‘This Man Is Critical’
Ten Penske Media staff interviewed for this text describe their boss as anyone who stepped up for publications in bother. “Jay Penske got here in and stored this industry,” mentioned Dea Lawrence, the manager running and advertising and marketing officer of Selection. “He’s a hero to the publishing international.” His corporate has greater than 1,350 staff, in keeping with the Penske Media vice president Gerry Byrne, just about part of them reporters and content material creators.
After the corporate purchased a controlling stake in Vibe and Billboard, that have workplaces in New York, he flew there to fulfill with each and every new worker. “This was once in the course of the pandemic, and so I believed, ‘Wow, this man is critical!’” mentioned Datwon Thomas, the editor in leader of Vibe. Mr. Thomas met Mr. Penske for lunch at Bryant Park Grill in Midtown. “Jay knew so much about me and my background,” he mentioned, “and he knew so much about Vibe.” 4 different Penske Media staff mentioned that Mr. Penske makes a convention of assembly with each and every of his new staff quickly after obtaining a belongings.
Mr. Penske will occasionally play hardball with the personnel. When Tatiana Siegel, an established Hollywood Reporter journalist, authorized a role at The Ankler, a subscription publication began by means of the display industry author Richard Rushfield that has expanded beneath the previous Hollywood Reporter most sensible editor Janice Min, Mr. Penske put a prevent to the transfer. Ms. Siegel’s contract integrated a noncompete clause, and Mr. Penske held her to it. The events sooner or later agreed that Ms. Siegel would decamp to Rolling Stone, committing 80 p.c of her paintings to it, with the rest going to The Ankler.
“Jay has been by means of a long way the most efficient proprietor I’ve labored beneath at The Hollywood Reporter,” mentioned Ms. Siegel, who joined the mag in 2003. “My state of affairs was once distinctive, and it was once resolved amicably.”
The upstart publications Puck and The Ankler pose a brand new risk to Penske Media’s dangle on leisure protection. The contest is harking back to what happened greater than a decade in the past, when Time limit had the previous guard quaking. Mr. Rushfield mentioned that start-ups will have a bonus over entrenched publications, as a result of they aren’t beholden to someone.
“In case you’re at a newsletter like Selection, as an example, the collection of issues a studio has over you is tricky to stay observe of,” Mr. Rushfield mentioned. “You wish to have pleasant get admission to to studio executives and brokers reward wrapping your scoops. You wish to have other folks for covers. You wish to have other folks to talk at your meetings.” The end result, he persisted, is that “publications with other industry fashions, and extra competitive reporting, can elbow their means in.”
