Business

Scratch Freston from Time Inc. CEO derby

Scratch MTV founder Tom Freston from the list of potential Time Inc. CEOs.

Even before the search begins in earnest, Freston told Media Ink he isn’t interested in the job.

That is sure to dash the dreams of Time Inc.’ers. Freston’s name was also floated as a possible candidate the last time Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was searching for someone to run the publishing division — but the 67-year-old executive said he was never contacted.

The hope of many inside was now that Time Inc. is going to be spun off as a stand-alone public company — and Freston wouldn’t be reporting to his pal Bewkes — he might relish the challenge.

Freston had plenty of nice things to say about Time Inc. But the onetime Afghan rug importer who went on to found MTV, ran Viacom for Sumner Redstone and has millions to play with, doesn’t look like he wants the publishing job.

Freston works with the ONE Foundation, the charitable organization started by U2 front man Bono, travels the world and is carried on the Vanity Fair masthead as “our man in Kabul.”

And for his media kicks, last year he teamed up with Ari Emanuel, the super-agent at William Morris Endeavor, and the Raine Group, the boutique investment venture fund, to collectively make a bid on Vice Media, reportedly in the high eight figure range.

Vice, sources say, is going to be the subject of a feature in The New Yorker next week and is growing rapidly, with close to 1,000 employees.

Seemingly, Vice would be a blueprint for what Time Inc. should be doing with all of its brands, if it isn’t already. Vice has made TV deals, has a music site called Noisey and a unit called Motherboard TV. It is also eyeing expanding into China and India.

Vice traces its roots to an underground magazine started in Montreal in 1994 and seems to have successfully recast itself for the digital age.

But alas, though Freston has plenty of time for globe-trotting expeditions to poverty-stricken countries, he has no interest in helping the poor people of Time Inc. — although he seems intimately familiar with their trials and tribulations.

“I am flattered by your interest in me as a candidate to run the soon-to-be-spun-off Time Inc. and would agree it is a great challenge … and opportunity … working with world-class brands without any interference from corporate siblings,” he said via e-mail.

“Must say, though, I am loving my work with Vice, an ascendant little enterprise that is exploding, and love the mix of it with the pro-social work with ONE and in Afghanistan and the VF stuff, too.

“I may finally have it ‘right’ for myself, have never been happier, and would sure regret abandoning this stage of my career.”

Freston added, “Someone will have fun in that new Time Inc. role … but I am staying put.” Is that Bewkes we hear calling, “Next!”?

Hot Hamptons

Here’s one sure sign the economy is improving: The Hamptons, in recent years a graveyard for new publishing ventures, is turning into a summer battleground once again this year for publications chasing affluent consumers.

In the latest salvo, Brandusa Niro, the CEO and editor-in-chief of The Daily Front Row, a glossy that appears daily during New York’s semiannual Fashion Week in February and September — and online the rest of the year — is hitting the East End with a new publication to be called The Daily Summer.

“It will debut over Memorial Day weekend and then appear weekly in July and August,” said Niro, who has been based in the Time & Life Building. leasing some of the space that Time Inc. vacated.

She has also just raided Spanfeller Media Group, a digital operation started by Jim Spanfeller that has a foodie website and an outdoor adventure travel site to hire Paul Turcotte.

Turcotte, who spent two years as publisher of the freebie newspaper amNew York before joining Spanfeller as publisher six months ago, is now the publisher and president of The Daily Front Row Publications.

For the past two years, Niro has produced a joint-venture fashion insert that was slipped into Manhattan Media-owned Dan’s Papers and went by the name The Daily Dan.

But that joint venture ended last summer.

Richard Burns, chairman of Manhattan Media, which also owns Avenue magazine, insisted, “We initiated the divorce because we plan to do our own publication.”

He said the new publication, to be called Avenue at the Beach, is also making its debut in the East End this Memorial Day.

Niro insists the split was mutual. “It was a very friendly divorce. We decided the DNA wasn’t right. We are fashion and Avenue is real estate, basically,” she said.

Niche Media, while battered by the ad recession over the past several years, still counts Hamptons Magazine as one of its flagship titles and has withstood past challenges.

But it is already under siege from Modern Luxury, which hired Christina Cuomo to jazz up its Manhattan and Modern Luxury Hamptons publications, the latter which is also rolling out Memorial Day.