• The Sci Fi Channel is now called Syfy. It's pronounced the same way, except it's less science fiction-y, which is why it was changed to begin with. [THR]
• Justin Timberlake has tapped lit agent David Vigliano to sell publishers on the notion that Timberlake is just the person to write a book about golf. [NYO]
•…
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.
Fashion magazines have a female target audience. But the look of many fashion magazines is controlled, to a large extent, by gay men. Is that a problem for the magazines? It could be. The interests of the gays and fashion-conscious women overlap, but not perfectly (see the Perez Hilton empire, example A). But is it…
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…
Surprise, surprise. As we've been predicting for months, the chief exec of Hachette is stepping down. Charming former modelizer Jack Kliger bamboozled the press with talk of a multimedia revolution after taking over the French-owned magazine group in 1999; but the web strategy never moved beyond the stage of rhetoric.…
When Jack Kliger took over Elle and Hachette's other US titles in 1999, he established himself as one of the magazine industry's few multimedia visionaries. The former Conde Nast publisher pushed Hachette's content onto EchoStar's interactive TV platform; Hachette's Car and Driver teamed up with the USA Network to…
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…
Divorced magazine publisher Jack Kliger got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, speaking coach Amy Griggs, according to Jeff Bercovici at Mixed Media. Here's the 60-year-old Hachette Filipacchi boss, who runs a stable of magazines including 'Elle' and 'Premiere', between Griggs and his daughter, at a party in 2006.…
• Matt Lauer adds three years to his Today contract, at $13M per. He'll also receive a footwear allowance, for clickety stilettos. [NYT]
• And Diane Sawyer has lost the game. [NYSun]
• Jack Kliger had to kill ELLEgirl to save it as a website. Or something. [Ad Age]
• First Kurt Andersen calls it, now Variety: We're…
ELLEgirl is still shutting down, and its staffers are still confused about why. As FishbowlNY pointed out yesterday, all the mag's numbers were looking good. "We feel that it's inexplicable," a source on staff emailed. "We worked our asses off on a shoestring budget to make — sorry — the best teen magazine out…
Last time we checked in with Forbes media columnist James Brady — the Parade celeb-swaddler, Page Six creator, and longtime Murdoch factotum — he was, rather generously, praising Bonnie Fuller's "successful" stint at AMI and spinning the time Conde Nast fired her as Bonnie's own decision to leave. This week,…
Flak Magazine uncovers a "secret memo" from "editorial director" and partial owner of Hachette Filipacci, Saddam Hussein, to CEO Jack Kliger: "First of all, I wanted to apologize for all the fuss about titles (editorial consultant, creative director, father-leader... really, it's all the same to me, as long as the…
