'Fortune Small Business' Gets Ad-Friendly Reboot

Fortune Small Business is joining the advertorial parade. The New York Post reports that Time Inc. is laying off most of the title's 17 editorial staffers en route to repositioning it "as an advertising vehicle," to be run out of the publisher's Content Solutions division. From now on, American Express, Time Inc.'s partner in the magazine and provider of its controlled-circulation distribution list, will have the right of final approval over editorial decisions. [Update: Um, no. Turns out the Post got this wrong -- see below.]

It's just the latest example of what the New York Observer recently termed "media's glossy new reality": editors editing for the sake of advertisers rather than readers. (In other glossy new reality news, The Los Angeles Times finally went public with plans for a new version of its magazine, to be overseen by the business side rather than the editorial side. It will be called LA, and be powered in part by contribution from Hollywood wives like Kathy (wife of Tom) Freston and Nancy (wife of Ron) Meyer).

Curiously, the move doesn't seem to be necessitated by immediate financial pain: Time Inc. says FSB is profitable. But while Fortune has been withstanding the ad recession in relative comfort, posting a 1.3 percent gain in first-half ad pages, FSB has been trending in the opposite direction, with pages down 14.3 percent in the same period.

Update, 11:47 a.m.: A Time Inc. spokeswoman says the Post's story contains a number of errors. Most notably, she says, "Time Inc. has complete editorial control over Fortune Small Business as it does over all its magazines and websites."

A spokeswoman for American Express Publishing also pointed out several inaccuracies in the piece: First, she said, Time Inc. doesn't oversee editorial for AmEx titles; second, that AmEx publishing is wholly owned by American Express, not a joint venture with Time Inc.; and third, that the arrangement is based on a profit split, not a flat fee.