Conde Nast Publications Inc.

In his profile of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse on Sunday, The Times' Richard Pérez-Peña noted:

Some extravagances have been curtailed, but no one in the business disputes that Condé still spends far more money than its competitors. Magazine publishers and editors in chief haul in $400,000 to $2 million in salary and bonuses, current and former executives say, and many executives have clothing allowances in the high five figures.

Perhaps one indication of tightening belts at the glossy empire may be a memo sent out to employees asking them shell out their own money for tickets to the Fashion Rocks benefit at Radio City Music Hall in September.  read more »

The most interesting thing in Richard Perez-Pena's 3,330 word write-around profile of Si Newhouse is the language from Condé Nast executives about the importance of the Web.

• Tom Wallace, editorial director, Condé Nast: “You’re going to have to go a long way on the Internet to compete with the way we produce words and images in the magazines."
• Steve Newhouse, chariman of Advance.net: “What we’re not doing is trying to turn those companion sites into large Web destinations. They’re there to support the magazines.”
• Jonathan Newhouse, head of Condé Nast international: “I think sometimes commentators throw around these assumptions about what is happening to the industry, going the way of newspapers, and I don’t believe it.
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As part of its 15th anniversary celebration, Wired has posted a few videos and articles in which its founders look back at what they got right and wrong in the early days of the magazine.  read more »

One of the remaining bidders for the West Side rail yards, a team of the Durst Organizaiton and Vornado Realty Trust, said it is expecting that S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast will remain part of its bid as an anchor tenant.

“We expect that Condé would be our partner,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

However, Condé, which began a new search for space after Tishman Speyer was named the winner over the Durst/Vornado team in March, did not make clear its plans, as a company spokeswoman, Maury Perl, declined comment.  read more »

A little after 6 p.m. at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Condé Nast president Richard Beckman was sharing a drink—vodka, olives—with Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend. The two were discussing the same thing everyone in the lobby of Jazz at Lincoln Center at the Time Warner Center was talking about: What the National Magazine Awards can do, or not do, for a magazine.  read more »

MONDAY

Monday’s future just got a little bit bleaker. Dancing With the Stars (ABC)—whose finale last Tuesday earned the network its best ratings on that night in over seven years—cha-cha-cha-ed out of our lives. CBS canceled their December 10th debates, as the Democratic nominees balked, fearing the bad publicity of a protest by striking news writers. (CBS is hurting: How I Met Your Mother is in repeats, as well as the rest of the network’s sitcoms.) And NBC announced this week that Chuck (NBC, 8 PM) will be replaced by American Gladiators—the original was obviously before its time—on January 7th.  read more »

Writing on The Observer's Real Estate blog, Tom Acitelli notes a Wall Street Journal story about how even though the weak housing market may have been responsible for the collapse of Condé Nast's House & Garden, the "shelter mag" genre is enjoying a moment of disproportionate prosperity.

   read more »

Last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where celebrities converged for Conde Nast's Black Ball to benefit Keep a Child Alive, singer Alicia Keys was decked out in head-to-toe Armani and a lot of black patent leather. She told she was taking a very special date to the Bungalow 8-themed, Amy Sacco-designed after-party ...  read more »

When Condé Nast moved its headquarters from Madison Avenue to 42nd Street in 1999, it brought instant credibility to the Times Square office market.  read more »

In the wake of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones, another veteran Wall Street Journal reporter is leaving the paper to join Conde Nast’s Portfolio.

Scot Paltrow, a senior special writer for The Wall Street Journal, will join Portfolio as a contributing editor, starting Sept. 1.

He follows Peter Waldman there; the investigative features writer announced in July that he would be leaving the Journal for Portfolio after 22 years.  read more »

Radar Online and Gawker are reporting that Conde Nast has shuttered Jane magazine, the young women's title that tried to walk in the same kitten heels as the legendary Sassy.  read more »

MemoPad is reporting that the Bono Vox guest-edited July issue of Vanity Fair, with its theme of Africa, will up the ante on that whole "collect-'em-all" cover trend:

"Sources close to the title said it could publish as many as 20 different covers, all shot by Annie Leibovitz."

Insiders seem to be telling MemoPad good things about Bono's editing abilities, though we can't help but wonder what's going on between the lines here:  read more »

Think a summer internship is thankless—? Try paying $5,000 for it. So far, there have been 58 bids to be a GQ intern for a month this summer.

