Ron Burkle (WireImage)
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Shape France is folding.
In the process, Sue Yein Butcher, one of the longest- serving executives at parent American Media, is exiting the company.
Butcher was seen as a close friend and ally of CEO David Pecker, starting as a receptionist when he was running Hachette Filipacchi Media in the mid-1990s, and moving with about a half-dozen others when he took over American Media in an $850 million leveraged buyout in 1999 with backing from Evercore.
By 2005, she was put in charge of Mira, the company’s Spanish-language celebrity tabloid, and named AMI’s Latino Magazine Group Publisher.
When Mira folded in 2010 shortly after the AMI bankruptcy, all of the staff was laid off, except for Butcher, who survived as a corporate senior vice president.
The year-old Shape France magazine, which was largely translated material, never gained much traction, selling only about 28,000 copies on newsstands and not attracting much support from advertisers. Butcher spoke Spanish, not French, so selling advertising in France may have been difficult.
A spokesperson confirmed Shape France’s current issue will be its last. “The international market, based on the economy, is very challenging, especially in France.”
Some sources said that the departure of Butcher is another sign that the new board, headed by representatives from Avenue Capital and Angelo Gordon, is growing less pleased with the corporation’s financial performance as it struggles with the industrywide slide in newsstand sales and is putting renewed pressure on CEO Pecker to make the numbers.
S&P recently downgraded its debt and said the company was in danger of falling into another default on its bank loans. Pecker said he still expected to post operating earnings between $105 and $110 million in the current fiscal year, which ends in March. Some don’t think that can be accomplished without another round of cost-cutting and major staff layoffs.
Home alone
Hearst Magazines President and CEO David Carey is consolidating editorial functions at the company’s three shelter magazines, House Beautiful, Elle Decor and Veranda.
Each magazine will retain its top editorial and creative people but there will be consolidation of market editors and copy editors.
Insiders said nobody is exiting this month — but by year’s end close to a dozen edit people will probably be gone.
Newell Turner, who had been editor-in-chief of House Beautiful since 2010, seems to have emerged as first among equals.
He has been named to the newly created position of editor-in-chief of the Hearst Design Group.
Turner will oversee HB magazine while a search is on for a replacement editor-in-chief. Michael Boodro, editor-in-chief of Elle Decor, and Dara Caponigro, editor-in-chief of Veranda, are going to report to Carey, “under the day-to-day guidance of Turner,” according to the company.
Each magazine will have a dedicated core creative team, including an editor-in-chief, design director, interiors editor and a senior writer.
The company said that the core team at each magazine will be supported by shared departments, such as a group market department, a group features department and shared copy desk.
Turner said the overriding idea is to move away from the editorial structure that was put in place decades ago to design only printed magazines. “The structure of today and tomorrow is about a brand and all of its platforms,” he said.
The translation from corporate-speak is: that fewer people will be getting on jets to cover far-flung market shows, and market editors, photographers and copy editors will be working across all three titles in both the print and digital formats.
Finish line
The long and torturous negotiations by Reed Elsevier to sell Variety, its last trade magazine in the US, looks like they’re in the final stage.
Although the lead bidder shifted several times, it now appears as if Jay Penske’s firm, Penske Media Corp., with backing from Shamrock Capital, is only days away from getting the checkered flag and being declared the winner.
The price tag is now expected to be in the $28 million range, which would be a blow to Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate that was hoping to fetch up to $50 million when the process started last April.
One source said he expected the deal to be announced this week — although we’ve heard that prediction before.
Avenue Capital, once the perceived front-runner, lowered its bid after crunching some of the numbers.
Ron Burkle’s Yucaipia Cos. also bid low — in the $20 million range — which was less than half what the seller hoped to fetch.
Calls to Penske and Evercore, the investment bank running the auction, were not returned by press time. Penske owns Nikke Finke’s Deadline.com.
Luxe life
Modern Luxury, the company controlled by the Dickey family that separately controls radio giant Cumulus Media, has purchased Aspen magazine from a local entreprenuer, its longtime editor and creative director Janet O’Grady.
“It a wonderful strategic fit for covering the luxury market,” said Michael Dickey, the CEO of Modern Luxury, which publishes a chain of city magazines including Manhattan magazine.
Aspen magazine never published more than six times a year and is considered a small- circulation title — under 30,000 copies distributed — but given that the resort is considered a pure high-end luxury market, it reaches a valuable audience.
The deal also heightens the competition between Modern Luxury and the Niche Media group, owned by the Las Vegas-based Greenspun family, which publishes rival Aspen Peak in the posh Colorado resort town. The family also publishes Gotham and Hamptons Magazine here.
O’Grady and her husband, Randy Beier had taken over the title in 1989, “a result of our love affair with one another and with Aspen,” said O’Grady.
Her husband and the magazine’s publisher died 11 years ago, and O’Grady took over the business side as well. O’Grady said she had rebuffed many overtures for the publication before deciding to sell to the Dickeys.
But she said she will stick around as editor-in-chief under a five-year contract.
“Aspen has a built-in loyalty factor,” O’Grady said.
“The same people come back each year to ski or see the Music festival in the summer,” she explained.