The parent company Lagardère SCA instead dispatched Alain Lemarchand, a Frenchman with no U.S. publishing experience, to reassure staff the company wasn't for sale, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Instead, Lermarchand would apparently continue from close range the sort of resource depravation his bosses had once practiced from afar. The CEO has rewritten his own budget twice in six months, according to the Journal, laid off receptionists on four of six floors and is now talking companywide job cuts.

This is how Lermarchand articulated the company's new/old ethos to the WSJ: ""We have to make sure every dollar we spend is unavoidable."

It might not be fair that the CEO must take on the weighty baggage of Hachette U.S.'s mistreatment in years past; surely every magazine group is in the midst of layoffs and cost-cutting at the moment. But surely he can't expect his troops to take much inspiration from his grand plan: Yet another reorganization and an admonition to get beyond "print audiences." As Hachette staffers know all too well, digital reorgs don't get far on gruel.

Elle, you'll recall, boasts a creative director named Joe Zee, a free-spending man who hired his "rumored paramour," Keith Pollock, to head the magazine's website. That move didn't appear to be motivated by business sense, given Pollock's background in retail. But Pollock couldn't hang on forever with only Zee's support; he recently left the magazine (at about the same time as Hachette boss Jack Kliger, whose legacy wasn't helped much by Elle's recent performance).

Pollock, we hear, may have landed a job with the production company of Stylista, the new reality show starring Elle fashion news director Anne Slowey. But the magazine he left behind continues to wrestle with how to successfully establish itself online—and how to retain its traditional audience in print.

So could Zee's overt gayness be pulling the magazine's style so far away from the heterosexual side of the spectrum that it's turning off straight female readers? An Elle spokesperson says that in his role as creative director, Zee does "everything from styling, editing, working with the Art Dept, etc." But she says that his input on major decisions like cover choices is just one of "dozens" of voices.

But another insider characterizes the covers as "all Zee's doing." The truth is likely somewhere in between, but there's no question Zee is a major driving force in the magazine's look.

So with Kliger out, Pollock gone, and the magazine in a shaky position, could Zee's job be on the line as well—because he has made Elle TOO GAY? Probably not, really. But you be the judge:

First of all, the layoffs. There is no official word yet, but we're hearing from inside that up to 20 people have gone, including executive Matthew Rosenberg; Joyann King, fashion editor at ElleGirl.com; Holly Seigal, senior editor of Ellegirl.com; and Dei Lewison, producer of the Elle websites. (There's no word on the former store salesman boyfriend whom insiders said Elle's self-promoting creative director, Joe Zee, installed at the fashion magazine's website.) The casualties were called to a meeting at 10.30 and then left to stew for quarter of an hour before digital boss Todd Anderman breezed in to fire them.

Another casualty is Glenn Kenny, whom Kliger talked up so much when he shut down the US edition of Premiere, the entertainment magazine. When the title was shuttered, Kliger said Kenny—the magazine's "most recognizable name"—would remain as an online movie critic and blogger. Kliger told the Wall Street Journal: "We saw trend lines for both ELLEgirl.com and Premiere.com moving in very positive, healthy directions, and we didn't necessarily feel that the print versions, which were not trending in a reasonable timeline toward profitability, enhanced what the digital versions were providing." So, why the cutbacks at a division which Kliger said would provide Hachette with over 20% of its revenues and most of its advertising growth?

First of all, Hachette has always been an abortion of a magazine company. It was a rag-tag collection of also-ran titles put together by David Pecker, now busy losing money at American Media. The company is owned by a dysfunctional French conglomerate, which never gave Kliger the resources or authority he needed to make the group a significant player. Much of Kliger's talk—about grand web plans—was just designed to bamboozle credulous journalists who might otherwise see a marginal magazine group in decline. Earlier in his tenure, Kliger was said to be much loved by his French bosses. More recently, we heard the relationship had broken down. "I'd heard the French were rats," he's known to complain. "But now I know."

Second, it's experiencing the same pressure to cut costs that is affecting other print publishing groups—except more so. Lagardere, the French company which owns Hachette, recently disclosed its US revenues were flat—and that was not even counting the revenues sacrificed when Premiere folded. The firm is moving out of the 40th floor of its Manhattan headquarters to save on rent; business trips have been curtailed; and editors are forced to print stories from inventory because editorial budgets do not allow new commissions.