(By the way, the money is not lining Jim Nelson's pockets, but going to charity).

Bidding closes Monday, kids!

 

 

 

 

Just weeks ago, Portfolio staffers could only communicate under double super secret background (Matt Cooper, natch).

But as this weekend's storm reached Biblical proportions in New York City--Genesis? Yikes!--came the first glimmer of Portfolio.com.

And now with today's print launch, the Conde Nast, no-talking-in-the-cafeteria gag order has been briefly lifted, letting in a gaggle of media reporters: Kit, Irin, Friedman, and Keith Kelly. Dylan is around, too, but only as a talking head for ABC News.

All this and there's not even a glitzy launch party to reward hard-working media reporters. Instead, the Portfolio gang will toast one another tonight at the Beaver Bar.

• New York City happens to be one of America's most sustainable towns -- because somehow most of us use public transportation. But do fancy green towers like The Solaire or Conde Nast's 4 Times Square help out too? The founding chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council admits: "We know squat about how any building works." [Architect's Newspaper, via ArchNewsNow]
• Hateful trend of the day: "The communal outdoor living room." If you're lucky enough to have a Manhattan patio, and tasteful enough to decorate it with "cushiony furniture" and "built-in plasma screen televisions and hi-fi systems," then you've got yourself the hottest new room since the upscale outhouse. [CNN]
• Rich New Yorkers like living in department stores, banks, old hotels and newspaper offices -- as long as the spaces have been morphed into "high-priced residential units." It's all about ceiling height, obviously. (And tax breaks too.) [Forbes]
- Max Abelson
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Former Conde Nast editorial director James Truman has resigned his job as editorial director of Louise T. Blouin Macbain's media company.

He informed Ms. MacBain last week, in person, in London, that his resignation was effective immediately.

The debut issue of LTB Media's 'Culture and Travel' was recently celebrated at Ms. MacBain's Richard Meier penthouse.

Mr. Truman has said he has been talking to finance people and will launch his own media company.

"I came on board a year ago to help Louise out. I thought I'd done everything I could. The magazines' ad pages are up between 20 and 50 percent," Mr. Truman said this morning of his work at LTB Media.

"My interest was in moving on and setting up my own company. I was never going to do it long-term," he said. "The project interested me because I tried so long to get an art magazine at Conde Nast."

"I don't think there's much VC money that would want to back a conventional magazine," Mr. Truman said of his new plans. —Michael Calderone

TEDDY: On October 9th, Conde Nast's Brides.com announced a partnership with The Rink at Rockefeller Center called "Engagements on Ice!!!" According to the press release, "a marriage proposal including private skate time at the historic landmark can be arranged for and with the consent of the groom. Proposals will be taped and posted on Brides.com , allowing couples to visually share their news with friends, family and other future brides and grooms. The gilded statue of Prometheus at the legendary ice rink offers the perfect backdrop to a creative way to pop the question." (Remember Prometheus? He was the titan who was chained to a mountain, and Zeus sent an eagle to devour his liver, which regenerated every night so that he could suffer the same torment every day. The perfect backdrop.)  read more »

It's still more than six months until Portfolio launches, but Condé Nast isn't letting things go until the last minute. In addition to scooping up several reporters and editors for Portfolio, the company has also just acquired a website, www.porfolio.com, for the forthcoming business magazine. Condé Nast did not announce the purchase price of the website, which the company obtained from Portfolios.com. Portfolios.com sells commercial art and provides freelance job listings.

Condé Nast has also, not coincidentally, entered into a "promotional program" with Portfolios.com.  read more »

Full release—with oddly hilarious headline—below.

The New York Times has a rule about presenting opinions in its news columns: Henceforth, they must a  read more »

The husband and wife design team of Lynda and Daniel Kinne, whose label name, "à la disposition," roughly translates into "given the proviso," sent their signature Victorian-inspired corsetry down the runway this morning. Early this morning, 10 a.m.

Models walked in slightly gothic white stockings with blood-red seams down the back which swelled into big red splotches at their Achilles heel. Crickets chirped on the soundtrack. The jewelry was giving a butterfly motif.

