Dotdash Meredith, Publisher of People and InStyle, Cuts 7% of Staff

Dotdash Meredith, the publishing giant that owns publications including People, InStyle and Better Homes & Gardens, said on Thursday that it would cut 7 percent of its staff, the latest media and tech company to do layoffs.

Neil Vogel, the company’s chief executive, said in a companywide email on Thursday morning that the cuts would affect 274 people. He said that human resources and business leaders would schedule meetings with the people affected.

“As we have said, we are not immune to the broader challenges of the ad industry and of the economy as a whole, and today’s actions are a direct response to these realities,” he wrote in the email, which was viewed by The New York Times.

The cuts affected nearly all departments, a spokeswoman for Dotdash Meredith said.

Dotdash, a subsidiary of Barry Diller’s IAC that specialized in digital outlets like Serious Eats and Investopedia, acquired the magazine publisher Meredith in 2021 for about $2.7 billion. The combined company, one of the largest digital publishers, includes a range of lifestyle and entertainment brands like Entertainment Weekly, Martha Stewart and Food & Wine.

Since combining, Dotdash Meredith ended the print editions of several of its magazines, including InStyle and Entertainment Weekly, focusing instead on their digital versions.

“Like many businesses in our space, we have grown aggressively over the last few years, while also integrating our two companies,” Mr. Vogel said in the email. “With the difficult market environment and economic uncertainty that lie ahead, we must prioritize our biggest opportunities and make sure we have the proper cost structure in place to pursue them.”

The layoffs were first reported by Axios.

Tech giants like Amazon, Meta and Twitter have laid off thousands of employees in recent months. Media companies such as The Washington Post, Gannett and CNN have also announced layoffs.