Move over, GQ and Details: M mag is back

Conde Nast, which has been largely absent from the world of launching magazines since its $100 million flop with Portfolio, is returning to the start-up game next week.

M magazine, from Condé Nast’s Fairchild division, makes its comeback on newsstands on Monday, with a cover featuring Bradley Cooper — the surprise star of the hugely profitable flick, “The Hangover.”

The new quarterly magazine will be aiming for circulation of about 75,000 to men with household income above $200,000.

“It’s a very American magazine, but I wanted it to have a touch of European and a little panache,” said Editorial Director Peter Kaplan. “We’re making a magazine that cuts to the core of the culture,” he said, “one that combines fashion with an idea.”

Each of the quarterly magazines will have a different theme and the theme for the debut issue is “ambition.” It has the expected profile of a designer: Karl Lagerfeld.

And it also has some fun. To wit: an anonymous article written by a billionaire’s wife under the pen name “Pola Debevoise,” which film fans may recall was Marilyn Monroe’s moniker in “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

The title of the anonymous M piece is “I Married a Billionaire.”

“Billionaires are insane, so there are no boring days,” she writes. Guessing the author’s identity and that of her media mogul husband — who wears an Allen & Co windbreaker when he runs — is likely to be an interesting parlor game.

M last appeared as a magazine in 1992, when it folded in the wake of the early ’90s recession.

Other than the resurrection of the name, the new magazine doesn’t have much in common with the old M or its successor M Inc.

For one, the cover is heavy matte stock. Kaplan says it is the same paper that Henry Luce used to launch Fortune. Inside, there’s glossy stock and heavy print. The idea is to serve up a brawny magazine.

“Ink and paper were chosen carefully,” said Kaplan. “It’s a magazine to state the love of print.”

That’s a contrarian view these days, as most of his rivals push to find a digital solution to the advertising drain that has afflicted most titles over the past four years.

Unlike the last great Condé Nast launch, this one is clearly niche, aimed at “the affluent trailblazers who want to look under the hood,” said Kaplan. “It’s not a laddie magazine or a mass magazine. Every piece combines fashion and news.

“Are we still capable of creating magazines that are not tintypes that have identities all their own?” Kaplan asked.

We’ll find out. The debut issue carries 41 ad pages from companies such as Armani, Dunhill, Versace, Louis Vuitton and J. Crew-Ludlow.

Griffin gig

Guess who Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has turned to as he figures out a plan to save Newsweek?

Reliable sources tell us it’s Jack Griffin, the short-timer CEO of Time Inc., which counts Newsweek arch- rival, the venerable Time, as its traditional flagship.

During his five-month tenure at Time Inc. that ended in early 2010, Griffin spent a lot of energy studying Time magazine. None of his plans were implemented as he was unceremoniously tossed out after clashing with Time Inc. old guard.

It does mean, however, that he is likely armed with lots of strategic information about Newsweek’s rival.

Griffin used some of his severance money from Time Inc. to set up his own consulting business. He declined to comment when contacted by Media Ink.

A spokesman for Newsweek Daily Beast confirmed it used consultants in the recent search for a new CEO, Baba Shetty, but declined to identify anyone.

S&P dings AMI

American Media Inc., owner of the National Enquirer, Star and Shape, said it is embarking on its first company-wide digital initiative, with plans to spend up to $30 million over the next three years.

The expenditure comes only days after Standard & Poor’s warned that the company, which emerged from bankruptcy two years ago, could be facing a new default crisis on its remaining $495 million in debt.

As a result, S&P lowered its debt ratings to “negative” from “stable.”

The downgrade was due to declining advertising and newsstand sales and intense competition on from celebrity and entertainment websites such as TMZ, Gawker and People.com

“The downgrade conveys our expectations that continued declines in revenues will outweigh the company’s cost reduction measures, resulting in rising debt leverage, thinning discretionary cash flow and a narrowing margin of compliance with financial covenants,” S&P said.

For the three months ended June 30, revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) declined 6.4 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively, S&P found.

AMI CEO David Pecker insisted that despite the new spending, the company will meet its earlier projection to have Ebitda between $105 million and $110 million this year.