Ad pages have been falling throughout the magazine publishing industry, and titles have been shut down at a breakneck pace this year, with newspapers not far behind. Some titles seem immune to the problem; or, at the very least, the lesser of many evilly-immense decreases. Scientific American, as a unit of book publishing juggernaut Macmillan, was one of those at only an 18.1% ad page decline in 2009's first quarter. And the title, 164 years old, has weathered many storms in the industry; it's as solid as an oak.Yesterday, news of a reorganization had industry onlookers worried that a few employees would be let go. By the end of the day, media watchers were shocked as Editor-in-Chief John Rennie, who's held that role for 15 years, and at least 20 other employees were laid off.
Instead of operating as an isolated entity in Macmillan's wide portfolio, Scientific American will be placed under the umbrella of the company's Nature Publishing Group, which operates the London-based journal Nature as well as nature-themed book imprints.
The layoffs were a surprise to many who'd assumed the magazine was immune from the industry's bare-knuckled fight for the advertisers still interested in hocking their wares in their glossy pages. Portfolio.com, who interviewed Rennie, said that rumors the editorial slant would be altered so it would be more everyman-friendly were, as yet, untrue.
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