|
|
|
taking a hike
Linda Sepp eased out as part of title's makeover
By Jeff Bercovici
Those change agents have been working overtime at Fast Company.
Publisher Linda Sepp has been shown the door after eight years on the magazine's sales force. A memo from Dan Rubin, executive vice president in charge of Fast Company and Inc., says she is leaving to pursue other interests. Associate publisher Jim McCabe will handle her duties until a replacement can be named. Sepp was promoted to publisher in January 2002 when Gary Mirkin departed after little more than a year on the job.
Sepp’s exit follows closely a transition on the editorial side of the forward-thinking business title. In February of this year, Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, Fast Company’s co-founders, announced plans to step down, limiting their involvement in the magazine to a consulting role. To replace them, Gruner + Jahr hired John Byrne, a star writer at Business Week.
In yet another transition, Gruner + Jahr said last month that Fast Company would follow Inc., the company’s other business title, in moving its editorial offices from Boston to New York, where G+J has its headquarters.
Started in 1995, Fast Company has survived a brutal shakeout among magazines that cover business with an emphasis on new technologies. The casualties include The Industry Standard, Red Herring, Upside and Smart Business, as well as eCompany Now, which disappeared when Time Inc. bought Business 2.0. Most recently, Penton Media announced that Internet World will cease publication of its print edition.
With a circulation of 725,000, Fast Company is approaching the size of the magazines whose success it seeks to emulate: Business Week (970,000), Forbes (900,000) and Fortune (830,000). Subscriptions were up 4.7 percent to 711,616 in the second half of the year, while newsstand sales, which make up less than 5 percent of Fast Company’s total circulation, were off 20.4 percent, averaging 22,833, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The trouble, of course, has been advertising, which plunged 54 percent in 2001 and another 18 percent last year in terms of pages. The magazine has been faring somewhat better in 2003, with pages up 15.8 percent through April, totaling 234.4, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
Gruner + Jahr bought Fast Company from Mort Zuckerman, owner of U.S. News & World Report, in December 2001 for $340 million.
May 29, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
Printer-Friendly
Version | Send
to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact
Us