Condé Nast insiders wondering about how big crucial September issues will be

According to an estimate from Forbes magazine, the Newhouse family's fortune, based on Advance Publications' newspaper and magazine (Condé Nast) empire, has fallen by 50% to $4 billion.

And a number of insiders are reported by Keith Kelly of the New York Post saying that staff at the magazine empire are looking gloomily at July, when most of the big September issues of Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and Glamour are shipping. The news from each of those this spring has been gloomy enough.

"A bad September will mean they will be forced to take the ax to their huge editorial staffs," said a former Condé Nast executive.

According to Media Industry Newsletter, Vogue through May is down 31 percent in ad pages, while Glamour is off nearly 22 percent. Earlier this decade, both titles battled it out to become Condé Nast's most profitable magazine.

Meanwhile Vanity Fair is down 37 percent, fueled in part by a dizzying 52 percent drop in ad pages in the magazine's May issue.

"Condé Nast is operating the way General Motors did a few years ago," said a former executive. "They are bloated and out of touch with today's market."

With the closure of Portfolio magazine, speculation is ramping up about what's next.

Titles that are on the new endangered species list include Architectural Digest, down 49 percent through May; Allure, down 34 percent; and Wired, down almost 50 percent.

"[Condé Nast Chairman] Si Newhouse has ruled by his gut for many a year but he has always been an ad pages up or ad pages down kind of guy," said the former executive. "They are the only company that has yet to make a penny off of digital -- and they've been at it for over a decade, as long or longer than anybody else."

Added an insider, "Something has happened here that has set the whole place on fire. I don't know if it is just a scared Newhouse family reacting to the economy or if something else has happened. But something seems to be afoot."