Lauren Ezersky, in denim jean shorts, a generously laden tote bag at her feet, looked weighted down. She kept her eyes downcast to the floor for the better part of the show. Late night? But in case anyone was in need of some hair-of-the dog material to chase away last night's kick-off party inebriation, the gift bag held a bottle of Budweiser Select. "It's definitely W. T.," said one fellow. He meant "white trash." He himself was seated in the second row. "That's just what I need," said a friendly Conde Nast underling, "a warm beer to take back to the office." —Nicholas Boston

AIM IM with Matt Haber: 10:01 AM

Matt Haber: wanna hear something mildly funny? The Transom: always! i like my funny mild. Matt Haber: I was at Duane Reade and there was an in-house radio spot for Vogue and some special Marie-Antoinette contest. and they referred to the film as "this fall's blockbuster Marie-Antoinette." who thinks Sofia Copolla is making a blockbuster?? The Transom: well, no one who's seen it at the Conde Nast advanced screening, that's who. Matt Haber: besides which, period costume dramas tend not to bust blocks. as a rule.

June 24, 200612:30 p.m.

7 pounds, 6 ounces  read more »

New York Hospital–Cornell

Anna Wintour was not pleased with what she saw on the cover.  read more »

On the Occasion of Tom Cruise’s Daughter’s One-Month Birthday  read more »

The following missive was delivered to Conde Nast staffers May 2 on a heavy, cream-colored card, nine inches by five inches, with perforated silhouettes of forks, knives, and spoons:

Let's do Lunch. This summer step into the future at the new Conde Nast cafeteria on the second floor at 750 Third Avenue.

Enter through a motion corridor with an incandescent glass wall that leads you to the serving area. 70,000 radiant lights create different atmospheres throughout the course of the day.

Restaurant Associates - whose passion for food and attention for detail are highly commended--will manage our newest cafeteria location as well. Breakfast and lunch will be served daily, and special lunchtime offerings will include a sushi bar, custom salad station, international specials and more.

Beginning this summer, employees will be able to use one common card for building access and food purchase in our cafeteria in 750 Third Avenue and 4 Times Square.

Stay tuned for more details as we approach the grand opening and go to connect to see images of cafeteria

--Gabriel Sherman

New Yorker fashion director Michael Roberts is moving over to Vanity Fair, according to a press release just issued by Conde Nast today.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

—Gabriel Sherman

When Tina Brown turned down a five-year deal to stay on as editor of The New Yorker in 1998, she was  read more »

In the ideal world of shopping, there are no failed products; there are only failed consumers.  read more »

In the ideal world of shopping, there are no failed products; there are only failed consumers.  read more »

I love cheese. I love dessert. They are not the same thing.

Once, after finishing a meal at a friend's house, he emerged from the kitchen with a plate of cheese. It's not that I'd never heard of such a thing before. It was like eating tapas, or having tea at 4 o'clock: delicious, a change. I ate the cheese. There was honey involved. It was very nice!

Dessert then never came. That was OK, too!

Then, the cocktail hour at people's houses started replicating what comes to the table at the beginning of a meal at an Italian or French restaurant: Chewy breadsticks with olive oil? Along with that damned cheese course. And no dessert.  read more »

Is it too middle-American to declare that cheese, even if it is a last course, cannot be a substitute for dessert?

This afternoon, Conde Nast group president Mitchell Fox confirmed the news that the company is splitting the former Fairchild trade titles into two separate divisions, Fairchild Fashion Group and Fairchild Publications. Memo after the jump.

--Gabriel Sherman  read more »

In the spring of 2000, when Nedra Rhone was still a bright-eyed graduate student at Columbia’s Sch  read more »

An irregular dispatch from the Observer's men's blog.

Power Chicklets How do those ladies over at the Catbox keep themselves so busy? Looks like one of 'em found the time to count vaginas in the Observer's Power Geezers issue, and concluded the Pink Paper needed a little more pink! Gloria Steinem, the Salonettes report, "is one of the 10 women on the Observer's 31-person geezer list (cough, cough)."

It's cute when chicks try to do stuff with numbers! Sorta like the Powder Puff football game on Homecoming Thursday, huh? No tackling, now!

But so we're gonna help you out with some more of that math stuff, because we're chivalrous. The geezers who got profiled were generally over 70. And when you subtract 70 from 2005, you get...1935.

