This is giving new meaning to the term “phoning it in.”
Richard Spencer, the disappearing editor-in-chief of OK! and Reality Weekly at American Media, has not been in the office since early February.
The last time he was seen inside the New York offices of the tabloid publisher was around Feb. 16. That’s when he returned after a nearly two-week absence and met with Jimmy Cohen, CEO of the Hudson Media Group, which is a joint venture owner of OK!.
American Media and Cohen paid $23 million to take over the celebrity weekly from British publishing mogul Richard Desmond last June with the hope of stemming the tide of red ink.
But so far that has not happened — and the bosses have apparently been growing restless.
In the second half of 2011, OK!’s newsstand sales plunged 27.5 percent to 249,561 on total circulation of 590,978.
That’s off 24.3 percent from the year-earlier period.
Sales in the celebrity category are once again being hurt as gasoline prices in the New York metropolitan area crack the $4 per gallon barrier.
Outside the city, folks have to get in their car to pick up a magazine at the supermarket, Barnes & Noble or Walmart. Higher prices at the pump also crimp discretionary spending on items like magazines. OK! is hurting with the best of them.
Some sources said that AMI’s human resources department is searching for a replacement editor-in-chief.
But that idea was pooh-poohed by American Media CEO David Pecker, who insisted, “He’s on full pay. We are not looking for a replacement at all.”
Pecker said he was going to be speaking with Spencer sometime today.
Spencer is now said to be at his mother’s house in Pennsylvania. Earlier he had told staffers he was absent because of a flood in his ground-floor apartment in Greenwich Village.
Several weeks earlier, Spencer told Media Ink he was helping his sister recuperate from knee surgery.
In his previous gig running Bauer Media’s In Touch, Spencer was also said to have made a mysterious exit, leaving behind a company-supplied car in the parking lot on the day he resigned and leaving staffers to try to figure out where he was and what had happened.
Pecker insisted that the No. 2 editor is in touch with Spencer “several times a day” and that Spencer’s “thumb prints are on every issue.”
Spencer did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment.
Bump up
Snooki’s bump apparently gave Us Weekly’s circulation a bump, as well.
Us Weekly is said to have paid $25,000 for the photos of the pregnant Princess of Poughkeepsie that ran in last week’s issue.
The Wenner Media-owned weekly had been selling about 618,491 copies on newsstands in the second half of 2011.
One source said the magazine logged about a 50,000-issue increase in newsstand sales for the week.
Real Mad Men
The chattering classes are still buzzing about a lunch hosted last week at Michael’s by the unofficial mayor of the media hotspot, Joe Armstrong.
The reason for the celebration? To toast a new book by Financial Times writer Andrew Cracknell, entitled, “The Real Mad Men: The Remarkable True Story of Madison Avenue’s Golden Age.”
Armstrong hosted the four he called “the Mount Rushmore of Madison Avenue”: Mary Wells Lawrence, George Lois, Jerry Della Femina and Charlie Moss.
Armstrong, who published New York Magazine and Rolling Stone during those years, is called the “Mayor” because of his small, powerhouse lunches for friends launching projects. Among those Armstrong has feted over the years are former President Bill Clinton and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
Looking on at Michael’s was the Weinstein Co.’s Harvey Weinstein, who quipped, “Armstrong, do that lunch again and ask me.”
DC shuffle
Kate Bennett, the former editor-in-chief of Niche Media’s Capitol File, moved to the established and more serious archrival, Washingtonian, as fashion editor. She will also be running the Washingtonian Bride & Groom, a twice-a-year spin-off.
Sarah Schaffer, who was most recently publisher, is now going to return to the Editor-In-Chief job as well, a post she actually held before Bennett arrived from Niche-owned Vegas Magazine a year and a half ago.
Schaffer will also be elevated to president of the magazine.
“I had many great years with Niche, but this was a great opportunity,” said Bennett.