More media mayhem

Barely a day goes by at the moment without some media move or layoff. Recently we’ve had the changes at the San Jose Mercury News, then the big editorial layoffs at Time, and today it’s the turn of the Boston Globe, which is cutting 125 staff, 19 of them editorial (including sister pub the Worcester Telegram & Gazette).

Meantime, Line 56 is ceasing publication, Peter Coffee, formerly of eWeek has jumped ship to Salesforce.com (as director of platform research) and Mike DeMaria has left Network Computing to join a systems management company in Syracuse.

The Forbes piece explains why:

“Like many major newspapers, the Globe, which is owned by the New York Times Company, has been hit by shrinking circulation in recent years as a surge in Internet usage has cut into its readership. The most recent circulation figures, released in September 2006, showed a 7% decline from the year-earlier period, to 386,000 daily papers. The Telegram & Gazette dropped 11% over the same period.”

…quoting P. Steven Ainsley, the Globe’s publisher – “Even though we have the potential to reach the larger audiences through the combination of print, online and emerging platforms, such as mobile, we still face tough advertising and circulation markets,” he said.