Reed Business Information is to close 23 B2B magazine titles in the US. FOLIO reports:

About nine months after putting the brands published under the U.S. arm of Reed Business Information on the block again, Reed Elsevier announced today that it is closing down the magazines it has not been able to sell or does not intend to keep. In total, the number of magazines to be closed down is 23.

According to FOLIO, parent company Reed Elsevier declined to comment on the number of job losses as a result.

Full post at this link…

• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• Timeline of RBI sale
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines

Ian Smith has stepped down after just eight months as chief executive of publisher Reed Elsevier.

Elsevier chief executive Erik Engstrom will replace him.

Full story at this link…

• Dow Jones: RBI buyer to be announced by October, says Reed Elsevier
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI

Reflecting on last week’s UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) conference, Peter Kirwan discusses the growing trend away from journalism in business magazine publishing.

Citing examples of United Business Media and Reed Elsevier, Kirwan points out that many trade magazine publishers no longer generate the majority of their revenue from print-based titles. Selling events, online data and other offerings, such as Reed’s ‘workflow solutions’, has taken over.

“Measured against models like these, business journalism starts to resemble a dying craft,” writes Kirwan.

“It’s obvious why. At its most basic, business journalism involves interpreting the dynamics of an industry. Yet if these shifting dynamics can be reduced to data points, and if those data points can be sold in digital format to subscribers, the value of external interpretation – and journalism – inevitably declines.”

Imagining a future without journalists.

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An internal document from Reed Business Information, publisher of Estates Gazette and New Scientist, says the company wants to grow its revenue from online activities by 50 per cent within three years.

Full DutchNews.nl story at this link…

According to a Dow Jones report on the document, the publisher specifically wants to raise the sale of online publications by 50 per cent in three years.

The division also needs additional cost cutting and an end to duplication of costs, chief executive Keith Jones said in the memo to staff.

Earlier this year RBI’s parent company Reed Elsevier announced the sale of several US magazine titles; in April RBI announced plans for 50 redundancies in the UK – you can see a full timeline of recent events at the company at this link.

• Dow Jones: RBI buyer to be announced by October, says Reed Elsevier
• RBI staff vote against further industrial action
• Digital ad revenue up 30 per cent at Wall Street Journal
• Press Gazette: Ian Smith quits as Reed Elsevier chief
• Johnston Press chief executive million pound earnings revealed in annual report

Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features

• Reed Elsevier to sell US magazine titles
• Laura Dixon stands in as temporary editor for Folio

Ed’s picks

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• BBC Radio 4: Why do foreign correspondents capture the imagination?

Tip of the day

• Different voices for your Twitter accounts

#FollowJourn

• @greigcameron/chief reporter

On the Editors’ Blog

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• Malcolm Coles: How US traffic is vital for UK newspaper sites
• Crowdsourcing the perfect press release – an update
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• Future: Digital ads going from strength-to-strength

• #FollowJourn: @greigcameron/chief reporter
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• Journalism Daily: FT clippings, sticky news, journalists freed from North Korea
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National Union of Journalist (NUJ) members at Reed Business Information (RBI) have voted against further industrial action following a strike ballot at the publisher.

In the Wednesday ballot, 111 voted against further action being taken in response to proposed merger of production desks at Flight International, ICIS and Contract Journal and issues of compulsory redundancies.

According to an internal memo seen by Journalism.co.uk, the NUJ chapel will meet with the company again on March 4 to discuss new offers to staff, with separate meetings to be held for members at New Scientist and Estates Gazette.

In the ballot, 64 NUJ members voted in favour of taking industrial action.

Last month the group announced 35 staff redundancies in the UK, citing ‘long-term structural needs’ and the new challenges of the economic downturn.

Parent company Reed Elsevier recently extended loan arrangements for its $2 billion debt.

In December Reed terminated the sale of magazine arm RBI, as a result of ‘the recent deterioration in macro-economic outlook and poor credit market conditions’.

