Condé Nast Traveler was shaking up its top editors even before its arch rival, Travel+Leisure, was sold by American Express Publishing to Time Inc.
It’s all part of a major shift in direction that is being engineered by newly installed Traveler Editor-in-Chief Pilar Guzman, who was poached last month from Martha Stewart Living to replace Klara Glowczewska, who had been running the title for the past eight years.
Guzman started right after Labor Day and wasted no time in shaking things up.
“We’re shifting direction and taking more of a lifestyle approach to travel rather than a news approach to travel,” she told Media Ink. The hard edge that characterized the magazine from its launch under Harry Evans may be softening.
“We want to see more joy on the pages,” Guzman said. She’s already recruited Yolanda Edwards from Martha Stewart Living to be creative director of the magazine, a newly created position.
That inevitably means a new look is a-coming. The two teamed up to win a National Magazine Award for general excellence when they collaborated at Martha Stewart Living.
They first worked together when Guzman was running Cookie, which Condé folded in 2009. Edwards was her creative director.
By the end of her first week, she had given walking papers to longtime Managing Editor Dee Aldrich, longtime Photo Editor Kathleen Klech, and Style Director Mike Connolly. Connolly and Aldrich had been hired when Tom Wallace — now the Condé Nast editorial director — was editor-in-chief.
Vogue editor Anna Wintour, in her new role as the company’s artistic director, is taking a hard look at some of the more sluggish titles in the Condé Nast empire.
People who at one point might have been protected by Wallace are no longer safe, as his star seems to be getting eclipsed by Wintour — and the need to make changes continues.
Bank books
Time Inc. formally unveiled its agreement to buy the five-title American Express Publishing Co. from the banking and financial services giant — and at least initially it looks like very little is going to change.
No surprise here, since we had reported as much on nypost.com on Monday.
The magazines will report to the lifestyle group headed by Executive Vice President Evelyn Webster and will still be known as the American Express Publishing Group inside Time Inc. Ed Kelly will still be its CEO.
Travel+Leisure and Food & Wine, along with the titles aimed at credit- card customers — Departures (Platinum cards), Black Ink (Centurion cards) and Executive Travel (aimed at Sky Guide customers) — will all go in the deal.
Most of the 400+ employees are expected to stay in place as well.
That probably means the longtime top editors — Nancy Novogrod, 20 years at the helm of T+L, Dana Cowin, 18 years at the helm of F&W, and Richard Story, 13 years at the head of Departures, can breathe a sigh of relief.
“It’s B.A.U. — business as usual,” said Kelly yesterday, who noted revenues are running 10 percent ahead of year-ago numbers, and ad pages through September are up 6 percent.
When told of the changes afoot at rival Condé Nast Traveler, Kelly said, “It sounds like they are trying to be more like Travel+Leisure. Flattery …”
Deadline now
So what is going on in the latest dust-up between Nikki Finke, the founder of Deadline Hollywood, and boss Jay Penske, who purchased it three years ago?
Way back in June, Finke took off on a vacation amid some signs of strain between the two. Finke had told Hollywood sources that she was upset she did not get to run Variety when Penske Media acquired the title from Reed Elsevier last year.
Far from being fired by Penske, as TheWrap.com was insisting back in June, Finke seems to be pushing for one of two things: more love from Penske or a chance to buy back the site or to be cut free to do her own thing.
She feels that resources are going to Variety — now a weekly glossy with a free website, while Deadline, with its small 10-person staff and a penchant for busting news stories, gets little from corporate.
Plus, Deadline.com is booming, drawing more visitors than the Variety site, with its larger staff.
But Finke is under contract to Penske Media. There is no doubt the two are tugging in opposite directions, and whether it leads to a permanent tearing-apart is the question on the minds of Hollywood insiders these days.
Finke told Media Ink, “I already have a deep-pocket investor, and I’ve already started the process to buy back Deadline Hollywood.”
Penske insisted that nobody has ever materialized with an offer to buy Deadline.com and he expects Finke to stay at Penske Media through the duration of her contract — believed to have several more years to run.