
- Blackboard, Inc., a provider of elearning software
and services, has laid off 40 people -- about 8%
of its 490 employees.
Source: WashingtonPost 7-17-01
- Internet retailer buy.com is meeting with a
Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel on July 19, 2001
to determine if its stock can continue to be listed on
The Nasdaq National Market. Buy.com's shares have
a long way to climb to meet the Nasdaq minimum bid price of $1.
Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) has recently been trading
under 30 cents per share. 7-16-01
- More Print Mags Up For Sale. The advertising downturn
is hitting print magazines hard and AdAge reports
that Gear, Maximum Golf, Home Companion, The Industry Standard
and The Source are just some of the titles recently put
on the block.
Source: AdAge.com 7-16-01
- Media giant Bertelsmann is cutting several hundred positions in
its music division.
Source: Financial Times 7-16-01
- Walking Magazine, a 575,000 circulation
health and fitness magazine
from Reader's Digest, has folded and laid off most
of its staff. The September/October issue will be Walking Magazine's
last.
Source: Media Life Magazine,
New York Daily News 7-15-01
- Medscape, a health information portal, has cut 22% of its
staff, about 100 employees. Medscape is exploring alternatives,
including a possible sale. Source: CNNfn 7-13-01
- The Future Network plc, the UK based magazine publisher which
sold Business 2.0 to AOL Time Warner, has laid off another
140 employees. Earlier this year the company cut 350
employees and ceased 20 publications.
Source: Financial Times, The Register
7-13-01
- Forrester Research, Inc., a firm which provides technology analysis
and research, is laying off 111 employees, about 15% of its staff.
Source: Newsbytes, Internet.com 7-13-01
- More cuts likely at AOL Time Warner.
The heads of the music, movies and magazine publishing
divisions at the media giant have been asked to pursue
additional job cuts. AOL has already laid off 2,400
employees this year.
Source: Financial Times 7-12-01
- Dow Jones Cuts People and Plants.
Dow Jones is cutting
another 150 employees because of the
slowing economy. The outsourced maintenance of hundreds of
indoor plants is also being discontinued. By cutting its
plant maintenace contract
Dow Jones hopes to save about $40,000 anually, equal to
the cost of one employee. Employees can offer to take care
of a plant themselves or take a plant home. The new round
of layoffs follows cuts of 16 Wall Street Journal editorial
staffers earlier this week.
Source: The New York Post 7-12-01
- CNN is shuttering MyCNN.com, its personalized news service.
On July 23, 2001 MyCNN.com will redirect users to a similar
service on Netscape (My Netscape), another AOL Time Warner property.
Source: Newsbytes 7-12-01
- Napster has been shut down until further notice.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ordered the
website to remain closed until Napster can prove
it can reliably block access to copyrighted music files.
Napster shut itself down a few days ago to work
on changes and glitches in its software. Napster
usage has plummeted from millions of users to
less than 200,000 since last year.
Source: CNET, TheStandard.com, New York Times 7-12-01
- The Toronto Star is dumping Fast Forward,
its special hi-tech section.
Technology articles and content will now be
included in other sections of the newspaper.
7-12-01
- Consumers Digest Inc. has shut down its online
operations for ConsumersDigest.com
and YourMoney.com.
Press Access reports that Your Money magazine has
ceased publication as well and lists several laid
off editorial staff. However, the YourMoney.com
website says it will continue the print editions
for Consumer Digest and Your Money.
Source: Press
Access. 7-11-01
- Individual Investor Group, Inc. has ceased publication
of Individual Investor Magazine and laid off
90% of its staff.
Source: The Write News 7-10-01
- The Wall
Street Journal (print edition) has cut
16 editorial employees. The Journal employs
over 600 people.
Source: The New York Post 7-10-01
- eYada, an online
talk radio network, has shut down.
All 70 employees were let go.
Source: atnewyork.com 7-9-01
- Three websites have been resurrected.
Cinescape.com, eToys.com and eBookNet (now eBookWeb) have each
been revived. See The Undead for more information.
7-6-01
- Nerd hangout Slashdot.org could be at risk for a
big change. Its parent company, VA Linux, recently cut
35% of its staff and is abandoning the hardware business.
VA Linux owns the OSDN: Open Source Development Network (previously
Andover.net), which Slashdot.org is a part of. VA Linux
acquired Andover.net in June, 2000.
Source: MSNBC 7-6-01
- Globalfarmers.com,
an agriculture portal, has folded just after winning
an award from New Media Age.
Source: Media Guardian
7-5-01
- CitySearch is firing 90 employees, about 17% of its
workforce. Source: CNET
7-3-01
- The Future Network has ceased publication of its Business 2.0
editions in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
AOL Time Warner now owns the U.S. edition.
Source: CNET
7-3-01
- Bad News for Authors and Publishers
Book returns are increasing according to a news
report in the New York Times. The returns could
potentially as bad as they were in 1996-1997 when
increasing book returns convinced publishers
to cancel some author's book contracts.
Poor book sales can also lead to cutbacks in the numbers of
books published and layoffs at the publishing houses.
The Association of American Publishers reported that
book returns for the first 4 months of 2001 were 11% higher
than they were in 2000.
Source: The New York Times 7-2-01
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