We’re thrilled to announce several additions to our Future of Business Media speaker lineup:

- Sarah Fay, CEO of Aegis Media North America, will be featured in a Spotlight Q&A and interviewed by our new research director, Lauren Rich Fine.
- Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor for the Financial Times and Joe Nocera, “Talking Business” columnist for The New York Times, will speak on our Finance as Breaking News panel.
- Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, and Elisabeth Sami, SVP of business development for CNBC, will join our Beyond Ads: Alternative Revenue Models panel.

FOBM will take place Oct. 28 at New York’s Edison Ballroom, and our two half-day conferences – EconSports and EconWomen – are scheduled for Oct. 29 at the same venue.

Thanks to our conference sponsors, including our corporate sponsor for each event, The Guardian; FOBM platinum sponsor The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc.; FOBM gold sponsor BusinessWeek; FOBM silver sponsors Theorem, Dow Jones, Condé Nast Portfolio, Newser and IME; and EconWomen silver sponsors SheKnows and Quintura Site Search.

If you have any questions about the program, email us at events AT contentnext.com. For sponsorship queries, email our business side at advertising AT contentnext.com.

So the big move from Playboy Enterprises (NYSE: PLA) has come, not in the form of a transformative deal as I have been exhorting them to do, but as a restructuring. It is closing down its DVD division, and is on a quest to reduce its cost structure by approximately $12 million on an annualized basis, “20 percent more than its previous estimate of $10 million, in light of current economic and media conditions,” it said in an SEC filing late today. The company says it wants to get to profitability next year. As part of this restructuring, the company will eliminate about 80 positions in the company, 25 of which were open, the company said.

The company will take a restructuring charge of $2 million, and will take reserves of about $4 million against archival material and a receivable. The resulting $6 million in charges against operating income for Q308 is expected to result in a net loss for the quarter, it said.

CEO Christie Hefner sent out a memo to employees, outlining the changes at the company, and that’s pasted below. From the memo: “We will also respond to changes in how consumers access content and advertisers use media.  Thus, we will continue to deliver more of our content digitally, using our assets across multiple distribution platforms and adding more a la carte offerings. Given the declines in the DVD market, we will exit that business in phases over a few months to concentrate on selling that content online.”

“To further reduce our cost structure, we anticipate consolidating space in Los Angeles, subletting our Santa Monica facilities and moving those employees to Media Tech.  We expect to significantly reduce travel and entertainment, as well as premium and overtime....the management incentive plan will not pay out, and all of us will forgo profit-sharing payments.

Memorandum to All Playboy Employees
From Christie Hefner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

October 15, 2008

Dear Fellow Employees:

During the employee meetings earlier this year, I outlined the challenges facing the media industry and our company, including increased competition for consumers’ attention, the migration of advertisers to other platforms, and higher costs of paper, ink and other expenses. Since that time, we also have seen a steady weakening of the economy, which has greatly exacerbated the existing challenges.  It is, therefore, unavoidable that we reduce our cost structure to reflect current economic realities even as we continue to invest in our growth businesses. Full memo after the break...

Read More »

Here’s some more evidence of how bad things are… The average price of a display ad was 27 cents in Q3, a nearly 50 percent drop from Q407’s 50 cents, according to Pubmatic, which sells software optimization tools to ad networks and has been surveying prices for the past four months. In Q1, the company said the average price of a display ad was 37 cents, while from Q2’s price was 34 cents, said Pubmatic, which bases its PubMatic AdPrice Index (PDF) on a survey of roughly 5,000 websites mostly in the U.S. Some of the other findings in its survey showed:

-- Display ad pricing has generally trended downwards across website sizes and verticals.
-- All categories moved down from last quarter, with the exception of Technology which stayed flat.
-- Social nets are still the lowest priced category, with sports coming in a close second, at 21 cents and 25 cents, respectively.
-- Entertainment had the biggest drop of all verticals, falling 42 percent to 33 cents in Q3 from 57 cents in Q1.
-- Small-sized websites’ inventory was more than triple the value of larger sites in Q3, with values of 61 cents and 18 cents, respectively.

• Ad Net Prices Stagnate For Three Months Straight; UK Ad Spend Slowing
• Search Remains Resilient, But Spending Slumps At the End Of Q3
• Analysts Lower Q3 Estimates For Online Ad Revenues; Offline Still Looks Worse
• Display Ads’ Growth Rate Was Cut in Half In H108; Category Gained 8 Percent In First Six Months
• Online Ad Impressions Grew 14 Percent In Q1, As Separate Research Shows Flat Prices In May