Hearst to Buy Hachette Filipacchi?

Hearst is reportedly close to a deal to buy Hachette Filipacchi Media, publisher of Elle and Woman's Day, in a deal that would make Hearst easily the dominant publisher of American female-centric media.

Hearst is reportedly close to a deal to buy Hachette Filipacchi Media, publisher of Elle and Woman's Day, in a deal that would make Hearst easily the dominant publisher of American female-centric media.
Steve Parr is the new CEO of Elle publisher Hachette Filipacchi, succeeding Alain Lemarchand.
• Another magazine has gone under: Hachette announced today that it's closing Metropolitan Home to "focus its resources" on Elle Décor. [AdAge]
• New York's profile of star Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin reveals he's one of the paper's highest-paid staffers and is beloved by the titans of Wall Street, but is not…
• A long list of media luminaries and politicians, including President Obama and former president Clinton, turned out for this afternoon for a memorial service at Avery Fisher Hall in honor of Walter Cronkite. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter taken hostage by militants in Afghanistan, was…
• Two years after he was booted from MSNBC and CBS Radio for making racist comments, Fox Business is now in talks to team up with Don Imus. [LAT]
• Is Hachette selling Elle? The company seems to be hedging. [AdAge]
• Magazine publishers are allowing advertisers to slap their ads just about any place they want these…
The Post's Keith Kelly reported today that Elle's parent company has been in discussions to turn over a stake in the magazine to Hearst. Could to be true? For what it's worth, a Hachette spokeswoman tells the Observer there's "no truth" to the report. And while we were hoping that Joe Zee might be able to shed some…
• Heidi Klum can now add "magazine editor" to her resume. She assembled a 140-page spread for German Vogue called "Heidi by Vogue." [NYDN]
• Stephen Colbert will be broadcasting from Baghdad next week. [AP]
• Silvio Berlusconi is vowing to sue the Spanish newspaper El Pais for publishing pics of topless women and a…
• Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show debuted last night. The reviews were mixed, although he did very well in the ratings, not surprisingly. [Variety, THR]
• Playboy Enterprises named Scott Flanders as its CEO yesterday. [NYP]
• Lawyers for author J.D. Salinger have filed suit against an author who is publishing a book…
This is a tough time for the magazine business, so it's only to be expected that publishers will do whatever is necessary to defend their dying brands. You may have never picked up a copy of Metropolitan Home (or even heard of the title), but Hachette wasn't thrilled to find out that a company has been producing…
• More bad news for the magazine biz: Ad pages fell 26 percent during the first quarter, although you probably guessed that when you used last month's issue of any number of Condé Nast magazines to floss your teeth. [NYT]
• Steve Brill plans to save journalism! Or die trying, at least. [NYT]
• Sam Zell now says his…
• Hachette is cutting salaries and asking staff to work overtime. Fun! [Gawker]
• Amazon is blaming an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" for the dropping the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian books. [AFP]
• Bravo has picked up four new shows, including one produced by Sarah Jessica Parker…
• Hachette is looking to sell a big bunch of magazines, including Road & Track, Car & Driver, American Photo, Boating, Cycle World, Sound & Vision, and Flying. Package deals available; financing not so much. [AdAge, MW]
• Dick Parsons will step down from the Time Warner board in May. [Crains]
• Time Warner is buying a…
• Got an idea for how Arthur Sulzberger Jr. might be able to rescue the struggling New York Times? He now says he'll "consider anything." [NYO]
• Hachette plans to leave Midtown for cheaper space near Wall Street. [NYP]
• Josh Schwartz is finishing the pilot for an as-yet-untitled Gossip Girl spin-off that will be…
• The recession hasn't been all that bad as far as Hollywood is concerned: Ticket sales this year are up 17.5% and attendance is up 16%. [NYT]
• Viacom and CBS chieftain Sumner Redstone will have until the end of next year to sell off assets in order to repay his enormous pile of debt. [WSJ]
• Hearst is looking to…
Staff at Elle publisher Hachette Filipacchi U.S. thought their spendthrift French owners might sell last summer. CEO Jack Kliger was out, the landscape bleak. They should have been so lucky.
• HarperCollins announced layoffs and a major reorg today. [NYO, Gawker]
• No one wants to take the editor job at OK! [Page Six]
• Ron Burkle's magazine distribution company is suing a bunch of publishing companies for trying to drive it out of business. We should be so lucky. [NYP]
• Michael Kinsley explains why…
Not an ideal day to be the CEO of a major magazine publishing company. First Hachette Filipacchi, the parent of mags like Elle and Car & Driver, announced that Jack Kliger was stepping down as CEO and moving to the chairman position effective Sept. 1. (Alain Lemarchand of Hachette's Paris-based parent Lagardere will…
Defamer Critic Death Watch, Part XXIV: We'd heard whispers from the deck of the slave ship today that magazine publishing giant Hachette Filipacchi would be paring around 15 jobs from Elle.com and other Web sites, and among them sadly appears to be Premiere film critic and blogger extraordinaire Glenn Kenny. He made…
We wish Jack Kliger happiness in his forthcoming marriage. Because the Hachette boss' job certainly isn't much fun. The magazine group's titles, such as Elle, are mostly also-rans; and the 60-year-old publishing veteran is both starved of funds by the company's French owners, and second-guessed by agents of head…