Martin Durham, managing director and chairman of Haymarket Business Media, said: “It’s no secret that the advertising, commercial media and marketing communications sectors have been hit by the economy and our brands, although they are leaders in their fields, have suffered too.
“We, like other media owners, have been hit by a combination of a severe advertising downturn and unprecedented structural change.
“Our proposed restructure consolidates our marketing communications brands into a stronger and more integrated portfolio that puts them into a commercially sound position well-placed for the recovery. We will continue to provide the best and most comprehensive coverage of the marketing communications sector in print and online.”
Following the restructure, MediaWeek will no longer be published in print but will continue online under the control of a full-time editor and drawing on the resources of an enlarged Brand Republic news team. MediaWeek.co.uk has monthly traffic in excess of 80,000 unique users along with two daily email bulletins that are read by more than 25,000 commercial media professionals.
The successful MediaWeek Awards, annual Media 360 conference and other marketing communications events run under the MediaWeek brand continue unaffected.
Revolution will now be distributed as a quarterly supplement with Marketing magazine, and will be backed by a new blogging initiative in 2010.
Haymarket is committed to further investment in its market leading website Brand Republic with a redesign of the site in early 2010. Online-only brands Marketing Direct and Promotions & Incentives will be integrated into Brand Republic, bringing further specialist content to its audience of 689,000 unique users per month.
As a result of the changes, editorial staff in Brand Media have entered into consultation, from today. Eighteen editorial positions from a total of 58 will be lost from Brand Media.
Jane Macken, managing director of Haymarket Brand Media, said: “We will do everything we can to keep job losses to a minimum, and we are looking to redeploy affected staff in other parts of the group.
“I would like to place on record my appreciation of the efforts of all our editorial staff. Throughout a very difficult time they have continued to produce editorial content of exceptionally high quality.”
