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Jack Griffin is off ‘main line,’
one to be editorial director, and that’s
intact. I realigned some publishers,
and those are in tact to my knowledge. And I named a chief marketing
officer and with that the general
direction to expand marketing services, which was done very successfully at Meredith.
“So change is the watchword
and my track record has been about
results and new models and building teams and cultures very successfully for 20 years. And that’s what I
was doing at Time Inc. in the man-
ner I did it at other companies.”
Mr. Griffin was the chairman of
the MPA at the same time. He said
he was very externally focused.
And he was spending a lot of time
with advertisers and listening to
their issues and concerns. “And so I
was doing the things I thought I
was hired to do ... and that would fit
with the changes that were going
on in the industry and the very dif-
ficult two years that preceded 2010.
“I’ve always been a results-ori-ented manager. I was focused on the
business transformation. I believed
proving there’s life after Time Inc.
GRIFFIN from p. 1
never thought it would happen. I
was in the business for 25 years, if
you add it all up, and I was … on the
main line, working in a corporate
environment, moving up the ranks,
focused on the business and focused
on the next step and focused on
developing a career.”
So far, he’s working with six
clients, including a digital-content
company, a technology company, a
newspaper company and a maga-
zine publisher, as well as investors
and equity companies “trying to
figure out the space.”
The former Meredith and Parade
exec has also formed “a substantial
relationship” with global manage-
ment consultant Alix Partners,
which has done turnaround work
for Chrysler and worked with the
Tribune Co. and Reader’s Digest.
Alix wants to build “a substantial
media practice” with Mr. Griffin’s
collaboration, he said. The website
for his new firm went up last week.
“I dare say I would have never
taken myself off the main line. I
think few do. Obviously it was a
shock, it took a while to absorb, but
subsequent to that, pretty quickly I
started focusing on the future
because really there’s no other way.
“When all of this was happen-
ing,” Mr. Griffin said, he had “a tor-
rent” of calls and letters from people
he knew but many from people he
didn’t know. “I had this tremendous
number of people coming toward
me seeing if I could help them with
problems. I think that the Meredith
success was very visible and the
period at Time Inc. was very short,
and I think I’m someone who’s able
to deal with complexity and make it
simple, someone who’s able to build
new things, often within established
organizations, and I think someone
who is eternally optimistic.”
Mr. Griffin said he still has great
admiration for Time Inc. He said his
grandfather was editor in chief of
the biggest newspaper in Boston,
and his first job was as a reporter. “I
was tremendously privileged to
work there. So when I say I read the
magazines, I’m proud of that.
“Nobody was more surprised
than me that this happened. … I’m
disappointed that it happened. But
I’ve made the best of it and I’ve
moved on. And I wish every one of
them well. I worked with some
great people there. And it’s a sepa-
rate thought that this has turned
into the best period of my life, not
cause and effect.”
Mr. Griffin sees a challenging
time ahead for magazines. “I love
this business, but there’s no silver
bullet. And if you look at the history
of the business until a short time
ago, really until 2007, advertising
was fundamentally growing. What
happened in 2008 and 2009 revealed
some serious structural issues
because the downturn was so severe.
… The challenge that magazines
have is the whole business structure
was predicated on the direct relation-
ship with the customer and you
know who your end user is all the
time, except on newsstands.
that the changes that were changing
the industry were much more secular than they were cyclical, and that
there was much to be done.
“Could I have spent more time
selling things in? Probably. But I did
what I thought was right at the pace
I thought was appropriate given the
circumstances of the industry. I’m
very disappointed it didn’t work out.
But I also point to the results for the
period I was there. It was a short
period, but if you look at Time Inc.
results in the first two quarters of
2011 they were quite good. It speaks
to a 20-year track record of results.
…I did what I thought was right in
a manner that was successful at
other very important companies.’”
At the time of his termination,
Mr. Griffin issued a statement that
he had received “consistent and
documented acclaim” that he was
on the right track, but he declined
to go into further details about
what he meant by “documented.”
“I spent a tremendous amount
of time on the inside and on the outside. I thought obviously there was
more alignment than there was.”
Push for Charlie Sheen roast
is anything but a train wreck
SHEEN from p. 2
pages of train tracks running
across editorial, ultimately revealing an ad for that night’s event.
And guess what song will be playing when the copies of AM New
York are handed out?
“When people hear ‘Crazy Train,’
we want their first association to be
with Charlie Sheen,” Mr. Levitt said.
If it seems like a lot of stunts for
one event, there’s more riding on it
than usual for Comedy Central. Its
summer 2011 ratings were down
7% year-over-year among total
viewers and 8% among adults 18 to
49 and 18 to 34, according to Nielsen
Media Research data. During Roast
Week, Comedy’s signature shows
“The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”
will be on hiatus. Plus, the network’s
roasts often rate among its most-
watched telecasts, with this spring’s
Donald Trump roast drawing 3. 5
million total viewers and a record
number of men 18 to 24.
