THAT didn’t take long.
While Media Ink was away on a little R&R, Kent Brownridge has gone suddenly from his CEO post at Alpha Media, where he had led Quadrangle Group’s takeover of most of the US operations of Dennis Publishing, including music magazine Blender and lad mag Maxim.
Yesterday, Brownridge was in London wrapping up a deal to become the new general manager of the American edition of OK!.
British billionaire Richard Desmond, who had made most of his money in the adult-entertainment business in England, has already spent more than $100 million on the launch of the US version of the magazine.
“It’s a huge challenge but a terribly exciting one,” Brownridge told Media Ink as he was getting ready to jet back home. “In a terrible year for the industry, these guys are up on all fronts.”
Unlike his early days at Alpha Media, where he fired most of the key publishers and editors and shut down money-losing Stuff magazine, Brownridge said he plans to keep the current executive team, including Publisher Tom Morrissy and Editor Sarah Ivens, both of whom now report to Brownridge.
“My job is to get circulation up and to get ad sales up,” said Brownridge.
Some rivals are already calling OK! one of the most expensive magazine launches in history.
But Brownridge claims OK! doesn’t wear the crown as biggest money loser out of the gate.
“There are a lot that were more expensive, and we’re at break-even now,” he said.
Nevertheless, some critics said that despite any gains the magazine has made, it will be at least one more year before the magazine can operate in the black – and many more before it can erase the sea of red ink it has spilled so far.
A year ago, Brownridge teamed up with Quadrangle Group’s Steve Rattner and Peter Ezersky to take over Dennis Publishing’s US operations as the new CEO. But in August came the sudden announcement that Brownridge was getting kicked upstairs as chairman. The CEO job was eventually split between two executives who reported to Brownridge.
Most observers felt that his departure from Alpha was tied to Alpha’s financial backers being dissatisfied that the company’s performance didn’t improve dramatically, and in fact worsened.
Brownridge said, “I wasn’t disappointed” by the sudden departure. “I’m still an investor in that company.”
OK! started exactly three years ago in August, and its ad sales through September are up nearly 20 percent.
The magazine recently lost out to People in the bidding war for the pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s newborn twins.
Brownridge said that the magazine intends to remain a player in that market.
“Everybody in the celebrity magazine business is in the wedding and baby picture buying business,” he said.
K’s deal
“Coach K” is the latest Olympian to climb onto the podium with a book publishing deal.
US Men’s Olympic basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is teaming up with his daughter Jamie K. Spatola for his latest book, which is tentatively slated to be published next spring.
The duo are estimated to have snagged a mid-six figure deal for the book from the Grand Central imprint of the Hachette Book Group.
Rick Wolff, the executive editor who signed the deal, declined to comment on the advance.
The book will be a firsthand account of how he worked with NBA superstars Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony to buy into his concept of teamwork that carried them back to Olympic gold after the US team was humiliated four years earlier.
Krzyzewski is the head basketball coach of the Duke University Blue Devils for 23 years, where he became the sixth-winningest coach in NCAA division I basketball with 803 career victories.
Wolff said he expects the book will be a case study in fundamental management techniques.
New worth
Until recently, nearly all of the defections from Condé Nast’s Portfolio came from Joanne Lipman‘s editorial team, where high-level departures started to become the norm rather than the exception.
However, throughout the magazine’s tempest-filled first year and a half, the business side under David Carey was a relative sea of tranquility.
Now, with Carey upstairs in a group president job at Condé Nast and a new publisher, William Li, running the day-to-day, the first crack in the ad team since the mag’s launch has appeared.
Tullamore, Ireland-born Patrick Williams, the title’s national and financial ad director and hire No. 4 on the ad side, is bolting to become publisher of Worth.
Worth is a magazine that was started in 1992, and in February this year was sold by William “Wild Bill” Curtis of CurtCo Media to Adam Sandow of Palm Beach, Fla.-based Sandow Media, the magazine’s fourth owner since inception.
Sandow is trying to make its mark by serving the luxury market, and has been busy expanding even in the face of a national ad slowdown.
Sandow recently announced plans to launch a new magazine called Luxe Arizona, which will be followed up with Luxe Seattle and Luxe South Florida in the next month. That will bring Sandow’s stable of regional luxury magazines to 11.
Of course, ever since Worth’s launch right in the middle of the first Iraq war in early 1992 the magazine has been a disappointment to its succession of owners, which include Curtis, Fidelity and the private-equity owners who backed the-then launch publisher Randy Jones.
Sandow hopes the rocky streak will come to an end.
“We’re going to be unveiling a major overhaul in the editorial, design and circulation over the next 30 to 45 days,” said Sandow, who has cut back the magazine’s publishing to six times a year from 10.
New hire
Crain’s New York Business has finally wrapped up its seemingly interminable search for a new editor to succeed Greg David.
The company had commissioned an executive search firm back in October and the winner is Xana Antunes, who left Time Inc. with a buyout earlier this year.
Antunes had been the editor of CNNMoney.com, where she relaunched the Fortune brand as part of the Web site. Earlier, she had served as an executive editor at Fortune, and before that she was the editor of The Post from 1998 to 2001.
“They have a very good group of people there,” said Antunes. “We have a lot we can do, especially online.”
She said her one open position at the moment is Web editor, but she said she has no immediate plans to make any other changes on the 33-person staff.
Antunes starts on Oct 6.