Men's Vogue shrinks back to supplement; Portfolio drops two issues and 20% of staff

Up and down in a few years, Men's Vogue is being cut back to be a twice-a-year supplement to parent magazine Vogue. And Portfolio magazine, launched just last year is being cut back to 10 times a year from monthly.

In what is a sign of expected hard times to come at Conde Nast, the men's fashion spinoff that had grown to a standalone 10 times a year is shrinking back to appear in the spring and the fall. According to a story in Women's Wear Daily, the fate of publisher Marc Berger and others on the Men's Vogue 40-person editorial staff is unclear, though the editor Jay Fielden will remain.

Year to date through November, Men's Vogue had 588 ad pages, down 11 percent. Its November issue was down nearly a quarter from its 2007 counterpart, according to Media Industry Newsletter.

Men's Vogue sold an average of 53,600 copies on the newsstand in the first half of 2008, but raised its rate base to 400,000 on the strength of its circulation.

Portfolio staff have been told that staff cutbacks are imminent and WWD says it expects about 20 percent of the staff to be let go. The magazine's website sales staff is being folded into that of Wired Digital.

Publishing director David Carey said the moves were responding to an economic picture decidedly different from the one in 2006, when the magazine launched. The goal, he said, is “a realistic infrastructure, and to not just carry forward all of our 2006 plans as if the world never changed.” Portfolio had 680 ad pages in 2008.