100 employees to go as Face’s print edition goes under

NEXT Digital’s entertainment title Face will cease printing and go digital-only at the end of March, with its print department to be dissolved.The group’s flagship weekly Next Magazine, (壹週刊) along with bundled supplements Eat And Travel Weekly (飲食男女) and ME!, will also undergo a digital transformation, which will see a closer collaboration between Next Magazine and Apple Daily Action News (蘋果動新聞) one of the group’s most profitable online platforms. Some 100 employees will be laid off as part of the restructure.Mo Chung, vice-president of sales at NEXT Digital, described the restructure as a move to “improve the profit situation”.“The restructure will not see much changes in terms of content direction; this is more of an effort in on-site experience and content optimisation across all platforms,” Chung told Marketing.“It allows a more holistic approach to sales by integrating all titles.”While some of the Face employees will be moved to Apple Daily, those who have insufficient digital skills across all titles will go amid a shift in the budget to digital, Chung said.The print editions for Next Magazine, Eat And Travel Weekly, ME! and Face’s bundled supplements, including Ketchup, Trading Express and JobFinder, will continue to live. Circulations for all titles will not be influenced by the restructure, Chung added.Next Magazine’s associate publisher Lee Chi-ho and ME! publisher Adele Sit will be leaving the roles, replaced by the editorial heads of the two publications.Photo courtesy of Next Magazine's Facebook page.