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Forbes Media Readies for Aggressive Cuts

The Forbes media empire is about to sustain some major cuts. Roger McNamee, one of the driving forces behind Elevation Partners' decision to buy a big stake in Forbes Media about three years ago, has resigned from the Forbes board. Elevation's Bre Pearlman, who has a reputation as an aggressive cost-cutter, will replace McNamee.

The resignation is the clearest sign yet that Forbes' future growth is falling flat. "Forbes and Elevation agree that we could no longer count on Forbes.com to offset declines in print. We agreed to a strategy shift from investment in the Web to aggressive cost cutting," says McNamee, co-founder of Elevation. Back in 2006, U2 front man Bono and five Elevation partners gambled that Forbes' online fortunes were so bright that they invested more than $250 million for a 40% stake in the media company controlled by the Forbes family.

Forbes magazine has already started downsizing. Stewart Pinkerton and other top editors were pushed into retirement recently and workers have been forced to take unpaid furloughs. Last year, the magazine's ad-page count tumbled 17%; so far this year ad pages are off 19%.

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