MICHAEL Carr, once the boss of Jason Binn, is out as president of Greenspun Media Group, leaving Binn as the top dog running the 16-title publishing company known as Niche Media.
Bruce Deifik, president of Greenspun Corp., confirmed the moves: “Michael Carr was president of the Greenspun Media Group. He’s no longer an officer in the company. He’s consulting with me on some projects.”
And for the moment, Binn’s star is on the rise within Greenspun.
“I’m happy to wake up every morning and know I’m working with Jason Binn,” said Deifik. “He’s like a little brother to me.”
The shakeup comes against a backdrop of exceedingly tough times for the luxury-magazine market.
Ad sales have plunged more than 30 percent at Niche Media in the past year, and Niche let a Trump Magazine project with Donald Trump expire this year.
“It was a good relationship, but we’re no longer doing that magazine,” Deifik said.
Neither Binn nor Carr returned calls seeking comment yesterday.
The Las Vegas-based Greenspun family purchased Binn’s Niche Media — which includes Gotham, Hamptons Magazine, LA Confidential, Capitol Style and Boston Commons — three years ago.
At almost the same time, Greenspun purchased Miami-based Ocean Drive and decided to keep the Niche Media name for most of the regional magazines it owns, including Vegas Magazine.
Separately, the Greenspun family also owns the Las Vegas Sun daily newspaper and some smaller, regional magazines, including Las Vegas Weekly, LVM and In Business Las Vegas.
Carr, who had arrived in Vegas six years earlier and got close to the Greenspun family — Brian Greenspun is the chairman and Hank Greenspun is the vice chairman — oversaw the operation.
Many saw the triumvirate of Carr, Binn and Jerry Powers, who ran Ocean Drive from Miami, as an unwieldy arrangement that frequently triggered tension between the colorful Carr, at one time the president of Playboy Publishing, Binn, an apparent workaholic, and Powers, who ultimately left the company about six months ago.
Steele’s nod
Despite rumblings that Jann Wenner would begin the search for Janice Min‘s successor immediately, for the moment he appears to be willing to let Min’s longtime deputy, Michael Steele, run the show as acting editor of Us Weekly.
Wenner released a memo to staffers Wednesday announcing Steele’s new role, and staffers gave him a big round of applause at a meeting yesterday.
For the moment, it is Steele’s job to lose, sources said.
Insiders say Wenner is not even searching for a successor at this point.
“Contrary to any speculation out there, Mike is my one and only choice. He has my full vote of confidence,” Wenner said in the memo.
Steele may have a relatively easy time in the job because Wenner never likes to push himself too hard during the summer. But things will likely become more intense in the fall when Wenner is back full-time.
“He’s going to insert himself in the process and the break-in time for a new editor with Wenner can be brutal,” a source said.
Wenner returned from a month-long trip to South America two weeks ago, and spent the time unsuccessfully trying to hash out a new contract for Min. Sources said Wenner wanted to chop Min’s $2 million-a-year compensation package.
Min has been through brutal negotiations before and prevailed, but it often took months. However, this time Min walked away rather than accept the pay cut that Wenner was proposing due to Us Weekly’s ad-sales slump and the fact that projects like a proposed Us Style spin-off are not happening.
Wenner is expected to check in on the cover selections next month, but will otherwise stay scarce around the office, working perhaps two or three days a week.
“He wouldn’t be caught dead in New York in August,” said one staffer.
Bauer battles
More cutbacks are coming to Bauer Publications, the German publisher that owns In Touch and Life & Style.
In the latest move, Letena Lindsay, the vice presi dent and director of cor porate communications, left Wednesday.
The news came a day after Life & Style’s boss Dan Wakeford an nounced a tiny 50,000-copy increase to the rate base, to 450,000.
After two years of drastic circulation shortfalls, the two celebrity magazines seem to be rebounding, though they have still fared worse than their competitors.