Shakeups are already underway at Time Inc. in advance of Ann Moore‘s exit and Jack Griffin‘s arrival from Meredith as the new CEO.
Sylvia Auton, executive vice president in charge of Time Inc.’s Lifestyle Group, which includes Real Simple and Southern Living, will be going home to London by year’s end, ending her four-year run in charge of the operation.
Evelyn Webster, who was running IPC Media in London, will flip-flop jobs with Auton and come to New York as the new CEO of the Lifestyle Group. Meanwhile, Auton goes home to take over IPC, a job she held four years earlier, the company confirmed late last night.
Auton’s term was marked by controversy and she was said to have found few corporate allies other than her immediate boss, Moore.
Most insiders see the pending move, effective on Jan. 1, as a huge demotion, but others see the switch as something planned.
Auton was said to be in a panic when news of Moore’s departure broke on Aug. 4 because she worried that her move back to London could be nixed with a new executive in charge.
Auton slashed costs and staff in the once-happy and profitable Southern Progress unit in Birmingham, Ala. and clashed with subordinates in New York and Birmingham.
In a move that some saw as politically risky, Auton even urged Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to sell the entire Time Inc. division, insiders say.
In the most recent quarter, magazines were star performers, with profits up 50 percent.
Auton denied to Media Ink that she had ever made such a suggestion to Bewkes, although insiders said it had indeed happened late last year at a top executive meeting in London.
Her reign has been controversial in other spheres as well. She has feuded with the corporation’s Editor-In-Chief, John Huey, on issues concerning editorial independence, sources said.
Her use of a Wal-Mart ad in an advertorial in Real Simple ran afoul of guidelines put forth by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME).
Sources tell Media Ink that the ASME board recently voted that the Wal-Mart ad constituted a serious violation. ASME CEO Sid Holt has yet to write a formal letter of reprimand, but sometime in the next week it is expected to be directed to Real Simple Managing Editor Kristin van Ogtrop and the magazine’s publisher, Kevin White.
Insiders said it was Auton who had pushed the controversial feature and urged the advertorials be published in that fashion in the magazines as a way to boost advertising in a tough climate.
The Wal-Mart ad rankled many insiders because they felt it pierced the boundary inside Time Inc. that separated church from state or more commonly, editorial from advertising.
One visible sign of the discord within the ranks: Huey’s name no longer runs atop the masthead of any of the Lifestyle Group titles. Officially, Time Inc. insisted it was because magazine editors in that division report directly to the executive vice president.
In the other divisions of the company, the editors report ultimately to Huey.
But other insiders said the issues run deeper. Time Inc. has always been one company that valued the separation of church and state.
As the Post prepared to work on the story late yesterday, Time Inc. acknowledged that the Auton move was taking place.
In a statement released around 6 p.m., Moore said that Auton would return to London as CEO of the IPC Group.
Moore praised Auton as “one of the most talented executives in the magazine business. She has transformed the Lifestyle Group during her time here and with her mission accomplished, is returning to the CEO role at IPC.”
Auton did not return calls from Media Ink. In a statement she said that “after four fantastic years” she was looking forward to leading the IPC Group again.
Expanding
Christopher Ruddy, the founder of the right-leaning Newsmax Media, may have been thwarted in his bid to buy Newsweek from the Washington Post Company, but his 12-year-old company is still going to aggressively expand its editorial brand.
Newsmax, which has a fast-growing monthly magazine and a booming Web site aimed at the Republican-leaning heartland audience, has a $2 million war chest that it intends to pump into expansion of its editorial staff, primarily with additions to its New York and Washington DC offices.
Ruddy says he wants to expand the New York office from four editorial employees to 24 to 25 over the next 18 months and to add about a half dozen in Washington DC.
He said reve nues last year were in the $34 million range and he expects them to hit $50 mil lion this year, all by aiming at an audience of Republican-leaning consumers in the 50-plus age bracket. As part of his expansion, the company just hired Matt Belvedere, who had been running the video group for US News & World Report, to be in charge of its video news operation out of Washington DC.