NYTimes.com Article: Industry Standard Says It Will Cease Publication

[is@ime.usp.br]

This article from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by is@ime.usp.br.

Bom dia, classe.

Outra fonte de boa qualidade. Infelizmente, parece estar se afundando.

Existe uma "filial" brasileira em:

http://www.thestandard.com.br/

Boa leitura,

Imre Simon


/-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\


Let NYTimes.com Come to You

Sign up for one of our weekly e-mails 
and the news will come directly to you. 
YOUR MONEY brings you a wealth of analysis
and information about personal investing.  
CIRCUITS plugs you into the latest on 
personal technology. TRAVEL DISPATCH offers 
you a jump on special travel deals and news.  

http://email.nytimes.com/email/email.jsp?eta5

\----------------------------------------------------------/

Industry Standard Says It Will Cease Publication

By FELICITY BARRINGER and ALEX KUCZYNSKI



The Industry Standard, a magazine that rose with the dot-com boom
it was founded to chronicle but suffered when the bubble burst, has
published its last issue barring a last-minute rescue by some
unexpected savior, according to a statement released yesterday.

 The magazine's parent company, Standard Media International, is
expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection soon.

 In the statement, Alissa Neil, a spokeswoman for the magazine,
said: "The Standard will be suspending publication of its weekly
print magazine, The Industry Standard, while the company continues
to look for a buyer. It is quite possible that during that time we
will file Chapter 11. We're very disappointed that our short- term
financial situation requires this, but we remain hopeful that our
assets will be sold."

 Word began to spread earlier this week among the handful of
employees who were not taking a company-required vacation, and
executives scrambled to reach the rest of the 200 or so remaining
employees. In its heyday a little more than a year ago, the
company, based in San Francisco, employed about 400 people,
including 130 journalists. Company executives said that a flood of
dot-com ads brought in $140 million last year, allowing the
magazine to turn a profit in its third year of existence — a rare
feat in the magazine business.

 But advertising declined 75 percent in the first half of this
year, and the magazine was on track to lose $50 million on revenue
of $40 million, these executives said. International Data Group,
the Boston-based trade magazine publisher that once dominated the
board of Standard Media, let its partners know this week that it
would not seek or provide a bridge loan of about $10 million,
according to a person who participated in the discussions.

 Until a few days ago, several members of the company's board
thought that as cash ran out, bridge financing would give the
magazine enough breathing room to organize a sale, perhaps to a
publishing company like Dow Jones & Company (news/quote) or McGraw
Hill or even one of its investors, Pearson P.L.C. (news/quote)

 Although no new issue of the magazine is expected — the final copy
was published last week, three and a half years after the first
issue — the magazine's Web site, www.thestandard.com, is expected
to continue in the immediate future, operating with a skeleton crew
of journalists and technicians.

 Over the last two years, the magazine rode to unexpected revenue
heights, quadrupling its 1999 revenue in 2000. But in January, the
bottom dropped out of the advertising market.

 All the magazines devoted to the Internet and to investing in the
technology sector have been hurt by the economic downturn, but The
Industry Standard was the hardest hit. From January to June, for
example, the magazine's ad pages were down 75 percent, according to
the Publishers Information Bureau. By contrast, ad pages at
Business 2.0 declined 60 percent during the same period, Red
Herring was down 49 percent and Fast Company was down 47 percent.

 The news of impending bankruptcy came less than a month after The
Industry Standard sponsored a conference in Carlsbad, Calif., that
attracted industry chiefs from Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft
(news/quote) to Scott G. McNealy of Sun Microsystems (news/quote).
It came only a few months after the magazine, regarded by many as
the best of a new crop of news-oriented new-economy publications,
won a Gerald Loeb award, the highest award in financial journalism.

 The likelihood that a spirited magazine tailored to a new
economic and journalistic landscape is coming to an abrupt end left
staff members angry and resentful at their financial backers. "We
had never fit into the I.D.G. culture," one staff member said of
International Data Group. "They do trade magazines. We're just
culturally different. It was an uneasy relationship."

 During the flush times of late 1999, Standard Media sought out new
investors that would dilute the role of International Data. The
first step, in January 2000, was to take on an outside loan of $30
million from sources that included Flatiron Partners and Pearson.

 But to attract those investors, the company promised to undertake
a rapid expansion built on optimistic assumptions. It created a
costly infrastructure, starting back-office legal and auditing
departments separate from those of International Data and
developing its own software.

 The company also signed leases for office space for up to 600
employees in San Francisco and New York, with some leases
negotiated to last as long as 10 years.

 In January 2000, the company was valued by its new investors at
about $200 million. The investors, who together paid $30 million
for a stake of about 15 percent, according to one person close to
the transaction, were Flatiron Partners, Chase Capital Partners,
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (news/quote) Venture Partners, Pearson,
Europ@Web, J.& W. Seligman and Chase H&Q. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/17/business/media/17MAG.html?ex=999045030&ei=1&en=bd64b810aef4ea2d

/-----------------------------------------------------------------\


Visit NYTimes.com for complete access to the
most authoritative news coverage on the Web,
updated throughout the day.

Become a member today! It's free!

http://www.nytimes.com?eta


\-----------------------------------------------------------------/

HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson 
Racer at alyson@nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help@nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company