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Forbes Media has announced that it will combine its print and Web staffs—both sales and editorial—ending a longstanding split within the company.

Via ValleyWag, here’s the memo from chairman and CEO Steve Forbes detailing the “bold” moves:

From: Steve Forbes
Sent: Mon 11/17/2008 2:20 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: News

We want to let you know of a series of structural changes that will enable us not only to better weather the current economic storm, but to move ahead quickly and profitably when the globa More...

The mounting layoffs across the magazine industry have an inherent sadness attached to them. After all, these are actual people we’re talking about losing their jobs, not enigmatic, bloated, corporate cyborgs getting fat off the gristle (which is why I hate it when I read a report about layoffs which says something like “roughly 15” people were laid off—well, how many is “roughly 15” exactly?).

But occasionally layoffs are actually good news, specifically when they come from a magazine that roughly every single person I’ve talked to in the last two month More...

* [EDITOR'S NOTE: See updates below ...]

While analyzing the results of Mediamark Research Inc.’s Fall 2008 survey, I came across a weird stat that has got to be troubling to the publishers of “teen” magazines and others catering to the youth demographic:

In terms of age reach, just seven magazines—Teen Vogue (at 25.8, not exactly teens), Seventeen (26.9, or 9.9 years older than the name implies), Vibe (28.6), Game Informer (27.2), Blender (27.7), Maxim (29.1) and OK! (29.3)—have readers with a median age under 30.

More...

Details on those 600 or so layoffs Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore alluded to a couple weeks ago have emerged today in the form of magazine-specific memos inside the mega-publisher. Here, via Gawker and AllThingsD, are three. (If you have others please send to dylan@foliomag.com—anonymity guaranteed.)

Sports Illustrated wants 40 More...

The numbers are staggering: 22 at American Express Publishing; 30 at Southern Progress; 111 at Rodale; as many as 600 at Time Inc.; an unspecified number at Condé Nast, where a 5 percent across the board budget cut was implemented; and just yesterday More...

Important quote from yesterday’s story on the price of paper reportedly peaking in October (emphasis, mine):

Magazine paper prices have risen about $230/ton—about 25 percent—in the past 18 months, [deputy editor of PPI Pulp & Paper Week Chris] Cook said, but he doesn’t expect them to fall that far “because producers will idle their machines rather than run at a loss.”

Here’s the rest of Cook’s analysis:

“Mills are already taking downtime to prevent price erosion but whether they can remove enough capacity quickly en More...

The reports this week that U.S. News & World Report, a magazine once considered a distant third in the newsweekly category to Time and Newsweek, is again reducing its frequency weren’t surprising.

That the magazine—which had already announced it would go bimonthly in 2009, effectively ending its status as a newsweekly—would instead go monthly makes sense, given its intended shift in editorial direction away from news to what president Bill Holiber referred to this summer as a consumer guide of personal and “public service” journalism< More...

After more than 20 months and a presidential campaign that seemed like it would never end, Election Day is finally here.

As you cast your ballot in this historic race today, FOLIO: would like to invite you to take a moment and look back at some of the race’s award-winning (New York’s “Fist Bump”), compelling (Time’s “Contender"), controversial (New Yorker’s “Fist Bump,” the Atlantic’s More...

Did your Web site have a good traffic month? Unfortunately, it's all relative, my friends.

Let's all take a moment to bow down to the king of intelligent, partisan, all-caps news aggregation:

THANKS FOR MAKING OCTOBER 2008 THE BIGGEST MONTH IN DRUDGEREPORT'S 13 YEAR HISTORY! THE PAGE WAS VIEWED 798,524,935 TIMES FROM 153,563,619 VISITS FOR MONTH, NEARLY 6X SITE'S TRAFFIC IN OCTOBER '04... AND SOMEHOW IT FEELS LIKE IT'S ONLY JUST STARTING...

To put this traffic in perspective, the 314 consumer magazine Web brands tracked by the Magazine Publishers More...

Radar, which announced last week that it would shutter for the third time, is going ahead with its Halloween party tonight in New York—albeit one with a now-grimly ironic R.I.P. theme. (Say what you will about the magazine as a business, but Radar always knew how to throw a good party, an increasingly rare skill in magazineville these days.)

With all the relative hype and accompanying media press surrounding Radar’s latest demise (and good-bye party) it’s worth asking the question: Do they deserve it? Sure, their irreverent attitude when they arrived both recalled the More...

RELATED STORY: Layoffs, Restructuring at Time Inc.

After weeks of speculation surrounding layoffs at Time Inc., CEO Ann Moore broke the news about the company's restructuring to her staff this afternoon.

Here's Moore's memo:

----- Original Message -----
From: Moore, Ann - Executive Administration
Sent: Tue Oct 28 18:00:37 2008
Subject: Staff Announcement

October 28, 2008
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Ann Moore
Re: Staff An More...

It was a rough Friday for a pair of high-profile (if quirky) consumer magazines. Radar, Maer Roshan’s irreverent, Spy-baiting magazine folded for the third time. A few hours later, 02138—the “Harvard lifestyle” title acquired in May by Manhattan Media, a publisher with big plans for relaunching it and rolling out a series of similar magazines—folded, too.

Searching for the common denominator to the latest ite More...