Travelers united
Condé sets staff combo
The British and American versions of Condé Nast Traveler will be united in a single editorial platform starting in January 2019, and the British Editor-in-Chief Melinda Stevens will lead the combined staffs.
Pilar Guzmán, who had been the top editor in the US, has now been relegated to “helping with the transition” and is expected to leave the magazine once the December issue wraps.
But a spokeswoman said there will be “minimal” downsizing of the remaining editorial staffs.
The move is the first serious collaboration between Condé Nast International, headed by Chairman Jonathan Newhouse, and Big Apple-based Condé, headed by Chief Executive Bob Sauerberg. Some observers see it as a sign of Newhouse’s growing influence within the parent company.
A spokeswoman said there are no other plans to combine editorial of
other print magazines at the moment but there could be business combinations. In the current setup, both magazines will keep separate ad staffs.
Separate print editions will still be published in each country, even as the editorial staff in New York and London work together to fill them. The American CN Traveler was cut to eight times a year for 2018 and will retain that frequency. CN Traveller in Britain will continue at 10 times a year.
On the digital front, the American
version of Traveler will be the main URL. The British version will default to the American Web site.
The larger Condé operations based at One World Trade Center are trying to reverse a loss of $120 million in 2017 on revenue estimated to be under $900 million.
In the last publicly available documents for the British Condé Nast Ltd. covering fiscal year 2016, the division was reporting revenue of $154.2 million and a profit of $5.5 million, according to filings with Companies House.