Hearst’s Food Network Magazine may be one of the fastest starting magazines in publishing history, but much like arch rival Every Day with Rachael Ray, it seems to be having a hard time holding onto its launch team.
Food Network started with a single test issue in 2008 and plans to publish 10 issues this year.
The launch team was recruited from the top of Rachael Ray’s masthead when Maile Carpenter jumped ship to become Food Network’s editor-in-chief, along with Tara Cox, who became managing editor. Jennifer Gunn, who was managing editor for the test, was gone by the time Cox started.
Late last year, Cox jumped to Men’s Journal as managing editor, and is being replaced by Maria Baugh, who was most recently executive managing editor at Glamour.
Meanwhile, Sarah Goldschadt, a designer for the mag, is said to be heading home to Denmark and is being replaced by Shira Gordon from Self.
Several mid-level editors have reportedly given notice this week, with one said to be heading to Condé Nast’s Allure.
“There seems to be a lot of turnover,” said one source.
Whatever the inner tumult, the title is a runaway hit with consumers.
The four issues it put out in the second half of 2009 averaged 357,681 copies sold on newsstands — pretty close to Everyday with Rachael Ray — plus an additional 839,154 paid subscriptions, for a total paid circulation of 1,196,835, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Rachael Ray has newsstand circulation of 367,744, and a total circulation of 1,786,605.
B2B bust
Penton Media, the country’s largest business-to-business publisher, is about to file for bankruptcy.
The company is owned by US Equity Partners, a subsidiary of the late Bruce Wasserstein‘s Wasserstein & Co., and Mid-Ocean Capital Partners.
Penton said its pre-packaged bankruptcy will cut its debt load by $270 million.
The company has been struggling with its debt load, believed to be in excess of $1 billion, for several years, and the recession has taken a particularly hard toll on B2B publishers.
“This restructuring will allow us to achieve a debt level that is more sustainable in the current economic environment,” said CEO Sharon Rowlands, who took the top spot in 2008.
The publisher said yesterday that its equity owners have agreed to make an additional investment in Penton and that its senior secured credit facility will be extended through 2014.
The company expects to have the bankruptcy plan approved in early March, and plans to pay vendors in full while it undergoes the reorganization.
Penton owns tech magazines like Windows IT Pro, lifestyle titles including Delicious Living and New Hope Media, and old-line titles such as Industry Week and Welding.
US Equity Partners became involved in Penton in 2005, when it bought the former Intertec Publishing from Primedia for $385 million. The name came two years later, with the purchase of Penton Media in a $530 million deal with Mid-Ocean Capital as equity partners.
Mag honor
Michael Kinsley, the latest inductee into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame, isn’t severing his ties with Atlantic Media, although he will not head its new business and finance Web site.
Sources say Kinsley is still an editorial adviser and is expected to be named the company’s editorial director. In that role, he will consult on the magazine, where he writes a column, as well as online properties.
The new business site that has been pushed back now lacks an editor-in-chief. Atlantic owner David Bradley, who sold the private investment business where he made his fortune, is concentrating full time on Atlantic Media and is known to conduct exhaustive searches for key people.
ASME added Kinsley to its Hall of Fame yesterday for his work as Slate.com’s launch editor and for his two stints as editor-in-chief of The New Republic.
He’s also been a television pundit and written weekly columns for the Washington Post and Time.
His induction is scheduled for March 18 in New York.
R.I.P., Don
Publishing entrepreneur Don Welsh, who started Muppet Magazine and was launch publisher of Outside, died suddenly on Feb. 6 while vacationing in the British Virgin Islands.
He had a triple bypass heart surgery last November; the cause of death was believed to be complications related to the heart.
“He was the most entre preneurial publisher of our generation,” said Joe Armstrong, who as publisher and president of Rolling Stone hired Welsh away from For tune in the mid-1970s.