Changes that Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore made to the company’s compensation structure may have been a reason People StyleWatch Publisher Michelle Myers is jumping to Condé Nast, insiders say.
Myers is replacing Gina Sanders as publisher of Lucky. Sanders last month became CEO of Condé Nast’s Fairchild Fashion Group, after Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman left to be CEO of e5 Global Media.
In Time Inc.’s old bonus program for top managers, half of their compensation was tied to personal performance goals and the other half to the performance of their magazine.
Last year, Moore changed that — now 70 percent of bonuses is tied to the performance of Time Inc. as a whole and 30 percent to personal performance. That is said to be particularly vexing to people who work for the company’s biggest money makers, including People and Sports Illustrated.
Myers is said to be using slumping morale to try to convince some of her former colleagues to follow her to Condé Nast, where things have clearly settled down.
StyleWatch was one of Time Inc.’s only magazines to post double-digit ad page gains last year.
Web splash
Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue, which hit newsstands this week with 67 ad pages, was far off from its record of 105 — but the digital side is booming.
“You can’t look at magazines anymore,” said spokesman Scott Novak, reached in Las Vegas where the models went after the New York launch party. “It’s a whole media look.”
The SI swimsuit digital launch drew a record 2.3 million unique visitors on the first day, up 85 percent from the 1.25 million who logged on in 2009, he said.
There were 42.2 million page views on day one, a 14 percent jump over last year.
In the two days after David Letterman announced Brooklyn Decker as this year’s cover girl Monday night, there were over 14 million video views.
Franchise revenue for the swimsuit issue in 2010 is up 15 percent over last year. The swimsuit issue accounts for 7 percent of the magazine’s annual advertising revenue.
Leave time
Employees at USA Today will be subject to the five-day furlough that Gannett already imposed on most of the papers in its chain for the first quarter.
The 1,620 workers at the nation’s second-largest daily paper, who were originally exempt, must take the unpaid leave between Feb. 28 and July, a memo distributed yesterday said.
The company also said that a year-long pay freeze that started last February would be extended for at least 90 more days.
“National advertising revenues in general were still down from the previous year, as were paid advertising pages at USA Today,” said Publisher David Hunke.
Snow day
The snow that paralyzed Washington, DC, has postponed talks between Teamsters International, Newsday and its parent, Cablevision.
The parties were supposed to sit down on Tuesday to discuss contracts that cover everyone from reporters to pressmen to delivery truck drivers at Newsday. The meeting was rescheduled for today but was canceled again when Teamsters International bosses could not get flights out of the storm-choked Capital.
Sources say the new date for talks to resume is Feb. 23. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The first of the contracts for six groups represented by Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference expires Feb. 26. The local represents 1,100 Newsday employees, with the biggest group being the editorial unit, whose contract expires April 1.
The tentative contract that union members voted on Jan. 23 — which would have chopped pay for most workers by 10 percent and reduced vacation pay — was overwhelmingly rejected.
“Securing new contracts will provide Newsday improved efficiencies that are beneficial to our long- term success,” the company said yesterday. “Therefore, we will continue to do all that we can to reach new agreements with the union fairly and quickly.”
In a statement earlier this week, union leaders said they “stand ready, as in the past, to help Newsday, which says the paper is financially trou bled.”
The negotiations are considered a big test for Cablevision CEO James Dolan, a Long Island media mogul whose op erations are largely union-free, and James Hoffa, Jr., president of the Teamsters International, which has a presence in media concerns across the metropolitan area.
