CHANGE is coming to the hidden jewel of the Newhouse media empire, Parade Publications.
Walter Anderson is stepping down as chairman and CEO of the highly profitable weekly that every Sunday is inserted into 470 newspapers and has a combined circulation of 33 million.
Anderson was named editor-in-chief of Parade in 1979 after a two-year stint as senior editor. Back then, the title had a circulation of 21.6 million and was distributed in just 129 daily newspapers. He was named chairman and CEO in 2000.
No replacement has been made, but one of the names that has been bandied about is Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman, currently president of the Condé Nast Media Group, which arranges the big advertising deals that now account for some 80 percent of the business in magazines such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Vogue.
Beckman is seen as hard-charging and sometimes controversial, but he has also emerged as Condé Nast’s top ad salesman.
Though Anderson is 64 and has had some health issues recently, he said the decision to step down was solely his.
He said he, S.I. Newhouse Jr., the chairman of Parade parent Condé Nast, and Condé Nast parent Advance Publications “have been discussing this for a couple of years.”
Anderson, an ex-Marine and a journalist by training, has had a multi-faceted career. In 2004, he published the memoir “Meant to Be,” which describes how he learned that the alcoholic and abusive man who had raised him was not his father. His mom had had a secret love affair during World War II. Anderson wrote the book about how his mom told him the truth and how he ultimately set out to find his unknown relatives from his natural father.
Two years ago, Anderson took a six-month sabbatical to complete work on his play “Johnny’s War,” but returned to his day job. The play is now in pre-production with Broadway producer Julian Schlossberg, and Anderson said he’s about halfway through a second play.
Anderson said he’d stay on at Parade until a successor is named.
“It could be anywhere from six weeks to six months,” he said.
Condé Nast sources said a search is under way inside and outside the company.
During his tenure, Anderson brought in many acclaimed writers, such as David Halberstam, Norman Mailer, Dick Schaap, Gail Sheehy, Herman Wouk, and James Brady, a fellow marine who recently passed away.
“One of Walter’s greatest achievements was his creation of the ‘modern’ Parade,” Newhouse said. “He transformed the Sunday magazine with new columns, ideas, and a higher level of reporting and writing.”
Parade is carried by The Post, as well as the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and Dallas Morning News.
Sources estimate the publication grosses more than $300 million a year solely on ad revenue, and cranks out a profit believed to be in the $50 million-to-$100 million range.
But like everything newspaper related, Parade has seen its circulation dip from its peak of 35 million six years ago, even as it added 70 newspapers to its line-up last year.
Court date
Magazine wholesaler Source Interlink Cos. and the publishers it’s battling are due in court on Feb. 23, as Source seeks to make permanent a temporary injunction barring the publishers from taking their business elsewhere.
It is the latest in a saga pitting Source Interlink and publishers Time Inc., Hachette Filipacchi Media, Bauer Publications and American Media Inc., over a 7-cent surcharge Source wanted to impose on each copy of the magazines it delivers to retailers.
Source had argued that when the publishers pulled their titles, it amounted to collusion that would drive it out of business.
US District Court Judge Paul Crotty made no ruling on the collusion claim but in his ruling late Tuesday issued a restraining order which forced publishers to resume shipments through Source to retailers. He apparently wanted to assure that Soruce was still in business when all the parties are back in court on Feb. 23, where he will consider Soruce’s request for a preliminary injunciton while the anti-trust case is debated. Not surprisingly, defendants claim the suit is without merit. Anderson News which had also been losing money in the magazine wholesaling business, pulled out of the business about six days after it learned magazines were refusing to ship to them, but it still makes money shipping other items to retailers.
Source Interlink, which counts Ron Burkle‘s Yucaipa Cos. as its single-largest shareholder, delivers magazines to about 41 percent of the retail market.
Both Source and competitor Anderson News last month incurred the wrath of many hard- pressed publishers after they both announced plans to start imposing the surcharge.
The four publishers held back copies and tried to arrange alternate deliveries.
Anderson News, which had about 23 percent of the market, including most of the Wal-Mart chain, tossed in the towel last weekend and stopped its de livery business just a week after maga zines stopped ship ping to them.
“I don’t think they thought shipments would stop,” said one industry insider. “They’ve always had ultimate faith that they could bully the publishers.”