Forbes Goes Outside the Family for President, CEO

In a major break with tradition, Forbes Media named publishing vet Mike Perlis as its new president/CEO—marking the first time a non-Forbes family member is running the 93-year-old company.

Steve Forbes, the chairman and editor in chief of Forbes Media, will give up the CEO title. His brother, Tim Forbes, will relinquish the COO title while remaining chairman of Forbes Digital, a member of the Forbes Media Board and what Steve Forbes called “one of the company’s chief strategists.”

Perlis most recently was a general partner at SoftBank Capital, a venture cap firm focused on digital businesses after a traditional print media publishing career that included stints as president, CEO of Ziff-Davis Publishing and president of the Playboy Publishing Group. His appointment begins Dec. 1.

The brothers reportedly started looking for new leadership early this year.

“This is an unprecedented time in the media business that demands bold moves,” Steve Forbes said in an announcement.

It’s been a year of major changes for Forbes during turbulent times for its print business. Earlier this year, the company bought True/Slant and hired its founder Lewis D’Vorkin to overhaul the namesake magazine and Web site by giving advertisers and unpaid contributors a bigger voice.

Newsweek Site to Shut Down

There apparently isn’t room for two sites at the Newsweek Daily Beast Company. The new joint venture will kill off Newsweek.com, even though its audience is larger than the Beast’s.

Newsweek.com, the offshoot of a 77-year-old brand, has 3.8 million monthly unique visitors to the two-year-old Beast’s 1.5 million, according to Compete.com.

The Beast is the survivor, said Stephen Colvin, the company’s new CEO, “Because the Daily Beast is a very credible and successful news and opinion Web site. And with great vitality and distinct voice.”

The site will publish Newsweek.com-branded content, and Newsweek.com traffic will be directed there.

As expected, Newsweek CEO Tom Ascheim (who, ironically, was brought on to pump up Newsweek digitally) is leaving the company.

The Newsweek, Newsweek.com and Daily Beast staffs will be combined under Tina Brown, the Beast founder who was named the company’s new chief editor. The combined staff will work out of the financial district, where Newsweek was already planning to relocate after its sale to Sidney Harman three months ago. The move is scheduled to take place in a few weeks.

Skepticism about Newsweek and The Daily Beast merger is running high, but Colvin said the two could make more money as a combined entity.

“We’re providing a much bigger platform and access to a very sought-after audience for marketers in the various platforms they want,” he said in a phone call a few hours after the merger was announced. “And that will definitely lead to all kinds of incremental revenue opportunities. And Tina Brown is a very talented editor. There’s no doubt that will lead to circulation growth.”

Jitters about layoffs are running high at Newsweek, whose staff has already been diminished by layoffs and defections since its sale to Harman. Colvin was noncommittal about further cuts. He said while many Newsweek staffers would fit the kinds of hires the Beast was looking to make, adding, “Obviously there will be efficiencies.”

News Corp.'s James Murdoch Bets on Paid Model

James Murdoch has no use for the Internet-is-free crowd. The CEO of News Corp. Europe and Asia said finding a business model for news in the digital era isn't all that complicated.

"If you're going to monetize something, you should probably not give it away for free," he said during a Q&A at the Monaco Media Forum. "I think digital newspapers' economics will look a lot more like cable channels."

It's a long road to get there. The Wall Street Journal has been able to charge for access because most of its subscribers are using corporate credit cards. But the jury is out on subscriptions elsewhere in the empire. The Times and Sunday Times were put behind a pay wall in July. News Corp. last week crowed it has sold 105,000 digital products, a roll-up that doesn't break out monthly subscriptions. Some estimates put that figure at just 10,000 per month at the expense of most of its Web traffic.

Murdoch said publishers need to be willing to sacrifice wide reach in the process. The upside is those that pay tend to spend much more time with the publication, he added.

"We're happy to invest more and price it fairly and accept the fact that not everyone will pay," he said.

The belief in free is an article of faith for the tech world. Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, even wrote an entire book on the economics of business models based around technology enabling free services. Those views aren't in tune with reality when it comes to media, Murdoch said. They rarely, for example, take into account the chain of professionals that need to get paid along the way for the production of quality content.

"There's no new technology that makes athletes less greedy," he said.

The invitation-only Monaco Media Forum, which continues through Nov. 12, gathers approximately 300 global leaders in traditional and new media for discussions about the future of online, broadcast and print.