Also encouraging is the list of magazines leading the charge in terms of ad increases, including titles such as Fast Company – at a whopping 31.4% – Barron’s, Bloomberg Businessweek and Entrepreneur.  If business magazines are seeing increased ad sales, it seems clear that B2B companies are increasing their ad budgets – a good indicator that we’re pulling out of the economic doldrums.  Hopefully it also means increased IT budgets at the end user companies that are reading all these business magazines.

Another positive indicator is that fewer magazines shut down in the first half of the year – 87, to be exact, way down from the 279 that closed shop in the first half of 2009. And 90 new magazines were introduced, which I find almost astounding in this economy, even if it is way down from the 187 new publications during the same period last year.

Call me an optimist, but I’m looking at both of these tidbits as good news.

None of that appears to be happening at Penton. Rather, according to the company’s press release, the restructuring “will result in the elimination of $270 million of the Company’s debt.” How do I get in on that kind of deal? It reminds me of an episode of “The Office,” where the boss, Michael Scott, thinks that merely shouting the words “I declare bankruptcy,” would make all of his debt go away. Not too far from the truth, apparently.

But there’s more: “Further, there will be no management changes or change in control of the Company.  ‘Operationally, nothing will change during this debt restructuring,’” according to Sharon Rowlands, Penton’s CEO.

I know times are tough in publishing and probably the Penton management team includes some talented, upstanding folks. But if a company manages to mount $270 million in debt, enough to force it into bankruptcy, shouldn’t some changes be made?