Conde Nast to shut down Portfolio

For nearly two years I’ve been covering the media industry’s bad news on this blog, including some that’s hit very close to home. Now it hits closer still: Condé Nast Portfolio is closing. Our editor in chief, Joanne Lipman, just broke the news to staff, saying the decision had been made “because of financial reasons at Advance,” Condé Nast’s parent company. “It’s not anything that the company wanted to do.” She said she was informed by Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. this morning of the decision. – from Portfolio

Conde Nast is shutting down its glossy business magazine Portfolio, two years after its launch. Conde Nast famously poured $100 million to launch the publication, which went on an expensive hiring spree in 2007 in its attempt to take on Fortune, Forbes, and Business Week. The magazine always seemed to me to have an unhealthy fixation with Wall Street and the hedge fund boom over other industries, but as Wall Street cratered nobody wanted to read those stories anymore. The drop in print advertising, down 26 percent in the first quarter, didn’t help matters either. – from Techcrunch

Under its chairman, Si Newhouse, Conde Nast has been known for its patience with money-losing titles and previously appeared ready to give Portfolio at least until the second half of the year. But ad declines across the company’s titles, including at the ones that traditionally could be counted on to cover losses at underperforming properties, has forced the publisher to have a shorter leash. “While the unprecedented nature of these times has made business and the economy the main topic of conversation, it has also led to high levels of uncertainty and a tremendous reduction in ad spend in the five key sectors Portfolio’s business model depends on,” David Carey, group publisher of the collection of Conde Nast titles that includes Portfolio, wrote in an email. – from WSJ