Ken Whyte on Maclean’s and the economic downturn

Maclean’s editor and publisher answered email questions from Masthead magazine, just after Rogers, owner of Maclean’s, announced staff layoffs.

Whyte said:

“…we were having an excellent 2008 until the fourth quarter. Now we’ll finish with a decent 2008, which is less exciting than the trajectory we were on but something of an achievement given that the economy tanked in October and we had an expensive year editorially (Canadian election, US election, China Olympics, etc).

Next year promises to be challenging due to the global downturn in ad spending so we’ve eliminated a few positions and tightened up our spending and we think we can weather the storm without any further reductions but no one knows what’s going to happen in the broader economy.”