I didn’t even know that National Geographic is owned by Disney of all corporations.
I feel a bit of sadness over this but at the same time I am not surprised at all. It was hard to justify paying for their magazines when seemingly 2/3rd’s of it was advertisements.
You appear unclear on the business model of print publications. Readers have always been the product being sold to advertisers, with a cover price designed to hit the sweet spot for the desired demographic in the case of magazines that essentially no one pays because they subscribe for a fraction of that rack rate.
A 33% newshole is pretty damned good for a pub with that many full-bleed colour positions for editorial.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/28/national-geographic-staff-writers-laid-off/
I think this is the original source, right? Please amend your post to link to the original.
Done. Thanks. Might be paywallwd for some, though.
Non pay-walled link below. Very sad to hear this is happening.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/28/national-geographic-staff-layoffs-report