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closed by Ziff Davis
Young title just too fragile to weather ad slowdown
By Jeff Bercovici
Say "bon voyage" to Expedia Travels.
The year-old internet-age travel title became an ex-magazine yesterday when owner Ziff Davis Media announced it was ceasing publication following the November issue.
"This difficult decision is the result of a confluence of marketplace factors including the tough economy and the impact of the September 11th disasters on the travel market," said Ziff Davis CEO Bob Callahan in a statement.
Approximately 20 Expedia Travels staffers are being laid off, including editor in chief Gary Walther and publisher John Boland.
Last month's multiple hijackings delivered a massive blow to the travel sector, and a shakeout among travel magazines, a category that had expanded rapidly in recent years, seemed likely.
At first glance, Expedia Travels looked well situated to ride it out.
When Media Life spoke with Boland in late September, he struck a positive note, pointing out that the bimonthly magazine had doubled its circulation to 400,000 in its first year and saying that it planned both rate-base and frequency increases in 2002.
Boland says now that Expedia's yearling status left it vulnerable in an ad market in which even the long-term outlook is suddenly uncertain.
"I can't say this comes as a dramatic surprise based on the events of Sept. 11," says Boland.
"I think every magazine, regardless of what category it's in, took another look at its projections for both short- and long-term. As a launch, Expedia Travels was more fragile and more dependent on the ad economy than some of the other titles that have been around longer."
By the look of things, Ziff Davis couldn’t afford to nurture another money-loser, even one with decent prospects.
With its core areas of technology and business, Ziff Davis suffered more than any other major publisher from the implosion of the dot.com bubble. EBITDA in the fiscal first-quarter was down 89.2 percent, $3.5 million from the same period in 2000.
The publisher has let go more than 100 employees this year, including former CEO Jim Dunning, who lost his job in August.
Of Expedia's two cohorts in the consumer magazine group, one, Family PC, was shuttered in August shortly after being relaunched as Family Internet Life.
The other, Yahoo! Internet Life, has taken a tumble in advertising this year, with pages down 35 percent to 531.30 year-to-date through September, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
October 12, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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