The summer season may be winding down in the East End, but Modern Luxury is plotting to invade the turf long dominated by rival Niche Media with a new magazine.
Cristina Greeven Cuomo, who recently came on board to edit Modern Luxury Manhattan, will do double duty as editor of Modern Luxury Hamptons. That means the arriviste will be squaring off against Niche’s Gotham and 30-year-old Hamptons Magazine.
The glitzy East End has been a graveyard for many publications over the years, most recently Plum Hamptons, which Cuomo edited before it shuttered last season when debt woes forced parent company Plum Network into bankruptcy.
“We’re in it for the long haul,” insisted Michael Dickey, president of Modern Luxury.
The company was sold for $243 million in 2007, but after the economic crash it was barely making a profit.
It was sold to the Dickey family, which runs radio giant Cumulus Media, for north of $20 million in 2010.
The transition hasn’t been exactly smooth. “I’ve never worked at a company with more turnover,” said one former employee.
Some employees, such as Modern Luxury Manhattan launch editor Richard Martin and corporate editorial director Spencer Beck, left shortly after the takeover. Leslie Wolfson, publisher of Manhattan, was abruptly let go June 1.
Ann Song, creative director, exited this spring and has only recently been replaced by Scott Glick.
Matt Carroll, who was running national ad sales, has now added the job of publisher of Manhattan and will head ad sales for its East End title, which is expected to appear six times in 2013.
Some former staffers may come back to haunt Modern Luxury.
Beck is now editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Confidential, another title owned by Niche, which competes with Angeleno magazine from Modern Luxury.
“We don’t have a turnover problem,” Dickey insisted. “When one company buys another, there is always going to be some turnover. But overall our headcount is up 25 percent.
“We run a very disciplined business and we watch all expenses,” he added.
At a time when the rest of the industry seems to be retrenching, Dickey said Modern Luxury is expanding with six new spin-offs this year, including Miami Brides and California Interiors.
“We’ll be launching several more in new markets in 2013,” he said.
And while the closely held company doesn’t disclose numbers, sources say its revenues are now in the $60 million range. Dickey said it is nicely profitable and that revenues are up “double digits” this year.
While he concedes Gotham is still besting Manhattan in terms of ad pages, he said his city magazine is up 4 percent year to date.
Without naming names, he said of the East End rivals, “We think other competitors are weak.”
Niche COO Katherine Nicholls refused to sling mud, saying it is “understandable” that others would want to jump into the East End.
However, Niche is taking measures to shore itself up before the coming invasion. It recently split the group publisher job in two, with Debra Halpert, who had been handling both Gotham and Hamptons magazine, now concentrating solely on Hamptons. David Katz, most recently at Field & Steam and formerly of Condé Nast’s Brides, is publisher for Gotham.
“Niche Media continues to make investments in our brands and in our company,” said Nicholls.
Moving up
Terry McDonell, the editor of the Time Inc. sports group anchored by Sports Illustrated, recently moved to a new office on the 34th floor of the Time Life Building, sparking new speculation that he will step aside from the title he’s headed for more than a decade.
The 34th corporate floor is where Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief John Huey and other top executives reside. SI’s writers and editors for the weekly magazine are on the 31st floor.
Adding fuel to the transition buzz, Paul Fichtenbaum, who until recently was running SI.com, was tapped to oversee the integration of print and digital. His appointment to editorial director of SI was announced Aug. 14.
A few days later, Time Inc. revealed that Matt Bean, who had held a corporate job at Rodale, was going to be running SI.com, reporting to Fichtenbaum.
While the early chatter was that McDonell might step away after the Summer Olympics, that seems to have been unfounded. Now, the rumor mill points to the Hall-of-Fame editor relinquishing the job in the spring.
“That’s totally unfounded speculation,” insisted a spokesman, who said that McDonell is maintaining his office on the 31st floor in addition to the new digs.
From his higher perch, McDonell is said to be involved in planning some of the Time Inc.-wide digital initiatives based on the pioneering work he did at SI developing its tablet and websites.
“I have an office up there, I’m spending more time up there,” McDonell said. “We’re spreading things out a bit more at Sports Illustrated. It’s all good.”