Sources are telling Scrapbook Update that CK Media has found a buyer for the floundering company – and that one of their first actions at the company was to order a mass layoff.
CK Media, the parent company of Creating Keepsakes and PaperCrafts magazines, was formed in June 2006 when Sandler Capital Management purchased the crafts group of publications from Primedia.
CK Media has now been purchased from Sandler Capital by a company called New Track Media LLC, which is a Cambridge, MA-based publishing company that is part of the portfolio of private equity company Boston Ventures. New Track Media’s other publications include American Woodworker, Woodwork Magazine, Love of Quilting, and Sky & Telescope. In addition, the company owns the quilting properties Keepsake Quilting, QNNtv, and Quilter’s Club of America. (Besides its scrapbooking magazines, CK Media has an extensive portfolio of sewing and quilting magazines.)
New Track Media has previous connections to the scrapbook publishing industry. It was founded in 2006 by Stephen J. Kent, the former president and CEO of F+W Publishing, the parent company of Memory Makers Magazine. Kent is now the CEO of New Track Media, and has brought many former F+W executives into New Track’s upper management.
As part of the transition to New Track Media control over CK Media, layoffs were handed out today to a large number of CK Media employees. Included in the cuts were Will Marks (CEO), Rich Hybner (CFO), Dave ONeill (VP/Group Publisher), Lin Sorenson (VP/Editorial Director), Brian Tippetts (Creating Keepsakes Editor-In-Chief), Stace Hasigawa (PaperCrafts Art Director), and Ana Cabrera (CK Social Media Manager), plus a large portion of the finance department, and the entire production teams in the company’s Golden & Bluffdale, Utah offices.
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Ana Cabrera who was the CK Site web designer among other things got the axe yesterday according to her facebook
[...] sad to read that some more of our friends in the scrapbook marketplace have lost their jobs… read about CK Media being sold again here __________________ Katie – owner of DesignerDigitals…read my Blog! Camera: Nikon D200 [...]
Prayers for those being layed off, especially in this economy. The buyout may not be as bad as it seems. Maybe we get to keep CK in the scrapbooking industry.
wow..not sure what else to say…sad thing for those in the SB industry to loose their job, It will be interesting to see what they plan on doing with it.
I am sad for all of those who have lost their jobs! I hope the magazine does well under the new company.
[...] CK Media has been sold! See Nancy Nally’s post here. [...]
Oh…this is scary…we’ve lost so many of our publications so far…I do hope we don’t lose CK too. I would totally cry!!
One thing I don’t understand is how the seemingly DOZENS of quilting/sewing magazines seem to be staying afloat!??
Good point!!! Good question!!
To Jill: Quiltmaker, McCall’s Quilting, Quick Quilts, Quilter’s Newsletter, Sew News, Creative Machine Embroidery were all CK Media titles. You’d think they’d consolidate the quilting magazines, but each one had a different focus.
From a manufacturer’s perspective, quilters and sewers are much more receptive to magazine advertising, or products presented in the magazine. We have advertised in CK with very little response, but a similar ad in a quilting or sewing magazine will generate new customers, or at least lots of new traffic to our website. The following statements are generalizations: We have products for both scrapbookers and quilters, and the scrapbookers will find our website and products without the advertising. They are younger and more internet-savvy, while the quilters are older and are less interested in spending time at a computer…they want to be at their sewing machine instead. Quilters are much more willing to place an order over the phone, while scrapbookers order 24 hours a day online. Plus, scrapbooking magazines provide ideas, but quilting and sewing magazines provide patterns. You can scrapbook without a magazine, but it is difficult to quilt or sew anything without a pattern.
As for CK, I hope that the conventions continue. We are a sponsor and love interacting with our customers at the shows.
Aah, thanks for the insight Christie. That makes lots of sense!
Wow I am really suprised at this. I am in Australia but get Creating keepsakes over here. We get Australian ads in ours though. I am already missing Simple Scrapbooks and really don’t want to lose Creating Keppsakes too.
I am very sad to hear of the job losses. I’ll be glad for the day when I open a news story and that’s not part of the front page.
I do however hope the new owners can help CK improve in some areas. I have a couple friends that have stopped subscribing because the magazines have downsized so much and it’s mostly advertising. Another thing I think could be improved is sending out items in a much shorter time frame. I haven’t gotten my August issue and was told it would be 2-3 WEEKS before I got another copy. I just think that is unacceptable. If they don’t replace the ones that were laid off, things like this will only get worse. I too don’t want to loose yet another scrapbook magazine
I was hoping that we would not see too much of this during this downturn in our economy. It has been obvious since the magazine was sold before that there were serious problems though and I think the economy just made it worse. It is sad that so many had to be laid off.
Is there a new show at the offices in Golden, CO starting in August? I have so enjoyed the shows in the lobby there