The honeymoon appears to be over for Time Inc. CEO Laura Lang.
As employees await a new round of cuts that seems all but certain to shake the nation’s largest publisher in mid-January, morale is plunging.
The frustration at Time Inc. seems to have risen even more because of the high expectations that accompanied industry outsider Lang’s hiring in November 2011 from digital ad agency Digitas, where she was CEO.
There’s grumbling in the ranks about what Time Inc. veterans feel is a lack of communication from on high about where the company is headed.
Lang’s ascension to the top spot — she did not officially move in until January 2012 — came, insiders said, after a year in which many initiatives stalled.
During that period, Time Inc. was run by a triumvirate of top executives: Editor-In-Chief John Huey, Chief Legal Officer Maurice Edelson and Chief Financial Officer Howard Averill. They took over after Jack Griffin was driven from the corner office in February 2011 by an internal revolt. Meredith Corp. vet Griffin lasted just five months on the job at Time Inc.
Lang may be hamstrung because she came from outside the industry and wanted to move cautiously.
Her first executive moves didn’t come until March, when she announced that Steve Sachs, the executive running consumer marketing, and Chief Marketing Officer Stephanie George were leaving.
The first big strategy session Lang held with about 350 top execs didn’t take place until near the end of the third quarter, sources said.
At that meeting in New York City, Chief Revenue Officer Paul Caine outlined some of the multimedia cross-platform ad packages that were being rolled out.
But some staffers are clearly looking for more leadership and vision from the top.
“Some people are wondering if the emperor has no clothes,” said one insider.
In one key move, Lang recently raided Meredith to hire J. R. McCabe to be a senior vice president in charge of a soon-to-be-built studio that will produce videos.
McCabe reports to Todd Larsen, the former Dow Jones president who is the new president of the News and Sports Group.
McCabe is expected to meet with the top editors in New York next week, which may help to calm the troops and bring editors into the loop.
Whatever discontent Lang may be encountering from the rank and file, sources say the real pressure on Lang — from her boss, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes — will likely come in 2013.
“Her first year, she’ll get a pass,” said one source. “In her second year, the pressure will be on to see how she performs.”
The company saw revenues drop more than 6 percent in the first nine months of the year.
Philly fan
The Saturday Evening Post — yes it’s still in business — is returning to its roots in Philadelphia.
The magazine known for its iconic Norman Rockwell paintings on its covers for more than six decades starting in 1916 traces its Philadelphia heritage to the Pennsylvania Gazette run by Benjamin Franklin in the 1720s. The magazine did not take up the name the Saturday Evening Post until 1821.
At its peak as a weekly, it had a circulation of 8 million — but it began to lose ground in the 1950s along with other weekly stalwarts Life and Look.
The weeklies became weaklies as mismanagement, changing tastes and the TV era took their toll.
Its loss of a $3 million libel lawsuit put the final nail in the coffin in 1969 when then-owner Curtis Publishing Co. pulled the plug.
In May 1970, after concerns that assets from the Post were “walking out the door,” the trustee Beurt SerVaas, who had taken over the assets, moved its contents to his base in Indianapolis.
He brought the magazine back to life as a nostalgia quarterly in 1970.
The office space will house editorial director Steven Slon, a managing editor, a reporter and three Web editors. The Saturday Evening Post today, which publishes six times a year, tries to blend some current events, health and nostalgia with modern fiction.
Slon characterized the current editorial mission as: “Strong voices, great reporting, helpful service, current events with a historical perspective, all of it leavened with humor.”
Clarification
In a story this week about Wenner Media’s bid to refinance about $200 million in debt, we said that Standard & Poor’s, in addition to its B-rating and negative outlook, also had mentioned a $200 million term loan due in 2017.
Hal Diamond, an analyst at S&P, said that there is no second $200 million loan on the Wenner books right now. The agency was referring to the rating for the proposed refinanced loan, which could replace the loan that is due to be paid off in 2013.
S&P said the outlook for either loan was negative due in large part to problems faced by the industry.