• NUJ: More strife for Newsquest as four more NUJ centres vote to strike
• NUJ members ballot for strike at north-east Newsquest titles
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• Strike dates announced at Newsquest South London

Reed Elsevier, parent company of Reed Business Information (RBI), is close to completing a deal that would grant a three-year extension of $2 billion of loan debt.

Full story at this link…

• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• RBI staff vote against further industrial action
• Timeline of RBI sale
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI

With a little a lot of help from our friends (take a bow Headshift’s Tim Duckett) there’s a new Twitter kid on the block – @jocoukshares.

Following Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press’ exits from the FTSE 250, the aim is to provide almost real-time share price information for the newspaper and magazine publishing groups currently listed on the FTSE.

Below is a key to the company names:

FUTR – Future Publishing

CAU – Centaur

TNI – Trinity Mirror

INM – Independent News & Media

REL – Reed Elsevier

PSON – Pearson

JPR – Johnston Press

DMGT – Daily Mail & General Trust

INF – Informa

NWS – News Corp

Tim’s made stirling progress with setting up feeds of the share prices to Twitter and there’s no reason why this couldn’t be expanded beyond newspapers and mags in the future.

However, suggestions about a ‘front-end’ for the project are welcome. Building a newspaper-share-price-feed-tracking widget will probably be one of my Christmas Eve tasks – any suggestions?

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Since announcing the ‘divestment’ of magazine publishing arm Reed Business Information (RBI), the sale by parent company Reed Elsevier has been the centre of much speculation.

Below is a timeline (created using Dipity) of the events so far – if there are any missing, let me know:

• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• RBI sells off furniture titles in US

ThisIsMoney.co.uk reports that Reed Elsevier ‘is understood’ to be considering a deal to keep a stake in its £600m business information subsidiary, which it has been trying to sell to private equity firms since February.

• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• RBI sells off furniture titles in US

The RBI sale could soon be over, reports PaidContent:UK – ‘it looks like Reed Elsevier will either get less than it hoped or pull the sale altogether.’

• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• Timeline of RBI sale
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines

Bertelsmann has emerged as a potential buyer for Reed Elsevier’s B2B magazine arm, Reed Business Information.

• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• Timeline of RBI sale
• Dow Jones: RBI buyer to be announced by October, says Reed Elsevier
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?

A buyer for Reed Elsevier’s B2B publishing arm RBI is expected to be announced in October, a memo from Marianne van Leeuwen, the chief executive of Reed’s Dutch operations, has said.

• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines
• Press Gazette: Ian Smith quits as Reed Elsevier chief
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years

Internal and external candidate are being considered in preparation for Sir Crispin’s departure next year.

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A blog account of developments with Reed Elsevier‘s divestment (that’s sale to you and me) of Reed Business Information (RBI) has been shut down.

Started by an operation’s manager at Elsevier’s Total Jobs Group, Divestment Watch was started in March after the sale of RBI was announced in February.

The blog introduced itself as follows:

“What happens when your division is divested (sold)? What will it mean to me? What is the process? How can I prepare myself? That’s the topic of this blog, focussing on the Reed Elsevier sale of Reed Business.”

The most recent posting on the site is from Tuesday last week, but access to the site is now denied (though a cached version can still be seen).

A post on May 2 said the blog was attracting attention from the company:

“Rumour has it that RE and RBI board members have visited DivestmentWatch, and it has even come up during chats with the bankers (UBS) and the consultants (PWC) so it’s nice to know that there are some people interested and hopefully listening.

“DivestmentWatch has had 5000+ unique visitors so far, and averages about 150 to 200 a day, with a regular core readership of about 50-60 (thanks for your support!). I hope that it has helped you in some way.”

Can anyone shed light on why the blog has been removed?

• Timeline of RBI sale
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• paidContentUK: End of RBI sale coming
• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI