An era has come to an end as Condé Nast’s Maurie Perl, one of the longest-serving public relations executives in the media world, has been downsized out of a job at the Newhouse-owned publishing company after 21 years.
“She had to manage all these larger-than-life characters all the while keeping the peace with the Newhouse family that owned Condé Nast,” said one public relations veteran who worked under Perl.
The big egos included the late Condé CEO Steve Florio, Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman, Ron “Mr. Big” Galotti and Tina Brown, at The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.
Perl’s run began in 1992 when she was hired by then-VF Editor-in Chief Brown. Six months later she moved with Brown to the New Yorker.
“Maurie is one of the great media PRs of all time. No one knows our business better,” said Brown, now the editor in chief of Newsweek/Daily Beast.
Brown headed off to form Talk Media with backing from Harvey Weinstein and Hearst in July 1998, but Perl opted to stay behind with a promotion to senior vice president, corporate communications.
At that time, she was responsible for hiring and managing the 50-person battery of in-house p.r. staffers who handled publicity for each magazine as well as Parade and Fairchild.
Nine months ago, Perl moved to the fledgling Condé Nast Entertainment division headed by Dawn Ostroff , which is trying to option articles for TV, movies and other media.
Yesterday, p.r. for Condé Nast Entertainment was moved outside to Howard Rubenstein & Associates. (Rubenstein also is outside p.r. counsel for The Post and its parent, News Corp.) Dan Klores Communications has also picked up some assignments from Condé.
Perl told Ink: “I had an extraordinary run here. I wish the company continued success, and I look forward to what’s next for me.”
Her departure is seen as another sign of the transition away from the one-man rule of S.I. Newhouse, Jr., the octogenarian chairman of Condé Nast and its parent, Advance Publications. He has ceded much of the day-to-day running of the company to a management board.
Dead app
In another Condé Nast move, Gourmet Live is dead.
It becomes the latest project aimed at the tablet market that failed to deliver what the corporate parent wanted.
At the time of its launch in September 2010, it was hyped by Condé as an innovative way to extend the brand to Apple’s iPad.
The company, in its brutal downsizing of 2009, had closed 90-year-old Gourmet.
The Gourmet Live app was free and advertising-supported.
Condé CEO Chuck Townsend and President Bob Sauerberg enthused that it was a way to keep the Gourmet brand alive for consumers.
At its launch, it briefly surged as one of the most popular apps in the iTunes store. But enthusiasm waned.
A company spokeswoman acknowledged, “Gourmet Live, while the absolute right move for its time, no longer helps fuel the brand’s evolution as the growth around the brand’s Web presence on Gourmet.com has greatly exceeded that of the Gourmet Live app. Subsequently, we have made a decision to continue to publish content to the Gourmet.com website, which has become a popular destination for both longtime and new brand loyalists.”
The company said no layoffs accompanied the shutdown of the app.
Forbes advice
Forbes Media is looking outside the media world for its next business by selling its investment advice through the Forbes Family Trust to wealthy individuals and families.
Funded in 2009, The Forbes Family Trust said it has now formed a strategic partnership with LGL Partners, a Philadelphia-based investment firm, to share resources and sell its investment advice.
“This is an example of a number of non-media related new initiatives that we are embarking on,” said Miguel Forbes, Forbes Media president of worldwide development and son of Robert Forbes. He is also vice chairman of the Forbes Family Trust.
LGL’s Scott Gregorchuk is joining the Forbes Family Trust as CEO, and William Luterman becomes chief investment officer.
LGL said it made an investment in the trust.
The Forbes family’s investment record in recent years has been spotty. It certainly looked prescient when it sold a huge minority stake in its magazine-publishing empire to U2 frontman Bono and other associates in Elevation Partners for an estimated $225 million in 2006.
The investment didn’t work out as planned for Elevation, though, as Forbes plunged into the red with the economic meltdown a few years later and teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
It appears to have rebounded somewhat after some gut-wrenching downsizings.
A Forbes spokeswoman said the media company was profitable and enjoyed its best year in the last five years in 2012.