Top editors are laid off at TV Guide prior to sale closing
NEW YORK—TV Guide has laid off its top editor and several other senior staff members just before the sale of the magazine's parent company is completed.
Editor-in-Chief Ian Birch was among those laid off on Wednesday, a day after shareholders of
Murphy declined to name other staffers who were cut, but the entertainment industry news blog Deadline Hollywood reported earlier Thursday that two other senior editors were also departing, Lois Draegin and Steve Sonsky. She said an announcement about a new editor was expected next week.
Macrovision has said it intends to explore a sale of some Gemstar assets after the $2.8 billion deal closes on Friday, including the TV Guide print magazine, the TV Guide cable channel, and TVG, a cable horse racing network.
A spokeswoman for Macrovision declined to comment.
Macrovision, which develops video copyright protection and other technologies, plans to hold on to Gemstar's video programming grid technology as well as TV Guide's thriving Web site.
TV Guide magazine, once a staple of living rooms across America, has fallen on hard time in recent years as more people use on-screen programming guides from their cable or satellite TV providers.
In mid-2005 the magazine slashed its guaranteed circulation by two-thirds and relaunched in a larger size, positioning itself as a glossy entertainment title with less emphasis on listings.
It wasn't clear who might be in the running to buy the magazine or what might happen to it if a buyer can't be found.
Newsstand sales, a closely watched indicator of the health of a magazine, have been declining steadily at TV Guide, falling from 329,956 in 2005 to 225,820 last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
