Last week Condé Nast shuttered four magazines (Gourmet, Elegant Bride, Modern Bride, and Cookie), and gave the ax to sales staffers at Glamour and both edit and sales teams in the digital division. All this bloodletting was to satisfy the McKinsey wolves. Or was it? Fashion Week Daily is posing that the troubled media empire wants to free up enough cash to snatch up Hachette jewel Elle. Citing rumors from earlier this summer that the magazine was up for grabs to potential buyer Hearst, talk around fashion closets is that Elle is up for grabs yet again. But why would Condé, which has its own fashion bibles, need Elle? The article goes on to rub salt in the Condé wounds by pointing out how well Elle is doing exposure-wise and that it can still afford to send all its editors to the European shows. The premise is far-fetched at best. But …
The Daily also drops the tidbit that W plans on cutting its publishing frequency in half, producing just six issues a year. But don’t get in a tizzy — sure, W is pricey to produce and may have to cut budgets, but this reduced-schedule business is just talk, according to W’s chairman and editorial director Patrick McCarthy, who tells us that W will not be cutting its frequency to six times a year. So let’s just remain calm, people.
But What About Elle? [Fashion Week Daily]
