All Rodale jobs said safe only through January
RODALE Chief Executive Maria Rodale spoke with anxious staffers at a town-hall meeting at the company’s Emmaus, Pa., headquarters on Thursday morning to try to calm employee jitters about the sale to Hearst.
Rodale told the staffers that they all had guaranteed jobs until January — when the estimated $225 million sale, announced on Wednesday, is expected to close.
But the jobs-until-January promise was “cold comfort if you’re going to be out of a job,” one person at the meeting told Media Ink.
Rodale, granddaughter of company founder J.I. Rodale, also let slip that senior-level executives “will be replaced” by Hearst executives.
Hearst is pledging, at least initially, to keep all Rodale titles, including the highly profitable Men’s Health and Runner’s World, and to maintain some kind of presence in Emmaus, the sleepy town where the family-owned publisher has been based since 1942.
The last time Hearst acquired a sizeable publishing company was in 2009, when it bought Hachette Filipacchi magazines from the Paris-based Lagardère Group for $900 million. Eventually, about half of Hachette Filipacchi employees were absorbed into Hearst.
“They [Hearst] offered a transition for Emmaus, but nobody is sure for how long,” said one townhall meeting attendee. But the source noted, “The deal doesn’t include the real estate — so it doesn’t look like they plan to be there for the long haul.”
Rodale’s stable of titles also includes Women’s Health, Bicycling, Prevention and the digitalonly Rodale’s Organic Life.
Today, Bicycling is losing about $1 million a year. and Runner’s World, while still making money, has seen its profits decline precipitously, said sources familiar with the title’s finances.
Prevention was converted into an ad-free format a year ago and is believed to be marginally profitable.
“I’d think [Hearst] would sell off Bicycling and Runner’s World and shut down Prevention,” said the source close to Rodale.
Hearst declined to comment on its long-term plans.
Cover-boy Graydon
Graydon Carter is giving himself a farewell gift. He will appear on the cover of the February issue, of Vanity Fair his last as editor-inchief, sources tell Media Ink.
Annie Leibovitz will shoot the cover, traditionally a triple gatefold featuring Hollywood stars.
The magazine, as always, keeps the names of the stars on the cover a closely guarded secret until the issue is set to hit newsstands. In that spirit, it wouldn’t confirm Carter’s expected presence.
“We don’t comment on upcoming covers,” a spokeswoman sniffed.
Meanwhile, Condé Nast hopes to have his replacement named by Oct. 31, one source said.
Carter, who has led the magazine for 25 years, plans to step away around Dec. 1. The New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick is helping Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour — who is also the Condé Nast artistic director — find a replacement.
Hef gets honor
Playboy will put a picture of a 39-year-old Hugh Hefner on the cover of its November/December issue.
The founder’s cover appearance marks only the 11th time that a male has appeared on the cover — and the first time a mann has appeared on the cover alone.
Hefner passed away on Sept. 27 at age 91, two days before the issue went to press.
A separate 100-page tribute issue hits in November.
The magazine could use a boost. In the latest six-month period ended June 30, circulation was down 30 percent, to 474,220, from the same period a year earlier, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
Newsstand circulation was down 50 percent over the same period.
Forbes stake sale
Another Chinese company is said to be preparing to take a minority stake in Forbes Media, which is already 95 percent owned by Asian investors via Hong Kong-based Integrated Whale Media. The Forbes family has only a 5 percent stake in the company, and Steve Forbes is the only family member still active in the company.p Yinji Entertainment & Media is said to be eyeing the new stake, according to a report in Caixin, an English-language publication that reports on Chinese businesses. Yinji has set up a $256 million investment fund that is buying FBS Entertainment and Leisure, which in turn will be used to buy the Forbes stake — which comes with rights to the Forbes brand in the “Greater China” region. A spokeswoman for Forbes Media declined to comment.