SI OF RELIEF FOR ANNA
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CONDÉ Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. is denying reports that he is wooing the editor of French Vogue to become the new editor of the company’s flagship, American Vogue.
“It is the silliest rumor I’ve ever heard and there is no truth to it,” said Newhouse in a statement to Media Ink yesterday after rumors began buzzing through the Condé Nast corridors.
MORE: French Vogue Editrix Carine Roitfeld Gives Life to Haughty Fashionista
The British-born Anna Wintour has been the editor of American Vogue for 20 years. While an aloof, chilly, nearly aristocratic figure to most, she is arguably the single-most important editor in the fashion world.
On the other hand, Carine Roitfeld is the editor of French Vogue – a racy magazine that is far different than its American counterpart. For example, frontal nudity, a big taboo in mainstream American magazines, is fairly common in French Vogue.
Newhouse’s statement to Media Ink was in response to a new round of rumors sparked by a report on the Web site Gawker.com that Newhouse had flown to Europe a few days earlier than usual and had a public dinner with Roitfeld as part of his plan to woo her to edit the American Vogue, the most profitable title in the empire.
Longtime Condé Nast observers point out that Newhouse – if he was trying to woo anyone to a top editor’s post here – normally would conduct meetings in utmost secrecy. Top editors such as The New Yorker’s David Remnick and Condé Nast Portfolio’s Joanne Lipman were asked to meet Newhouse in his luxe apartment overlooking the East River as part of the vetting process.
The Post’s Page Six reported back on Nov. 22 that Wintour’s contract was coming to an end in the near future and she was thinking of calling it quits. “She’s thinking of retiring,” a source told Page Six. “She feels she’s done it all and had enough. She has been putting out feelers to intimate friends recommending a possible replacement to S.I. Newhouse.”
Editing a shrinking empire through an economic downturn may not be her cup of tea.
Already this year, the company has scrapped Fashion Rocks and its accompanying magazine; canceled Movie Rocks; canceled the lifestyle mag Vogue Living; and rolled back Men’s Vogue from a regular magazine with its own staff and a 10-times-a-year frequency into a twice-a-year supplement to Vogue with no independent staffers. Wintour was atop all of the magazines as editorial director.
If Wintour does leave, in-house candidates to replace her include Cindi Leive, the editor-in-chief of Glamour, and Linda Wells, the editor-in- chief of Allure.
Longer-shot inside candidates would include the editor-in-chief of Russian Vogue, Aliona Doletskaya. Also a contender is the editor of Teen Vogue and an Anna protégé, Amy Astley.
Wintour did not return a call seeking comment.
Tina scores
Vanity Fair, in its much buzzed-about cover story on Tina Fey, says she snagged $5 million for her book. But the info may have been a little off.
Several sources told Media Ink that $5 million was only the opening bid price. As Fey’s impressions of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” caught fire with the public, they ignited a frenzy among publishers to land her book deal. By the time it was done and Little Brown had emerged victorious, the advance had reached $6.9 million, according to a well-placed publishing source.
Her agent at Endeavor, Richard Abate, has declined to comment and Little Brown didn’t disclose the size of the advance.
Still cutting
Another day, another round of cutbacks at Time Inc.
The New York-based magazines that were trying to find volunteers to take buyouts have largely fallen short.
People Managing Editor Larry Hackett, who was looking for 18 volunteers from among the editorial employees who are covered by the Newspaper Guild contract, has found only about half that many. The deadline was Dec. 1. That means that over today and tomorrow, he’ll be handing pink slips to about 10 employees.
The worst portion of this round of buyouts may come on Friday. That’s when Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonell and Time Managing Editor Rick Stengel must swing the ax in the News Group.
SI was looking for 40 volunteers and fell woefully short of the goal, meaning most of the downsizing will come from axings. Time is also said to have fallen short of its target of 20 buyouts.
Meanwhile, way down south in the still smoldering Southern Progress Corp. wing of Time Inc. more cuts were being revealed. About seven staffers on Coastal Living were expected to get the pink slip yesterday
Bill Shapiro, who had been hanging around as the Time Inc. development editor ever since weekly Life folded for the last time, will now be spending about one week a month in Birmingham, insiders said. He is charged with helping editors down there.
Web hits
Gawker boss Nick Denton seems to be aspiring to be the new Time Inc. of cyberland – at least when it comes to unceremoniously firing people in the holiday season.
He had already warned of a potential 40 percent downturn in online advertising next year, even though he concedes his own operation actually saw an uptick in revenue through November. That didn’t stop him from axing Gawker Editor Sheila McClear and several other staffers yesterday.
“I heard rumors of layoffs via another media reporter and asked Gabriel [Snyder, managing editor of Gawker Media] if there was anything I should know,” McClear told Media Ink. “He said, yeah, he was laying me off. The most embarrassing thing is that I just cried in the conference room like a girl. My question is, when the **** were they going to tell me?”
Denton said in an e-mail, “You might wonder how bad things can get given that Q4 hasn’t been a disaster for us by any stretch. Simple answer: Better safe than sorry.”
He said he is actually replacing McClear with Owen Thomas, formerly of his rapidly downsizing Valleywag site.
Costly Times
The New York Times is officially revealing the cost of shutting down its City & Suburban subsidiary, which delivers the Times and about 200 magazines and newspapers to retail.
In a filing, the Times says the shutdown, reported here in September, will cost them between $48 million and $53 million.