Wenner prez pitch
Mag’s Trump focus reflects Pecker sale hopes
FOR the fourth week in a row, Wenner Media’s Us Weekly is featuring a Trump family member on its cover. This week, first daughter Ivanka Trump and hubby Jared Kushner get the cover treatment — after Melania Trump, all the Trump kids, and Ivanka solo got top billings. So what gives? Well, Jann Wenner is drawing closer to a deal to sell the title to David Pecker- led American Media Inc., industry sources were whispering on Thursday. AMI owns Star magazine. One industry observer said Wenner is giving the Trumps a high profile to curry favor with Pecker, an unabashed Donald Trump supporter.
“Jann Wenner has sold out to the Trumps,” the person said. “There’s no doubt in my mind they’ve done this to pander to Pecker.”
Pecker, you’ll recall, ran stories critical of Hillary Clinton, plus some Trump-favorable fake news stories — such as one in AMI’s National Enquirer that said the father of Ted Cruz was linked to a plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Of course, there could be a very sensible business reason that Us Weekly Editor-in-Chief Michael
Steele put the Trumps on the cover four times in a row: They are selling like crazy.
Newsstand sales for the past three issues were up 40 percent, said one source.
Nonetheless, four Trump covers in a row when Wenner is looking to sell the title has people talking.
And there is also the issue that before any sale of Us Weekly to AMI can be finalized, President Trump’s regulators will need to sign off on the deal because it would put the No. 2 and No. 3 celeb weeklies under one roof.
As a deal with AMI grows more and more likely, insiders at Wenner Media are in a state of panic.
“AMI will gut this place,” said one worried insider. “Some believe as few as a dozen staffers will move downtown, which would mean 100 layoffs.”
Wenner and AMI declined to comment on any pending talks.
Frost revisited
Tryas it might, the American Magazine Media Conference could not avoid wading into political waters — even whenthere are nopolitical leaders stopping by.
Theconference was once a favorite stop for leading political speakers.
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, then-Sen. BarackObama, Sen. John McCain and former President Bill Clinton each stopped in over the years. But that was when the confab was a multiday affair held in warmer climes.
Now it’s a one-day event with no golf, tennis, road races — or temperatures in the 70s.
This year, it was held Feb. 8 at the Conrad Hotel in downtown Manhattan.
Film director RonHowardwasthe closest thing to a real celebrity this year. In aninterview with NewYorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick, a clip from the director’s movie based onthe famous 1977 interview of Richard Nixon by cerebral British talkshow host David Frost was played.
The clip featured a segment in whichNixontells anastonished Frost, regarding illegal acts and national security, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
The line drew titters from the audience.
A second minor political moment occurred when the American Society of Magazine Editors voted Time’s “Total Meltdown” cover, featuring a likeness of Trump, as the cover of the year.
The cover drawing was by creative director D.W. Pine and artist Edel Rodriguez.
Despite the fact that Trump recovered from the meltdown and took the election, the cover still won because the judges decided that “Total Meltdown” delivered real facts about a real moment in American history and“deserved real recognition as the best cover of the year.”
Time Editor Nancy Gibbs said of Trump, “[H]e has come after us, he has come after us all, he has come after the very principles of truth and accountability, and we intend to cover and uncover and capture all of this, to speak to everyone, to listen to everyone, because what we do is useful and valuable and sometimes dangerous.”
Timefor guessing
One magazine-CEO panel at the American Magazine Media Conference had all the potential for excitement, since the single question that was hanging over everyone there on Wednesday was who, if anyone, is going to buy Time Inc. But no real answers emerged. Moderator Linda Thomas Brooks, the association’s chief executive, opened the discussion by asking Time Inc. CEO Rich Battista if he had “anything to tell the audience.”
Battista, who was added to the Time Inc. board when he was elevated to CEOinSeptember, replied, “It doesn’t surprise me that third parties would beinterested in Time.” Inotherwords, he revealed absolutely nothing.
Steve Lacy, the CEO of Meredith, which is said to be stalking Time Inc., was seated two people away on a panel that also included Hearst Magazine’s David Carey, Condé Nast CEO Bob Sauerberg and Rodale CEO Maria Rodale.
Lacy was never asked the question and never b brought up the topic. The private investment team, which includes former Maker Studios Chairman Ynon Kreiz, Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Warner Music Chairman Len B lava tnik had gotten a first look at the Time Inc. books on Monday. But they are industry outsiders and, as such, not invited to the members-only powwow.
Time Inc.’s earnings are due Feb. 16, and the early buzz is they will fall short of expectations, showing another year of decline.