Business

Guzman is Martha Stewart Living’s new cookie

The new editor of Martha Stewart Living is Pilar Guzman, the ex-editor of Cookie who was tapped yesterday to succeed Vanessa Holden, who decamped for Williams & Sonoma.

Rumblings are growing stronger that the bigger change may come this summer when Martha Stewart returns to the CEO post that she was forced to relinquish in the turmoil leading up to her 2001 conviction for lying to federal investigators.

It landed her five months in a federal slammer. Stewart was released in March 2005, but it was over a year later, in August 2006, that she finally came to terms with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which imposed a five-year ban on her holding a board seat or executive level job in a publicly traded company.

That ban ends in August, and several sources predict Stewart will be back on top shortly thereafter. Charles Koppelman stepped in as chairman in the dark days after the insider-trading charges first surfaced and has been serving in recent years as the de facto CEO with the title “principal executive officer.” Stewart has never given up the dream of returning to the top spot of the company she founded, sources said.

Koppelman continues to dismiss such talk. “You may be hearing more rumblings, but as far as the board is concerned, that’s not happening,” he insisted. “It’s all speculation, probably tied to the end of the ban.”

Stewart did not return a call seeking comment.

Meanwhile, on the flagship magazine, Guzman becomes the fourth editor-in-chief in two years.

Since Cookie folded on the bloodiest day in Condé Nast history in October 2009, she has been a finalist for the Everyday with Rachael Ray editor’s job, and published a book on family dining from Chronicle Books entitled, “Time for Dinner,” and launched a Web site for moms.

TMZ wannabes

Everybody, it seems, is trying to get into the business that TMZ mines so successfully, which is covering celebrities in the 30-mile zone around Hollywood.

Yesterday, Reuters said it was going to begin distributing Hollywood.tv, containing paparazzi-type footage to Reuters users around the globe.

And Associated Press made a big splash in that category earlier this week by hawking the Lindsay Lohan surveillance video to CBS TV’s “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider,” which had to outbid Radaronline.

The tape is said to have fetched $35,000 from the CBS shows, with the transaction handled through a wing of AP known as AP Images.

Less clear is how the transaction was structured between the jewelry store Kamofie & Co., where Lohan’s alleged heist took place, and AP.

The video that aired Monday made quite a stir. It angered the district attorney handling the case — who did not like that potential evidence was being hawked on the open market. It also angered Lohan, although yesterday the jewelry store issued a statement saying it has not been contacted by Lohan or her lawyer.

The store’s spokesman acknowledged the surveillance tape was given to AP, but declined to divulge any of the financials surrounding the transaction.

Despite his success inside the Hollywood bubble, TMZ founder Harvey Levin has been having trouble trying to branch out beyond its comfort zone. He had plans to launch TMZDC covering Washington DC and had also started hiring sports writers and editors with the plan of doing TMZ sports. Both plans fizzled.

Last April, with much fanfare, it recruited People senior editor David Caplan, who had been editing People’s Scoop section, to be the general manager of its softer, celebrity-friendly site called toofab.com. Sources say Caplan is exiting at the end of the week after only six months on the job. He could not be reached.

No successor for Caplan has been designated. A TMZ spokesman said, “David Caplan was very helpful with the launch of toofab.com. We will be making some big announcements in the very near future.”

Plum mags

Plum Media, which has seen a fair degree of turnover in its executive ranks amid a recent expansion drive, released the first of what it says will be three new magazines — Plum Miami.

Jerry Powers, who launched Ocean Drive, be fore selling it, is heading up the publishing effort of Plum Media and tak ing aim at his one-time partner, Jason Binn, who sold his Niche Media Company to Greenspun Media.

Binn remains chairman of Niche after recently relinquishing the CEO title at the company that publishes Gotham, Hamptons and Ocean Drive. This summer, Plum Media plans to further battle Niche with the launch of Plum Hamptons, with Cristina Cuomo as the editor-in-chief. Cuomo — the sister-in-law of Gov. Andrew Cuomo — is married to ABC News’ Chris Cuomo.

kkelly@nypost.com