Third, the grand multimedia experiment has been an utter failure. The early experiments with interactive TV were dismal, predictably. But nor have Kliger's more recent investments in branded web titles such as Premiere.com fulfilled the promise he saw for them. Hachette recently allowed Quantcast, a web measurement firm, to monitor traffic. Those numbers are not protected by a password. All the Hachette website put together garner no more than 200-250,ooo unique visitors per day; one of the biggest, Elle's website, only attracts of the order of 60,000. Embarrassing.

Hachette hasn't said whether it will be replacing any of the staff let go today. "There is no stability here, no one knows what's going on or what is happening," says a tipster. Elle, Car and Driver and various other titles certainly have some sort of following, even if exaggerated by pay-for-praise public relations interns. Their economic value may be better realized in some other media group, if anyone is still buying. As for Kliger himself, the tittle-tattle is that his contract is coming up for renewal—and it won't be.

[Photo shows Kliger with his former mistress, speaking coach Amy Griggs, and daughter.]

WHICH divorced magazine bigwig stands no chance of burying the hatchet with his ex-wife now that his mistress - a former model in her mid-30s - is visibly pregnant? The philanderer can kiss his would-be carefree lifestyle goodbye now with two women jacking him up for support.

After the jump, Hachette chief Jack Kliger's staff memo, which extols the magazine's work, extols the brand's online future — ELLEgirl ringtones are coming soon! — and, curiously, says absolutely nothing about placements or severance for the mag's soon-to-be-unemployed staffers.

From Jack Kliger, president and CEO, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.

I am announcing today that, in light of ongoing research combined with five years of experience in the teen market, we are redirecting the strategy for the ELLEgirl brand. Following the June/July 2006 issue, ELLEgirl magazine will be discontinued, and the company will increase its substantial investment in the brand's digital formats focusing on ELLEgirl.com and wireless content.

It is always unfortunate to have to close a magazine; but today the teen market is increasingly fragmented. To effectively reach these girls, we must invest in the media where they spend most of their time and where we see our greatest growth potential.

I want to recognize that Editor-in-Chief Christina Kelly and VP/Publisher Deborah Burns have done extraordinary jobs of establishing this strong brand. ELLEgirl was twice named on the Adweek "Hot List", recognized by Delaney Report as the "Best Publication" and led in ad sales growth and newsstand growth year over year. We are thankful for their dedication and creative vision and want to extend that appreciation to their teams and the other Hachette colleagues who have been dedicated to publishing this title.

Going forward ELLEgirl.com will become the cornerstone of the brand's digital initiative. The ELLEgirl Web site, which launched before the magazine, was successfully received from the onset. In the past year alone, ELLEgirl.com has tripled its unique visitors, doubled its page views and doubled its ad revenue. ELLEgirl.com was recently listed in Media Metrix as one of the top ten teen sites.

With our partner Alloy, a leading teen marketing company, there are immediate plans for an extensive redesign, expanded content and increased staffing. This area will be managed by Marta Wohrle, VP/Director of Digital Media, and Carol Smith, SVP/ELLE group publishing director.

When teen girls are not on the Web, they are on their cell phones. Working closely with our sister company Lagardere Active North America, which launched in the U.S. eighteen months ago, we are developing ELLEgirl ring tones and wallpaper mobile pages, as well as a number of projects in the mobile blogging area.

We recognize that there are times when print works best. With this in mind, we will evaluate targeted magazine opportunities; for 2007, we are considering two themed issues which will join ELLE Accessories in the ELLE specials division.

Jack Kliger

'Elle Girl' to Fold [FBNY[
'ELLEgirl' Shuts Print Edition, Moves to Web Only [Ad Age]
Girl Trouble [WWD]

But we couldn't get that far into the piece, waylaid as we were by the lede. To wit:

The new chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America, Jack Kliger — born in Italy to a couple of young Holocaust survivors rescued by the Jewish Brigade — could be the stuff of magazine cover stories.

The stuff merely of cover stories? No way. This is the stuff of a John Hughes opening scene: Oh, those wild-and-crazy young Holocaust survivors, footloose and fancy-free, traipsing around Europe, having kids (and, presumably, trying to find their incinerated relatives). Transfixed by such a happy daydream — one imagines Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson as the young survivors — we were never were able to get back to the article.

(Well, except to notice this: It's Le Bernardin, guys.)

Jack Kliger Loves Magazines [Forbes.com]