After more than three decades in print, Entertainment Weekly will stop producing a physical copy of its magazine, shifting fully online.
Other titles owned by EW‘s new parent company, InterActive Corp., are also ditching print, among them InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español.
Barry Diller‘s IAC bought Meredith last year for $2.7 billion. Meredith had acquired all of Time Inc. in 2018 but soon moved to unload core brands Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated. Retaining People, EW and other brands, it created a new organizational unit called Dotdash Meredith. The mostly digital stable of brands managed by Dotdash since before the merger includes The Spruce, Serious Eats and TripSavvy.
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The division’s CEO, Neil Vogel, confirmed the news about the shift away from print in an email to employees. (Read it in full below.)
The shift will result in 200 layoffs, the company estimates, or about 5% of the total staff, though some of those losing jobs could move into some of the company’s 100 open positions.
The economics of print magazines have been in flux for some time. The internet had started to disrupt it nearly two decades ago, but in recent years print across the board has declined sharply while digital has seen an influx of advertising.
EW had been branching out already in recent years, creating a streaming video network along with People and presence on satellite radio via SiriusXM and other ventures in pursuit of alternative revenue streams.
“We have said from the beginning, buying Meredith was about buying brands, not magazines or websites,” Vogel wrote in the staff memo. “It is not 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 important brands, print is no longer serving the brand’s core purpose.”
Vogel said the plan is not to abandon print, but to refocus company resources on the most durable print outlets. The 19 remaining print titles in the portfolio, including People, Better Homes & Gardens and Southern Living, will get an injection of capital for better-quality paper stock and other enhancements.
The first issue of EW was published in 1990 after Time Inc. had identified potential for a magazine expanding on the popular “Picks & Pans” pop-culture section in People. While the title struggled in its early years, it eventually found its footing and became a profitable part of the Time Inc. empire.
Here is Vogel’s full memo:
Team,
Effective today, we will no longer be printing monthly magazines forEatingWell, Entertainment Weekly, Health, InStyle, Parents,andPeople en Español. This is an important step in the evolution of Dotdash Meredith, and I want to be clear with everyone about what we are doing and what is ahead.
We have said from the beginning, buying Meredith was about buying brands, not magazines or websites. It is not 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 important brands, print is no longer serving the brand’s core purpose. As such, we are going to move to a digital-only future for these brands, which will help us to unlock their full potential. These brands are among our most successful, important, and fastest growing digital properties – the online audience for Parents, InStyle, and EatingWell are each up over 40% year-over-year – and all of these brands have a bright future.
The decision to evolve these brands to digital-only means that some jobs – roughly 200 roles primarily supporting our print operations – will be eliminated. Transitions like this are very difficult, impacting colleagues and friends, some of whom have been with the company for decades. I can’t thank these employees enough for getting these brands to the strong place they are at today. Brand leaders have already notified those impacted, and we are taking great care to help ensure a smooth transition for these employees.
Today’s step is not a cost savings exercise and it is not about capturing synergies or any other acquisition jargon, it is about embracing the inevitable digital future for the affected brands. We are very serious about investing for growth – in 2022 alone we will be investing over $80 million in content across our brands. We currently have over 100 open positions in editorial, engineering, product, design, and ecommerce, some of which we hope to fill with people impacted today.
Naysayers will interpret this as another nail in print’s coffin. They couldn’t be more wrong – print remains core to Dotdash Meredith. From PEOPLE to BHG to Southern Living to WOOD, and all our other beloved print publications, we continue to provide incredible value to readers in print, and we will proudly print over 350 million magazines in 2022. Beginning today, we will be investing in our print-forward brands and products: everything from enhancing paper quality and trim sizes, to ensuring world-class editorial and beautiful photography. We are infusing fresh energy across these print-forward brands in all formats to make sure they can meet both the moment and the needs of their readers in new and innovative ways.
These are difficult decisions but we believe they are the correct decisions. We remain as enthusiastic as ever for the future of our brands and our company.
NV
