Magazine publishers striving to make or beat their annual numbers are digging out an old tool for late-year cost containment: the hiring freeze.

Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., where ad pages through August are down 6.1%, according to TNS Media Intelligence, has a freeze under way. And at Time Inc., where pages are off 2.9% through August, the heads of finance and human resources have gotten together over the past month to look at all open positions; which vacancies actually get filled will be up to four executives who report directly to Chairman-CEO Ann S. Moore.

Hiring freezes and slowdowns don't signal layoffs, but they reflect a little bit about a company's fortunes. They drag morale down, too, partly because they have, of course, sometimes preceded layoffs. Time Inc., the country's largest publisher, announced an official hiring freeze in August 2005, for example, that lasted through year-end; from December through April, it eliminated 450 jobs.

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“The Donald's" eldest daughter obviously has what it physically takes to be on a Stuff cover, but Ivanka is also a Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) grad, and Stuff will be her platform to show off her business acumen. We are told that the column will offer "practical advice" for Stuff's mostly 20-something male audience: (investing, buying your first home, etc.) but we wonder whether Ivanka will get more "personal." As she is said to have a larger role in her dad's The Apprentice series (returns to NBC later this fall), she will be adept at telling readers what to do after they are fired. Applies to certain Stuff/Dennis Publishing alumni, too.

If September (right) is Stuff's 2006 best-seller, credit--in part--daddy. We are told that he bought at least 250 copies for members of his Tump National Golf Club in suburban New York, and plenty more doubtlessly went to business acquaintances. The 1,323,200-circulation Stuff's second-half-2005 newsstand average (per the Audit Bureau of Circulations' Fas-Fax) was 270,030.

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ARE YOU A FOODIE?: Just when you thought there weren't enough hours left on the TV spectrum for any more food programs comes yet another one — this time from Gourmet. The magazine has been pitched one TV show after another for several years, but it wasn't until WGBH Boston came calling that a show was born with "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie." After all, WGBH is the public broadcasting station that began the "how-to" television genre with Julia Child more than 40 years ago with "The French Chef." Beginning Oct. 7, 20 half-hour episodes will air and from the look of its first episode, which focuses on Chinese cuisine, the show is a far cry from the genre made famous lately by the likes of Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray. "There is not another show like this on television," said Ruth Reichl, editor in chief — not objectively, of course.

FILLING THE GAP: Susan Rerat on Tuesday was promoted to vice president and publishing director of Cond? Nast Bridal Media. She replaces Daniel Lagani, who has been named president of Fairchild Fashion Group, which includes WWD, WWD.com, Footwear News and DNR. Rerat, a longtime Cond? executive, will oversee all print and online bridal properties including Brides, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, their corresponding Web sites and 16 local bridal magazines (Lagani had responsibility for just the national magazines in his previous role). Since March 2005, Rerat had been vice president and managing director of Brides.com; prior to that she was senior vice president and managing director of Cond?Net's Epicurious.com and Concierge.com. Rerat also spent time abroad as launch publisher of Vogue Russia and GQ Russia and was advertising director at House & Garden and Bon App?tit early in her career. Rerat will continue to report to Mitchell Fox, Cond? Nast group president and publishing director.

WHEN DO THEY WATCH THE SHOWS?: With all the talk in the magazine world about multiplatform branding, it comes as no surprise that Marie Claire editor in chief Joanna Coles and her editor-at-large Joyce Caruso Corrigan have been blogging from Milan Fashion Week. But don't bother searching for their musings on Marie Claire's Web site. The duo are writing for glam.com, which describes itself as "functioning like an online fashion magazine." (Don't they all?) Many of the other bloggers on the Glam Blog Network, while fashion-focused, appear to be independent, and it is free to join.

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For years, David Bauer, the assistant managing editor of Sports Illustrated has played fantasy baseball and fantasy basketball. Then this past summer, he became what you might call a three-sport fantasy athlete, participating in his first fantasy football draft. His top pick: Tiki Barber

In the coming months, the time Bauer spends obsessing over his fantasy football team won't be a distraction from his professional obligations. Rather it will be a professional obligation. To wit: last month, coinciding with the start of football season, SI rolled out a new, fantasy-focused insert in its magazine and revamped the fantasy page on its Web site. "I've taken up fantasy football," says Bauer, "so that I can fully understand the mindset."

The predominant mindset at SI these days is that fantasy sports are no longer a niche market that can be given haphazard attention. Over the past twenty-five years or so, fantasy sports -- in which participants draft and manage imaginary teams that compete with each other based on the statistics generated by their players' real-world counterparts -- have grown into a major industry. What once served as a hobby for a handful of nerdy sportswriters now tantalizes and torments millions of statistic-addled Americans.

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If you're a magazine publisher who believes print ads alone will remain a viable business, Robin Steinberg has a message for you: think again.

Steinberg, svp and director of print investment at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest, told a packed New York Times auditorium crowd Tuesday morning that pressure is mounting on magazines to offer advertisers multiplatform packages that tie-in to the Web, mobile and other appropriate digital media.

To maintain their share of ad dollars, publishers have little choice but to comply. Steinberg, who was the keynote speaker at a weeklong breakfast series produced by the Advertising Women of New York in conjunction with Advertising Week, said clients are scrutinizing print budgets more closely, demanding greater accountability and innovations.

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When it hits newsstands in April, Conde Nast Portfolio will feature lavishly illustrated journalism by some of the world's best business writers.

The new title may also distinguish itself in another way: as the last of the multimillion-dollar magazine launches.

With the Internet taking readers and advertisers away from print in dramatic fashion this year, the overall number of magazine launches is expected to plunge 17% in 2006, according to Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi journalism professor who tracks the industry. That would be the first decrease since the black days of 2001, Mr. Husni says.

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For a little thought experiment, go to the website of Newsweek's international edition. There, running down the left side of the page, are three covers, all the same, for the European, Asian, and Latin American editions of the October 2 issue.

Each has a dramatic shot of a Taliban fighter shouldering an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). The cover headline is: "Losing Afghanistan," pointing to a devastating piece on our Afghan War by Ron Moreau, Sami Yousafzai, and Michael Hirsh, "The Rise of Jihadistan." which sports this subhead: "Five years after the Afghan invasion, the Taliban are fighting back hard, carving out a sanctuary where they--and Al Qaeda's leaders--can operate freely." The piece begins: "You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban." (In fact, the magazine's reporters found a gathering of 100 of them in a village just a two-hour drive south of the Afghan capital.)

Now, go back to the international edition and take another look. Scroll down the page to the cover which doesn't match the others. That's the one for Newsweek's US edition. No Taliban fighter. No RPG. Instead, a photo of an ash-blond woman with three young children dressed in white, one in her arms, and the headline: "My Life in Pictures." The woman turns out to be Annie Liebovitz, photographer of the stars, and the story by Cathleen McGuigan, "Through Her Lens," has this Taliban-free first line: "Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue."

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EdAd
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Mid-20s EA looking for a room--or roommates with whom to hunt--in Manhattan, preferable below 100th street on either side of town. Getting more and more desperate by the day to move out of my parents' house (and away from the 90 minute commute from NJ each day). My budget is around $950, but I'm a little flexible. As far as how I am as a roomie: I like to think of myself and a pretty easy-going, clean, considerate, funny, friendly person. Actually, my life is pretty normal; I like books, movies, TV, baseball, Central Park, and just hanging out. If anyone has a room or wants to meet up to go on the hunt, e-mail me at ciozzio@gmail.com.