Kim Kelleher moving to Wired is the latest in big mag moves
In the latest move in the dizzying round of publisher changes, Condé Nast President Bob Sauerberg tapped former Say Media President Kim Kelleher as the new publisher of Wired — news that was reported first by The Post on Tuesday.
That effectively squelched talk that Drew Schutte, now at Details, would make a return to the title he worked at several years ago.
Schutte was most recently dispatched from his chief integration officer job at corporate to take over Details last month, after the incumbent publisher, Kevin Martinez, was lured away by a $3 million, three-year deal to become publisher of Maxim, which is now owned by Biglari Holdings. Earlier in his career, Schutte had been publisher of Wired.
The Wired job became open in the latest round of musical chairs, which started weeks ago and included GQ publisher Chris Mitchell moving to Vanity Fair — one of the company’s more important titles, headed by Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter.
Carter inked a new three-year deal just over a year ago.
Mitchell replaced Ed Menicheschi, who moved to president of the Condé Nast Media Group, handling its big-ticket advertisers. That started the game of musical chairs.
The Wired publisher, Howard Mittman, was then moved into the vacant GQ spot.
Kelleher’s time at Say Media, though only 16 months long, helped pave her way back into Condé Nast because of her immersion in the digital world.
Kelleher was Self’s publisher in 2010 when she jumped to Time Inc. — first to Sports Illustrated, where she was the first women to hold the publisher’s job, and then to Time magazine, where she was worldwide publisher.
After less than a year at Time magazine, she jumped to become the president of Say Media in 2012, which was trying to rapidly amp up its ad revenue. But she left in late 2013 after 16 months when the company abandoned its plans for an initial public offering.
Kelleher will have her work cut out for her at Wired, whose ad pages are down 24.5 percent through September, according to Media Industry Newsletter, which pegged its total at 425.
Wired, however, is pulling close to half its revenue from the digital side, insiders said.
“Kim is a proven business leader and a true pioneer in this industry,” Sauerberg said in making the announcement. “Bringing that knowledge and energy to Wired will create new growth opportunities and revenue streams, and power one of our marquee brands into the future.”
’Skins fans
Eyebrows were raised last week when the Daily News joined the politically correct crowd and said it would no longer use the term “Redskins” when writing about Washington’s NFL team.
The paper also said it would not use the Redskins’ Indian face profile symbol, either.
The move hit some as ironic because current Daily News owner, Mort Zuckerman, was one of the minority owners of the Washington Redskins a decade and a half ago and voiced no objections at that time to the team’s name.
Zuckerman had joined the group that included current owner Dan Snyder, who is adamantly opposed to a name change. The 77-year old real estate mogul was apparently talked into the deal by his then partner at the Daily News, Fred Drasner.
“We bought it in 1999,” Drasner recalled. “Mort got out about a year later. It wasn’t his thing.”
Drasner stayed involved until about 2004 when he sold just about everything he owned, including his stake in the Redskins, his share of the Daily News and his famous estate, the Cantagree Farm.
Regarding the controversy surrounding the franchise, Drasner says, “I think the whole thing with the name is just political correctness run amok. It wasn’t adopted as an insult to anyone. All of a sudden, people are saying it is an insult.”
“Why isn’t the San Diego Chargers an insult to women who use their charge cards a lot?” he asked.
Drasner, in an interview with Media Ink, proposed a solution to the current controversy.
“They don’t have to change their name. They just have to change their symbol — to a potato. I just had some redskin potato salad,” he said. “I don’t think anyone would object to a potato.”
Peers bolts
Martin Peers, the media and marketing bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, is leaving to join dot-com The Information as a columnist.
Peers has been at the Journal for 15 years and will be a columnist on the tech site.
The subscription-supported site was launched by former Journal reporter Jessica Lessin a year ago out of San Francisco.
Jonathan Weber, managing editor at The Information, confirmed the appointment. “We’re in a similar zone but not a direct competitor” to sites such as Tech Crunch and ReCode.
“We don’t aim to be a comprehensive breaking news site,” Weber said. “We’re trying to cut against the grain and offer insights and analysis that you’re not getting anywhere else.”