Speculation is growing that Hudson News, a staple of airports and other transit hubs, might stop carrying magazines in the Tri-State Area — a scenario that one panicked publisher likened to “an asteroid killing off the dinosaurs.”
Publishers’ fears were sparked after Hudson News Distributors — the James Cohen-owned distribution arm of Hudson News — informed the New Jersey Department of Labor in mid-December that it was laying off 236 employees in its Parsippany, NJ, headquarters, a filing reviewed by The Post showed.
Cohen’s New Jersey-based company distributes magazines from publishers including People magazine owner DotDash Meredith; Condé Nast, home to Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker; Hearst, owner of Esquire, Elle and Good Housekeeping; and Rolling Stone publisher Penske Media.
Cohen’s company is slated to cease distributing mags on Feb. 7, a source with knowledge of the matter told The Post on Friday. That means glossies will no longer be available in various Hudson News locations in the Tri-State Area — including at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports — barring intervention from an outside party.
“It’s basically a death blow for glossy magazines that rely more on airport terminal sales,” said a source with knowledge of the matter.
After years of struggles for the mag business, another source remarked: “It’s like an asteroid killing off the dinosaurs.”
The first source added that hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake for publishers, whose print magazine businesses have already shrunk massively as consumers opt to get their news online and advertisers have pulled back their spending in recent years.
Law firm Strauss Borelli is currently investigating whether the company’s layoff announcement marked a violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers to provide 60 days’ notice of mass firings or plant closures.
“There will be lawsuits,” a publishing source predicted, adding that Cohen could file for bankruptcy, leaving publishers and workers in the lurch.
“The publishers and drivers in their unions will get screwed,” the source said, speculating that drivers could get stiffed out of their pension benefits
Meanwhile, publishers could lose out on money they’re still owed from the sale of their mags, the person said. In the event of a bankruptcy, Cohen’s business may avoid sharing funds it collected from retailers but hasn’t yet paid to publishers, the source said.
Cohen did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
The Post has sought comment from the Newspaper and Mail Deliveries Union, which represents Hudson News Distrbutors’ employees.
Cohen sold his family’s Hudson Group, best known for the Hudson News brand, in 2020 to Switzerland-based Dufry, with the billionaire retaining the magazine and newspaper distributor. Hudson News operates over 1,000 stores across North America. In the Tri-State area, the company has 14 locations, according to the company’s website.
A third publishing source said that while it sounds astounding for magazines to become unavailable in New York-area airports and other transportation hubs, glossies have slowly been moving off the newsstand shelf for some time.
“It won’t kill the business,” the person said, noting that airport newsstands have trimmed down their magazine inventory immensely and are mostly selling “book-a-zines” or special issues that have a long-shelf life these days.
Still, glossies like People that are more tied to weekly newsstand sales will feel the impact, insiders said.
A source with access to newsstand data said that the gossip magazine sells between 70,000 and 100,000 copies a week. At its height, People sold about 3 million per week in 1977, with some blockbuster covers selling over 1.3 million copies, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
While the loss of Hudson News sales may create a small dent in People’s bottom line, a third source said the blow could be fatal.
“This could take them all out,” the person said of print magazines in general.
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