Conde Nast will cease publication of the Teen Vogue print edition and is gearing up to eliminate 80 jobs across the company, Variety has confirmed.
The layoffs will cut across all divisions of Conde Nast, according to a source, and represent a 2.7% reduction of the company’s 3,000-employee workforce.
Teen Vogue reduced its frequency to quarterly in 2017 (down from nine issues last year), and the print mag is now being entirely phased out. But a source said that Teen Vogue’s digital business is growing and will continue to expand under Phil Picardi, digital editorial director at Teen Vogue and Allure. The status of Elaine Welteroth, who was named Teen Vogue editor-in-chief in April 2017, is unclear at this point; she originally joined the publication in 2012 as beauty and health director.
[UPDATE: In a statement Thursday afternoon, Conde Nast said that while the quarterly print editions of Teen Vogue will cease publishing the company will explore “reimagined special issues timed to specific moments” in the future. “Teen Vogue has experienced tremendous audience growth across its digital, social and video platforms this past year,” Conde Nast said. “We are aggressively investing in the brand and all of its consumer touch-points, including events like the upcoming inaugural Teen Vogue Summit next month in Los Angeles.”]
The cutbacks at Conde Nast were first reported by WWD. According to the WWD report, the publisher’s “worst-performing divisions and magazines” will see their budgets slashed by up to 20%.
In another cost-cutting move, Conde Nast will trim the frequency of some magazines, according to the WWD report. GQ, Glamour, Allure and Architectural Digest drop from 12 issues to 11 per year, while Bon Appétit will go from 11 to 10, and W and Condé Nast Traveler will drop from 10 to eight per year.
Titles whose frequency will not change include Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Wired (12 times per year), the New Yorker (weekly), and Brides (six times per year).
