It was a profitable magazine when Time Inc. acquired Business 2.0 back in 2001 from Imagine Media (now Future US), but the world’s biggest magazine publisher never managed to steer it back into the black. And today, the ax fell as expected: John Huey, Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc., was in San Francisco for the long expected announcement that the October issue will be the magazine’s last. Some of the staff will remain in the San Francisco office and will work for Time Inc.’s flagship business brands, Fortune and Fortune.com.
The decision has been rumored for months and isn’t entirely surprising considering the magazine’s financial performance. Nat Ives summarizes the situation on the Huffington Post:
Business 2.0 has drawn concern from Time Inc. brass for some time, not least because its ad pages sank 7.7% in 2005, and 5.1% in 2006, according to Publishers Information Bureau. For 2007 through the September issue, ad pages were down a crushing 35.3%, per the Media Industry Newsletter. Paid and verified circulation averaged 608,328 during the first half of this year, down 3.9% from the first half last year, according to the title’s report to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
That’s not to suggest that the magazine failed to deliver smart coverage and attract passionate readers. When rumors of Business 2.0’s troubles began circulating, a much reported Facebook group — ‘I read Business 2.0 — and I want to keep reading!’ — sprang up in support and quickly attracted over 2,000 members.
The biggest cause of 2.0’s downfall, according to recent reports? Time Inc. itself, which removed the individual sales staffs of its business titles last year and merged them into one unit. Without its own dedicated sales reps, Business 2.0 ad pages plummeted, and by the time the re-org was recognized as a failure earlier this summer, it was simply too late to reverse course.
(Image of Business 2.0. launch issue, August 1998)
