Those staffers? They'll be gone by Christmas

The brutality of the magazine business these days is evidenced by the way in which BusinessWeek staff found out about massive layoffs -- they read about it in a story in the New York Times, based on an offering memorandum from the magazine's owner McGraw-Hill to potential buyers. According to a post on the Silicon Valley Insider, Stephanie Clifford of the Times got her hands on the memo from Evercore Partners, who are shopping the venerable magazine around. And, in some detail, it laid out that 20% of the staff -- about 85 out of 421 jobs -- would be eliminated in January.

“BusinessWeek will establish a leaner, entrepreneurial staff without affecting the brand, positioning of the franchise or revenue outlook. The eliminations of editorial staff are primarily in editorial support operations (makeup and copy desk), but also include a reduction in the number of journalists to reflect the smaller folio size of the publication."

Essentially the offering memorandum explains to investors how savings will be achieved to sweeten the prospects of buying a magazine that lost $43 million last year.

Related posts:

• BusinessWeek's pitch to investors: buy us, then fire us (All Things Digital -- Media Memo)