So we're talking here about a generation born 37 years before Title IX (we know, sorry: more numbers! But that's the law that says you girls get your own basketball teams and stuff). We're sorry that the Observer couldn't include, for instance, the female members of the New York Five. Or the woman who runs Conde Nast.  read more »

We'll try to improve the numbers when we do Power Secretaries.

Tom "HO HO.... WHOA!" Scocca

The Vogue was big.  read more »

The Vogue was big.  read more »

While Domino goes artsy, Conde Nast is pumping life into the shopper's forbear, House and Garden. From January to June, H&G's ad pages were down 0.6 percent compared to the same period in 2004, according to the Magazine Publishers of America. But last month, in a bid to ramp up advertising, H&G's advertising department concluded a series of focus groups with H&G subscribers in metropolitan areas across the country. According to H&G publisher Joseph Lagani, his magazine gathered 150 women in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco and surveyed their home decorating views in focus groups commissioned by Conde Nast. "I can't say it was only because there's more competition that we have to do more research now," he said. "I just think my basic approach, being a publisher, is that I want our sellers to be able to talk about our audience as no one else can."

Despite whispers that have fluttered through 4 Times Square that Domino might crowd out its home decor cousin, Mr. Lagani said Conde Nast's home decorating books are joining forces, not throwing elbows. Mr. Lagani said Conde Nast has formed an alliance called the Powerhouse Group with Domino publisher Beth Brenner and Architectural Digest publisher Amy Churgin to lure advertisers into all three titles in a concerted effort, coordinating sales and strategizing on accounts."We have three magazines, who each has a clear position in the market," Mr. Lagani said. "When you put that together, we have the opportunity to dominate the upscale home market like nobody else can do."  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

It starts with the ragtag pioneers, moving in with their funky friends and their bohemian pursuits, seeking life on the cheap in some desolate space. Then comes the progression: artists give way to creative professionals, lofts give way to loft-style co-ops, expensive cheese stores give way to more expensive cheese stores. The neighborhood has arrived; there it goes.

So it was when the armchair pundits, teenage diarists, freelance writers, and other non-professionalized writers found a new place to live, a sketchy industrial zone previously occupied by hardcore geeks and tech workers. Some of them came there to get away from the ink-and-paper mainstream media neighborhoods; some came because they couldn't get into the ink-and-paper world; some came because they weren't thinking about ink or paper at all.

But after a period of trepidation--is it safe around there? Can those people be trusted?--the ink-and-paper folks themselves started to notice the vibrancy of the street life, the raw immediacy of the neighborhood culture. They saw the appeal. The New Republic sent some of its younger kids to live there. The Washington Post annexed Kausfiles. Vanity Fair set James Wolcott up in a groovy bachelor pad.

The boom is on. Time Warner has launched Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch. Conde Nast is offering Beyond the Beyond, by Wired's Bruce Sterling. The New York Times' David Carr is backing up his media observations about podcasts with a podcast

Oh, and the Observer is launching the Daily Observer, with its Media Mob column.  read more »

The results aren't necessarily real Web logs, any more than a dive-y bar is a dive bar. But they are constantly updated, commentary-laced outlets for papers that can't always wait for paper anymore. Even if the paper is a lovely shade of salmon.

--Matt Haber

To conjure the archetype of the Vogue man, Men's Vogue editor Jay Fielden turned to literature.  read more »

It's been six years since the august magazine-publishing empire, Condé Nast Publications, took up r  read more »

You don't have to be a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute to figure out that when you t  read more »

J. Jonah Jameson, meet Michael Cooke!  read more »

One week before the launch of Domino, Condé Nast's decorating magazine, 41-year-old editor in chief  read more »

There are many perks to my day job at one of New York's hundreds of hedge funds: my own Herman Mille  read more »

"I am someone who's always changed my career a lot," Frank Rich said.  read more »

Thanks to Desperate Housewives, suburban fortysomethings have replaced Britney and Lindsay as the se  read more »

It's the most wondrous time of the year … again!And what else truly heralds the start of the holid  read more »

For 17 years, since The New York Observer entered city life in 1987, it has existed within a red bri  read more »

Wednesday 22ndDefiantly wear those flip-flops all you want, but here is some irrefutable proof tha  read more »

Wednesday 28th Sake to me!  read more »

Wednesday 7thWake up, New Yorkers!  read more »