CMP Demolishing some Building

CMP has started to cull jobs from its building division as the downturn hurts revenues. With 400 staff in the building group this is likely to be at least 40 posts an insider speculated. Further evidence if we needed it that its a bloodbath out there.

Business Publishers Admit Its Getting Tough

Business publishers are normally very cautious about talking themselves into a recession so it is interesting to hear the CEOs at the PPA conference acknowledging that things are getting tough. Tim Weller says we have to get our heads out of the sand -it's going to be tough he says. William Reeds Charles Reed is bleating that online recruitment is tough too, which is surprising given their strength in that sector. CMP complained that the building sector was tough and so is recruitment.



David Gilbertson says magazines aren't dead. Just resting perhaps. Magazines may not be dead, but they are not growth businesses and will not drive shareholder value growth says I.



So, in a an uncharacteristic agreement with Weller, there is still time to get the heads out of the sand - but not much. Every day of dithering means that advertisers are losing the habit of doing business with business media houses. Recruitment revenues are being stolen by the job boards and the recruitment and selection agencies.



So, a question for Charles Reed - if recuitment is falling in print, and you are struggling to make it work in online - what are you going to do?



It's too late to mind the shop and hope the customers will come back, we need a new innovative approach to business media. Without it, when Bernard Gray of TES says that the elephant in the room is the sale of RBI, we will soon be saying that the dinosaur on the plain is all the old behemoths of business media.

United Business Media Changes CMP

United Business Media has begun to wrestle with the challenges of CMP. This was acquired from the Leedes family at the height of the tech boom in the last century. It has been in trouble almost ever since. The recovery in the tech market has helped the business make progress in the last couple of years. The latest wheeze is to divide the entrerprise into four bits, the old publishing bit, http://www.techweb.com/, a business devoted to the channels sector http://www.everythingchannel.com/, a business devoted to the electronics sector http://www.techinsights.com/, and a workflow businesss http://www.think-services.com/.

This dressed up as a big announcement but is little more than an internal reorganisation. Interestingly David LEvin is taking the direct reports of each of the section CEO's implying a high level of high level interference and meddling, something for which Levin is oft accused by those who have worked with him