Top editor climbs off Hearst’s Veranda
THERE’S more intrigue inside the Hearst Tower. While insiders expect some editor-in-chief shake-ups to come late fall, at least one is already exiting.
Clint Smith, the editor-in-chief of shelter title Veranda for the past five years, is exiting at the end of September after he completes the year-end issue.
“I’ve decided to leave the magazine to pursue my own endeavors,” he said in a statement released by Hearst. “It has been a great ride.”
The shelter category has been under pressure for the past several years and many of the editorial job functions on the various Hearst shelter magazines, which also include House Beautiful and Elle Decor, have been combined.
In a separate development, two of the titles snagged in the Rodale acquisition in January — Runner’s World and Bicycling — are getting big redesigns as they move their subscriptions to membership models.
Hearst has already hired Jalaine Johnson, formerly of Universal Music Group, to be its first director of membership, according to Digiday. It is seen as a way to increase the revenue from annual subscriptions (currently averaging $18.70 a year for RW and $15.10 for Bicycling).
An insider tells Media Ink that the RW redesign will happen in November and the Bicycling redesign in January. Kit Fox, the former RW editor who returned this spring, has been hired as a special projects editor to create new content aimed at members.
Sports rivalry
An explosive new report about FanSided and its reliance on lowwage contributors is drawing some unwanted attention to the site, which is part of the Sports Illustrated pending sell-off.
Time Inc. had bought FanSided in 2015 in part to bolster its SI.com traffic, and it went with the company in the sale to Meredith in January.
The report in Deadspin says that the site, which commands about 15 million unique visitors a month, is staffed by 1,500 contributors, most of whom are writers making as little as $15 a month — while others write for free.
It says some of the writers covering the nearly 300 sports teams are as young as high school age and many are lured with the false hope of one day writing for Sports Illustrated.
A Meredith spokesman points out that Deadspin, which is a rival to FanSided in the sports blogging world, also had a similar exposé about another sports Web rival, SB Nation, owned by Vox Media, about a year ago.
“If these things took place — and we have no knowledge that they did — it was before SI bought the site in 2015 and prior to Meredith’s ownership in 2018,” the spokesman said. “There is definitely a Deadspin agenda in play here.”
There’s no update on the sell-off of SI and other titles, but sources say the prices are dropping far below the $200 million that Meredith was hoping to snare for SI. It origi- nally thought SI, Time and Fortune would go for $500 million.
Wyatt’s showdown
The bid by hedgie Will Wyatt’s Donerail Group to buy Tronc, owner of the Chicago Tribune and the struggling New York Daily News, “is progressing,” but no deal is done yet.
Odds of getting one done are improving, however, said one source close to the situation. Banks are still a little jittery about the long-term prospects for the company and its remaining 10 papers after its profitable Los Angeles Times and the San Diego UnionTribune dailies were sold to Dr. Patrick SoonShiong for $500 million June.
Ken Doctor at Newsonomics says that is why Wyatt is trying to line up separate buyers to take over most of the papers. One source said it appears Wyatt is more interested in serving as a broker than as an operator.
He may have a tough time selling the struggling News, which previous owner Mort Zuckerman was unsuccessful at selling back in 2015 — and which finally sold to Tronc for $1 a year ago. But at the time of that deal, it was hyped as a way to give advertisers a national buy with publications in the nation’s three largest markets. Said one financial observer, “That rationale disappeared the moment they sold the LA Times.” In a scramble to try to cuts its losses of close to $30 million a year, The News recently laid off 103 people, which meant a 50 percent cut to the newsroom, now staffed by only 40 people. Sources say if a deal is done, it is expected to come in at around $18 to $19 per share, which translates into a price of $638.3 million to $673.8 million. Former chairman Michael Ferro desperately wants to land a price per share that is above the $18.75 that Gannett was dangling before it backed away from a deal in 2016. The collapse of those talks sent the stock reeling to $9.75 a share. It has since rebounded, closing up 2.6 percent on Thursday, at $16.75 a share.