Your Media Morning: Is Graydon Carter Leaving Vanity Fair AGAIN? Sweet Dumps Editor and Staffers, T Magazine Cuts Frequency

LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE  HEARST'S SWEET LOSES EDITOR, DIRECTION, FACES NEW CHALLENGES As Time Inc nears the deadline for final offers from potential suitors, a change at the top of Fortune is taking palce. When  then Fortune Magazine editor Alan Murray was upped to Chief Content Officer replacing Norm... WAIT. SAY WHAT NOW? "They didn’t want Sweet to be Sweet. They wanted Sweet to be like all the other Hearst publications that are now exactly the same." -FORMER HEARST EMPLOYEE Post it Tweet it Share it Forward it Good Media Morning to you. Time Inc could announce some big news regarding its future this week. Will Meredith Corp, considered to be the front runner, finally get its hands on the publisher of Time, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated and other leading media brands? Until that news comes down, here's whats happening elsewhere: FORMER HULU CEO JASON KILAR BEING EYED FOR TOP SONY ENTERTAINMENT GIG As Sony searches for a successor to Michael Lynton to serve as CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Jason Kilar, the former head of Hulu, is the latest name to enter the mix of execs under consideration. Kilar, the firebrand CEO of Hulu, which he oversaw for five years until his resignation in 2013, often clashed with the company’s corporate owners. OUCH! NETFLIX BOSS SAYS MOVIE THEATERS' ONLY INNOVATION IS POPCORN Asked about his company’s relationship with major theater chains, Reed Hastings didn’t pull any punches. “How did distribution innovate in the movie business in the last 30 years? Well, the popcorn tastes better, but that’s about it,” he quipped. The Netflix CEO made the remarks during a Q&A session with reporters. SOUTHERN LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE GARDEN AND GUN CELEBRATES 10 YEARS Despite launching in the inauspicious media year of 2007, the magazine has managed the difficult feat of surviving for a decade and winning respect, and readers, in both New York and the South, among other places. All while steadfastly clinging to the “Gun” in the title. “It’s had its up and it’s downs — mostly ups. But it’s a pretty incredible thing that we are here tonight celebrating our 10th anniversary,” Rebecca Wesson Darwin, the magazine’s president and chief executive officer, said during an introductory toast. ARE PUBLISHER'S DILUTING TRUTH FOR SCALE? The news media trades off the trust of their audiences. "This is the truth," they say, "and we offer the context for why it matters to you". Talk is cheap, obviously, and many news organisations only have a passing acquaintance with the truth, but it's the trust of their audiences they bank upon all the same. FACEBOOK IS PREPARING TO PUSH INTO CONSUMER HARDWARE  A top secret division within Facebook called Building 8 is working on at least four unannounced consumer hardware products. One product involves cameras and augmented reality, the futuristic tech that overlays virtual objects onto the real world. Evidence suggests Building 8 is also working on a drone. Building 8 will include a big retail push complete with warehouse operations, different retail experiences, and a “global contact center footprint.” The all-start roster of tech veterans that Facebook began assembling one year ago is quietly making progress, steadily expanding the size of its ranks and the hardware prototypes under development. AD BUYERS ARE STILL TRYING TO WRAP THEIR HEADS AROUND TIMES INC'S NEW SALES STRUCTURE Former sales executives and ad agencies said that while in theory the category sales approach could work, there were execution and cultural issues that hung up the transition. Business was falling through the cracks because clients weren’t being called on during the transition and brand people still wanted to sell brands, a former sales exec said. “It’s 100 percent not working from a revenue standpoint and a culture and personnel standpoint”. SNAP INC SHARES EXPECTED TO FALL FURTHER Ahead of the IPO, investors were already warned the stock would have no voting rights nor may the company may never make any profits. Facebook continued adding disappearing story functionality to its messaging app, including WhatsApp. Though SNAP was profitable for some longs after the stock peaked at $29.44 a share, the trade is now a loss for others. DOES IT PAY TO BE A FOOD WRITER? I imagine that other media companies are seeing the same growth that we are. It's why Time Inc. launched a second food brand last year. It's why Bon Appetit continues to send Andrew Knowlton and Julia Kramer on the road all year (and why its publisher gets written up in the trades on the regular). It's why Ed Levine was able to sell Serious Eats for millions. It's why the Infatuation exists at all and continues to grow. The audience is there, the money is there. VOGUE ARABIA IS UP AND RUNNING In addition to major Arab cities, some of the 35,000 initial copies of the March issue have been distributed to Cairo, Beirut and select locations in North Africa. Notably, this is the first international Vogue edition that targets a region rather than specific country. The debut issue includes a section in Arabic and also highlights, as has the website, the calligraphy of Wissam Shawkat. RUSSIA WILL INVESTIGATE U.S. MEDIA COMPANIES IN RUSSIA The Russian parliament on Friday evening called for an investigation of American media organizations in Russia, following a call by an American senator to look into the activities of a Kremlin-backed television network in the U.S. T MAGAZINE CUTS FREQUENCY FROM 13 ISSUES A YEAR TO 11 T: The New York Times Magazine has reduced its frequency to 11 from 13 issues a year, WWD has learned. Market sources pointed to declining advertising pages at The New York Times-owned fashion and lifestyle glossy, following a string of departures, the largest being editor in chief Deborah Needleman. MCLATCHY RESTRUCTURES TO FOCUS ON DIGITAL McClatchy announced a corporate restructuring Friday as the company tries to focus its digital strategy. The development comes after former Wall Street Journal bureau chief and tech executive Craig Forman took the reins of McClatchy as its CEO in January. ROACHES ONCE FELL FROM THE CEILING AT US WEEKLY In the aftermath of the title’s sale to American Media Inc. for $100 million, its former editor-in-chief Janice Min reveals some unknown facts about the onetime darling of publishing: “Roaches once fell from the ceiling onto the conference table during the morning meeting in our offices on Sixth Avenue.” Don't forget to share this morning's issue with colleagues and friends by clicking/tapping the button below SUBSCRIBE

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