BIG DAY FOR LAYOFFS: Time Inc., The McGraw-Hill Cos. and Wenner Media LLC all revealed layoffs on Tuesday as the publishing industry moves to cope with the economic downturn. The biggest changes were at Time Inc., which unveiled a major restructuring across its magazines, organizing its 24 U.S. titles into three groups and assigning several executives to oversee the business and editorial operations. The changes, first reported on The New York Times Web site, are expected to result in about 600 job cuts, with layoffs beginning in a few weeks. A spokeswoman did not confirm the number of positions to be eliminated, but said no magazines will close as a result of the new structure.

Time Inc. chief executive officer Ann Moore issued a memo outlining the changes Tuesday night. “This is a challenge, unlike any we’ve seen before. And after much careful study and consultation with many of you who run our businesses, I have concluded that it is no longer possible to operate our company with the same decentralized management structure that served us so well during our many years of sustained growth,” she wrote.

“Effective tomorrow, we are going to implement a much more centralized management structure, organized into three business units that will group together titles that share similar audiences, advertisers and the talents and skills of their staffs. The goal is to enable our company to move faster, go to market smarter, save significant costs and employ our editorial resources more efficiently,” the memo said.

The magazines and related Web properties will be organized into three categories, with resources to be shared across titles: news, which will include, Fortune, Time, Sports Illustrated and Life; style and entertainment, consisting of People, In Style, Entertainment Weekly and Essence, and lifestyle, made up of Real Simple, This Old House, All You, Southern Living, Cooking Light, Sunset, Health, Cottage Living, Coastal Living and Southern Accents, along with MyRecipes.com and MyHomeIdeas.com. On the editorial side, Martha Nelson will head the style and entertainment division, and though it has not been revealed, former Life managing editor Bill Shapiro could lead the lifestyle group. The managing editors of the news business unit and Nelson will report to John Huey, Time Inc.’s editor in chief.

On the business side, the news section will report to John Squires; executive vice president and IPC Media chief Sylvia Auton will manage the lifestyle unit. Style and entertainment will report to Moore. In addition, Moore said Time Inc. will create a new corporate sales division, Time ad sales and marketing, to be headed by Stephanie George.

Meanwhile, Wenner Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone, Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, laid off about a half dozen staffers this week, most of them in the corporate marketing department, reported mediaweek.com. Wenner Media has faced challenges particularly at Rolling Stone, where the magazine recently trimmed its oversize format to standard size this month as paper and printing costs have risen. According to Media Industry Newsletter, pages at Rolling Stone have fallen nearly 20 percent, to 883 through mid-October. “Given the current economic environment, we are looking at better efficiencies across the entire company,” a Wenner spokesman said.

At McGraw-Hill, the publisher said Tuesday that it had eliminated 270 jobs during the third quarter, including 140 in its information and media division, which includes BusinessWeek. Advertising pages for the magazine’s global edition dropped 13.9 percent during the quarter, and revenues rose 5.4 percent to $240.7 million. — Stephanie D. Smith and Amy Wicks