• by April 14, 2020

Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker,yesterday informed workers of an austerity plan as advertisers cut back on media spending, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The cutbacks echo those of other hardships, like the financial crisis in 2008 and dot-com bust in 2000, that ushered in economic slowdowns. But the publishing giant has taken other measures over the years to contain costs — a management reshuffle and/or trimming its portfolio of brands.

Roger J. Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast, sent a memo to the publisher's 6,000 employees that outlined its plans to weather the current crisis, The New York Times reported.

Workers with yearly salaries of $100,000 or more will see pay cuts of 10% to 20% for five months starting in May. Condé Nast will cut the pay of senior managers, including Anna Wintour, the company's artistic director and EIC of 9, by 20%.

Lynch will see a pay cut of 50%, along with board members who weren't employees of Condé Nast's parent organization Advance Publications. The company is freezing hiring on hundreds of openings, and expects to cut some jobs, the memo said.

The cutbacks are an unfortunate consequence of the pandemic, and a setback for Lynch, the former head of Pandora Media who joined Condé Nast last year and has overseen a strategy boost revenue and regain profitability.

Like many companies, Condé Nast faces significant uncertainties about the financial toll of the pandemic and how quickly consumers and businesses can bounce back from the sudden suspension of commercial activity.

During the last recession, Condé Nast implemented pay cuts and shed titles like Portfolio, Men's Vogue and Gourmet. When the dot-com bubble burst almost a decade earlier, the company cut jobsin its CondéNet digital unit that had pioneered its digital publishing efforts.

Those periods also saw consumers pull back from spending on big-ticket items, such as luxury goods and travel services that advertise in Condé Nast's magazines. The key to any recovery will be how quickly the pandemic can be contained in the next couple of months.