Cygnus Cuts 6 Percent of Workforce

Well, is this a surprise? It's not every other media company hasn't done something like. The question is: Will trade press have a purpose in the future?

Trade press will survive as soon as the investment bankers are weeded out.

Advantage in WI can hire them!

These jobs, at least in the Photo Group, were based out of NY. My heart breaks for my friends on these books. You can ask what did they expect, but these people are so dedicated to their book and their industry. I am so, so sorry. What's next? The printing books?

So, can we rest assured with job security or..? We are in Wisconsin offices, where unemployment is rampant. We NEED our jobs, and we are dedicated to Cygnus.We would love to hear some positive words for our jobs. (A little praise would be nice too)

Seriously??? Everyone NEEDS their jobs--regardless of being in WI or not- take a look at the news. WI is not unique. I doubt there is anyone walking around today saying, "I could care less that I have a job- I don't really need one." If you are so dedicated to the company, then address your concerns to your management chain. I can assure you that this is NOT the place to get your questions about job security answered----

I feel so badly for those who lost their jobs. Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for years now, and anyone still there who actually thinks they have job security is seriously deluding themselves. Jump ship, folks, because if you don't, they WILL eventually toss you overboard.

My heart goes out to every one of those 30 who lost their jobs. I pray there is not more of this to come...

So jump ship ... to where? To Milo Media so we can join a lawsuit to get paid? Or how about to Thomas Publishing also in Folio's headlines who shuttered a 76 year old and laid off over a dozen people? Truth is - layoffs are happening everywhere and in every industry to long-time employees as well as rookies - it sucks out there. The best we can do is our best and try to put a little $ away just in case. Good Luck to all!

I am so sorry to hear this. Times are ugly, and options are limited, no matter where in the country you are located. Maybe this is what Cygnus needed to right the ship and get a chance at a sale or survival...I'm as much for competition as the next guy, but face it, nobody wins if Cygnus fails. Wolf

This is very sad. I thought photography magazines had a pass since they can do things with glossy paper that can't be duplicated online.

The problem with Cygnus is there are too many people at the top I know of two books they have one person selling 70% of the business and a publisher over each of the books making a lot of money for not doing much of anything that is why so many big publishing companies are losing money.

Here in the blog we have ex-employees slamming Cygnus (no work to do at your current jobs that you can blog all day?), current Cygnus employees asking if their jobs are safe (how safe do you think you are if you have to blog to find out if you are going to have a job in the near future??), and then we have Wolf making comments about how he hopes they survive? Wolf, ya looking for another job at Cygnus or WHAT? For the amount of smack talk you've put on Cygnus blogs, do you really think they'll hire you back??? You only hope they survive because you need a job now that Milo's gone belly up!

The company has since been negotiating another deal. The spokesperson says negotiations are “ongoing.” Could this be a 3 year clean-up job? And the Carnaval continues at Cygnus.

Believe it or not, I have friends within Cygnus, and I care about them (I don't know who you are, but you may exclude yourself from the above statement). I find it odd that you interpret my post as a "job application". I'll re-state and explain: I said: I am so sorry to hear this (I think it's pretty clear what that means). I also said: Times are ugly, and options are limited, no matter where in the country you are located (a simple statement of fact - read the news). Then I said: Maybe this is what Cygnus needed to right the ship and get a chance at a sale or survival (pure speculation on my part, and has zero impact on my life, but I think you might want to agree with me on this)... Continued: I'm as much for competition as the next guy, but face it, nobody wins if Cygnus fails (You can insert any publishing company here and it applies - in my opinion). Have a nice day - Wolf

There are many other people in Cygnus that should have gotten canned before others. Believe me, I know. None of this makes alot of sense to me as to who was let go and which publication folded. The main thing is, that some of us definitely did not deserve this and are now officially screwed. I should know....I am one of them.

Our industry is not coming back, get real. If your book has no value any longer (like PTN was for the retail or Drugstore trade that prints pictures - with digital that is a dying breed) or advertisers have departed to the new options to get their message out, most people get to stay or go depending who likes them or how much they make. But more books will be killed off by Cygnus as their viability and market become surpassed in these modern times. Many of the industries or retailers that were well served by trade books are dinosaurs or suffering in these difficult economic times. The internet has destroyed many industries and jobs and left confusion in its wake. It is only going to keep getting worse with regard to print and digital is not a great money maker like print was. But advertisers want to pay digital prices for ads.

