Jane Fonda Workout Slimming Down; Encino Studio Closing
The pulsing music is being turned off and the pounding feet are taking a rest at the Jane Fonda Workout in Encino. The gleaming white exercise studio and boutique on Ventura Boulevard is being closed because it had been unprofitable for some time despite efforts to improve business, said Stephen Rivers, a spokesman for Jane Fonda.
The original Beverly Hills exercise studio, launched by the actress in 1979, will remain open. The Beverly Hills operation, which is smaller than the Encino location, is profitable and “has always been a very very successful and popular studio,” he said.
Customers of the Encino Workout will be given full refunds for any unused classes or they can take their classes at the Beverly Hills studio, Rivers said. The studios are owned by the Workout Inc.
The Encino studio employs 39 people, who will be given severance pay equal to one month’s salary, plus severance bonuses for those who have worked for the Workout for two years or longer. The employees were scheduled to be told of the closure on Sunday, Rivers said.
The Encino Workout housed 110 to 130 classes a week in its three classrooms.
Rivers said that “it’s hard to generalize” about why the Encino studio failed. “It’s hard to divvy up the percentages and figure how much of it was the location, how much of it was competition and how much of it was the changing nature of the aerobics studio industry,” he said.
In a 1984 interview with Fortune magazine, Fonda said that business at the Beverly Hills and Encino Workouts had stopped growing and she had to start advertising for new members for the first time.
Fortune estimated that the two studios grossed between $1.5 million and $2 million a year. Rivers declined to reveal revenue or profit figures.
The Encino exercise studio is the second Jane Fonda Workout to fail. A 2-year-old operation in San Francisco folded in 1983 after other tenants sharing a downtown office building complained that the aerobics made the structure vibrate.
But Fonda’s five exercise videocassettes and three books continue to rake in profits for the Workout Inc., Rivers said.
Fonda has been approached to franchise the studios nationwide, but has never opted to because of the lack of control over such operations, Rivers said.
A line of bodywear carrying Fonda’s name flopped in 1984 after only a few months on the market.
Rivers said Capri Beachwear, the manufacturer of the licensed products, made several mistakes with the line, including taking huge orders from retailers that the firm ultimately couldn’t fill on time. Fonda didn’t lose any money in connection with her clothing line, Rivers said.
