The upheaval in soap opera land yesterday — ABC shut down two long-running soaps, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” — also produced some major upheavals in the publishing world.
Source Interlink, which publishes soap titles Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly, is cutting staff and turning over the magazines’ operations to National Enquirer and Shape owner American Media Inc. on a licensing deal.
No money is believed to have changed hands between the two publishers, both of which emerged from pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings.
They are expected to split whatever profits they can wring out of the magazines. The deal also includes Source-owned Pixie, a young teen title, and a series of puzzle books sold at retail outlets.
There are now only four remaining soap operas, NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” CBS’s “Young & the Restless” and “The Bold & the Beautiful,” and ABC’s “General Hospital.”
At the genre’s peak in the 1970s, there were close to 20 soaps being broadcast in the US.
A newsstand-heavy title like Soap Opera Digest once fetched $70 million when a division of News Corp. (which owns The Post) purchased it from entrepreneur Jerry Ritterman in the late 1980s. At the time, it was an every-other-weekly title with circulation of 1.2 million. The magazine was eventually included in the $650 million 1991 sale of Murdoch Magazines to Henry Kravis‘s publishing venture, then known as K-III, and later, Primedia. It was ultimately included in a sale to Source Interlink in the $1.2 billion sale of Primedia enthusiast titles.
The two magazines now have combined circulation of around 650,000 — 500,000 for the now monthly Soap Opera Digest and 150,00 for Soap Opera Weekly. With the empty pockets at checkout counters, insiders said AMI is already working on a newsstand special on reality-TV shows, covering Kim Kardashian and shows such as “Housewives of Orange County.”
“But for about half of the 25 to 30 employees now on board at the New York-based titles, it is expected to be pink slip time.”
Blooming
Everyone goes to Bloomberg LP, it seems. The financial information and media company founded by Mayor Mike Bloomberg, seems to be among the few in the land welcoming journalists.
Siung Tjia, the soon-to-exit creative director of ESPN The Magazine, is among the latest to join. He is among the dozens of ESPNers who refused to make the forced march north to Bristol, Conn., where owner Walt Disney Co., is moving the magazine’s editorial offices. They’ve been in New York City since the magazine launched in 1998.
Tjia is joining Bloomberg Markets, where he will report to editor Ronald Henkoff as the magazine’s first-ever creative director. The monthly, which still goes primarily to 300,000-plus users of Bloomberg terminals, was redesigned last year and is aggressively courting newsstand readers.
Gary Belsky, the editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine for the past four years, is also not making the trek north, but he has been signed to a consulting gig good until next January. He is being replaced by Chad Millman, an editor on the magazine since its launch in 1998.
The company said that when it makes the move in June there will still be about 35 open positions on the nearly 100-person editorial staff.
Jonathan Alter, longtime Newsweek writer and TV pundit — who penned one of the first stories revealing that Newsweek co-owner Sidney Harman had died Wednesday evening after a short battle with leukemia — is also heading to a new weekly gig at Bloomberg View.
Several hours after his farewell to Harman piece went live on the Daily Beast Web site yesterday morning, Alter was alerting his many fans and friends via e-mail to stop sending e-mails to his Newsweek address — because it was no longer active.
He had actually left the staff several weeks earlier and had been contributing a number of opinion pieces to Bloomberg News starting in February while doing occasional freelance work for Newsweek Daily Beast. Starting next month, he is going to crank up his out put for Bloomberg. “He will become part of the Bloom berg View as a weekly columnist on a contribu tor basis when it launches mid-May,” a Bloomberg spokesman said.
Bloomberg View is headed by David Shipley, former deputy editorial page editor and op-ed editor of the New York Times, and Jamie Rubin, former US State Department Assistant Secretary under President Bill Clinton. kkelly@nypost.com