My heart goes out to my friends at PTN and Studio Photography. I'll miss your PMA dailies. In 1993, I was the Managing Editor of Photo Business and went down with the ship when it folded (another recession), so I know your pain all too well. Good luck!

Carr Davis from Nov 2008 Folio interview: "From a headcount point of view, we’re essentially the same. We have about 600 people in this company. It may not feel that way to certain people. As the captain, I have a sense of what’s going on for the whole ship. But as we’ve evolved, we needed to make investments in the interactive department. For example, we did a lot of hiring of interactive product managers—people we placed between the sales force and the technology people. And it’s interesting what skills they need: They need to be affable enough to sell and technical enough to interact with the technology people. We’ve hired about eight of them."

It seems all b2b print companies are the same...Cygnus is no different. Bottom line is...if you let the advertisers dictate your editorial content, succumb to low-ball pricing pressures, give-away online content as an free "added-value", have 20% of your workforce doing 80% of the business and then having an owner or President of the company that pressures you to "cut costs" and encourages you do "whatever it takes" to get the business without sticking to a systematic strategy...you're dead meat. And this is why most B2B publishers have one foot on the banana and the other in the grave. The unfortunate part is the most subscribers are industry vets who know when they read BS. It seems BS is now the king of content due to cutting knowledgeable staff/circulation/salaries/cheaper paper etc. Its much easier to fill the book with product releases, remnant space price specials, bogus case-study manuscripts from manufacturers etc. than to produce exclusive material that educates or informs your reader. Ask yourself...is your publication doing its best for your audience and industry you serve? Probably not.

I totally agree with this comment. I thought the photo books starting going downhill when George Schaub left Cygnus. George was one of the best editors Cygnus ever had, and his departure was symptomatic of what has been wrong with this company for the last 10 years--too much emphasis on short-term profits and too little emphasis on journalistic quality. Later, when the photo magazines were placed under the same management as the already struggling print industry publications, their fate may have been sealed. Ironically, PTN was the first magazine this company ever published, and it lent its title to the original name of the firm. PTN was born in 1936. It survived the Great Depression, but it could not survive ABRY.

The photo books went away because the market has changed. These aren’t the only publications that have disappeared this year and they won’t be the last. The economic situation trade publishing is in doesn’t have anything to do with ABRY or the way other publishing companies are run. IT’S THE ECONOMY. Ad pages are down 27% and revenue is down much more. The margins on trade publishing can’t cover this much of a loss. And it’s not just publishing that’s failing financially. It’s all kinds of companies. Toyota has lost money for the first time in their history. GE’s stock has plummeted. The staffs on publications that fail aren’t incapable or didn’t do their best. It doesn’t matter. Advertising is the last investment when a business is suffering. Most businesses are experiencing severe financial challenges so even the best efforts aren’t going to be rewarded.

Certainly the economy is part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem. The primary reason the economy is in trouble is because too many high-risk loans were made by banks, and too much of the the nation's business was too highly leveraged. That is what happened to Cygnus. ABRY bought Cygnus in 2000 for $275 million, or about 13-14 times net pretax profits, based on information then-CEO Gerry Hogan gave to Cygnus employees in 1999. This was a very high price, and about double the 5-6 times net pretax profits that the company sold for in 1997. A Cygnus group publisher told me that Paul Mackler and ABRY envisioned the company making about $50 million per year in net pretax profits, which would be reasonable for a $275-million company, if Cygnus really was one. Apparently, much of the growth was expected to come from Internet advertising, which proved to be a miscalculation, as it is currently impossible to charge as much for Web advertising as print. Also, the wide availability of inexpensive Internet advertising made print less competitive. To make matters worse, many publishers like Cygnus started putting their entire magazine content on the Web rather than using the Internet to promote their print products. This proved to be self-defeating as it made their print products largely unnecessary. The old adage, "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one," isn't true anymore. Today, all you need is a computer and a Web host. Traditional print publishers, especially those with heavy debt loads, can no longer compete with the Internet, and cutting costs by replacing quality editorial with cheap advertorial doesn't help.

I read and enjoyed Studio Photography for many years and miss it coming each month. As a business person I found the information beneficial. The web is great but I have saved past issues and have clipped articles which I still use today. Reading and viewing a computer screen doesn't compare to the tactile experience of a magazine or newspaper.