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When David Carey left The New Yorker this past January, few would have suspected he was holding a round-trip ticket. But it’s true: Carey, who was lured away to run Gruner + Jahr USA’s business magazines, is returning to his old job as publisher of Conde Nast’s highbrow weekly. Carey says he wasn’t comfortable with the multi-tiered structure of the foreign-owned conglomerate, according to Inside.com. More than likely, he also found running business magazines not to his liking, at least in the current economic climate, as both of the company’s newly-acquired business titles have suffered brutal dropoffs in advertising this year. Ad pages in Fast Company, for which G+J paid more than $340 million last fall, were down 47.2 percent to 512 in the first six months of the year. Inc., acquired for around $200 million last summer, watched pages plummet 44.3 percent to 478.51 through June, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
NBC in Monday night sweep
NBC won again with its reality programs last night, with new episodes of “Fear Factor,” “Weakest Link” and “Dateline” sweeping all three primetime hours in both households and adults 18-49. Of the three programs, “Fear Factor” at 8 p.m. earned the highest ratings, topping its closest competitor by seven household shares. ABC’s one-round golf match, “The Battle at Bighorn,” which pitted Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam against David Duval and Karrie Webb, hovered around second and third place for most of the night. Without adjusting for time zone differences, the live golf special managed to edge CBS’s repeats for second place in households, but lost to those same repeats among adults 18-49 to finish third in the demographic. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Monday night were: NBC 8.8/15 and 5.8, ABC 6.0/10 and 2.8, CBS 5.8/10 and 2.9, and Fox 3.1/5 and 1.9. On Sunday, repeats of reality programs also gave NBC a clean sweep during primetime among adults 18-49. The network won all eight primetime half hours in the demographic with repeats of “Fear Factor,” “Spy TV” and “Weakest Link.” “Link” also won the 10 p.m. hour in households by two shares, while a repeat of ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” won households at 9 p.m. by three shares. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Sunday night were: CBS 6.6/12 and 1.8, NBC 5.5/10 and 4.1, ABC 5.4/10 and 2.6, and Fox 3.7/7 and 2.7.
CEO departs troubled Working Woman
There's soon to be one fewer working woman at Working Woman. Kay Koplovitz, CEO of the Working Woman Network since 1999, is expected to resign today, according to the New York Post's Keith Kelly. Chairman Jay MacDonald, who ran the company back when it was known as MacDonald Communications, reportedly plans to return to the CEO job. Working Woman Networks has been in turmoil this year as ad pages in both Working Woman and Working Mother fell by more than 20 percent through June versus first-half 2000. In May, MacDonald confirmed that the company had hired investment firm DeSilva & Phillips to explore strategic options including a sale.
L.A. Times cuts 1,600 part-time jobs
Under pressure from the new owners to cut costs, the Los Angeles Times said it plans to eliminate nearly 1,600 part-time circulation positions from the payroll. The downsized employees, who work an average of 20 hours a week, are mostly responsible for distributing the paper for single-copy sale at newsstands and curbside boxes. The paper says it can save money by farming out single-copy distribution to independent contractors. The Tribune Co., which acquired the Los Angeles Times last year as part of its merger with Times Mirror, says it wishes to cut 10 percent of its nationwide workforce by the year's end.
'ER': Dammit, doctor, we've lost another one
NBC's top-rated hospital drama, "ER," will say goodbye to another member of its dwindling original cast at the end of the coming season. Eriq LaSalle, who plays Dr. Peter Benton, will not be returning to the medical drama after his current three-year, $27 million contract expires, choosing to focus full-time on directing, writing and producing feature films. In addition to his work on films including the upcoming "Crazy as Hell" and "The Salton Sea" with Val Kilmer, LaSalle directed a pilot for Showtime, "Soul Food." Anthony Edwards, who also hails from the original "ER" cast, will also depart the show after next May. Among those who will continue with the series after this season, only Noah Wyle, who just signed a two-year extension, has been on the show every year since 1994. Another original "ER" doc, Sherry Stringfield, has returned for next season after departing five years ago. Other "ER" casualties include George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, and William H. Macy.
Murdoch's wife: The Rupert I loved is dead
Might the former Mrs. Rupert Murdoch be just the tiniest bit bitter? In an interview with the Australian magazine Women's Weekly, Anna Murdoch Mann, who was married to the News Corp. chairman for 32 years, accuses her ex-husband of acting unkindly in his business and personal dealings with her. "I believe when you take a vow to be loyal to someone and look after someone all your life, that you try and stick to that," says Mann, who has, like her husband, remarried since their 1998 divorce. She says she was hurt by Murdoch's relationship with News Corp. underling Wendi Deng, whom he married in 1999, and again when he arranged to have her ousted from the company's board of directors. "I began to think the Rupert Murdoch I loved died a long time ago. Perhaps I was in love with the idea of still being in love with him. But the Rupert I fell in love with could not have behaved this way." Now that she has more or less given up on him, Mann says her hope is that Murdoch won't pass down to his children the strain of running the globe-spanning media empire. "I think they're all so good that they could do whatever they wanted," she says of the couple's three children, Elizabeth, Lachlan and James. "But I think there's going to be a lot of heartbreak and hardship [for whoever succeeds their father as chairman]. There's been such a lot of pressure that they needn't have had at their age."
Vogue's Anna W. says no to 'Sex'
Will Vogue’s Anna Wintour follow fellow publishing big shot Ron Galotti in being immortalized on "Sex and the City"? Not anytime soon. Wintour has declined a request by the producers of the HBO series to use the magazine’s offices as the set for an upcoming episode, according to New York magazine. Apparently, the notoriously chilly editrix, whose love of fur has earned her the wrath of many a PETA activist, had learned that there was to be a character based on her, and was concerned that she would be depicted less than flatteringly. Galotti, however, can’t really complain. The Talk publisher is said to have provided the inspiration for the character known as Mr. Big, the well-equipped on-again, off-again love interest for Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie.
July 31, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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