Time Inc. to Undergo Major Restructuring : Media: The move to boost its top magazines and enter multimedia follows criticism that the unit was lagging behind.

Time Inc., the publishing arm of media giant Time Warner Inc., Sunday announced a major reorganization aimed at boosting its most prominent magazines and expanding operations into multimedia ventures.

The restructuring also calls for cutting costs, including the elimination of an unspecified number of jobs, primarily through attrition.

The move to “reinvent” the company follows recent criticism of Time Inc.--whose magazines include Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Money, People and Entertainment--for lagging behind while the communications and publishing industries undergo dramatic changes fueled by technology advances and shifting advertising patterns.

The company is also struggling to recover from the recession in publishing.

In the first eight months of 1993, ad pages at Time magazine dropped 11.8% compared to the year-ago period, according to Publishers Information Bureau.

Ad pages at Sports Illustrated dropped 16.6%, those at Money fell 7.2% and Fortune fell 3%, PIB reported. Overall consumer magazines, meanwhile, posted a 1.2% rise.

Expected benefits from the changes include increased growth of the major magazine titles, faster decisions and the development of a major new multimedia business, the company said.

Time Inc. said it would give each magazine more responsibility for financial performance while trying to improve their quality. The plan calls for the creation of division presidents at Time and People and a group president for both Fortune and Money. The presidents will be responsible for all aspects of the magazines. Publishers of the magazines will report to the presidents and handle advertising matters exclusively.

Lisa Long, formerly Time’s publisher, becomes president of Time magazine. The publisher’s post was filled by Jack Haire, previously a regional vice president of advertising sales.

Donald Elliman continues as president at Sports Illustrated and David Long, a regional ad sales vice president, becomes publisher.

At People, Ann Morore, formerly the magazine’s publisher, becomes president. Nora McAniff moves from her position as publisher of Life to become publisher of People. Replacing her at Life is Edward McCarrick, who had been associate publisher and ad sales director of Time.

The new group publisher for Fortune and Money is Michael Pepe, who was vice president of marketing. The publishers at Fortune and Money remain James Hayes and William Myers, respectively.

Robert Miller continues as president of Time Inc. Ventures but will assume the additional post of president of television for Time Inc.

Curtis Viebranz will become president of Time Inc. Multimedia.