NEW BFFS: Ever so slowly, the editors at Condé Nast are getting to know their company’s chief executive officer more and more. Early next month, for the first time, Condé Nast ceo Charles Townsend will host a meeting for all Condé Nast editors-in-chief to give them a review of what’s happening on the business side.
The editors’ meeting will be preceded by the annual Condé Nast publishers’ meeting, which will once again take place in Florida. This year, the three-day meeting will be held at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach and will start on Jan. 30. The meeting is usually a series of rah-rah speeches and awards presentations, and is attended by publishers and executives alone. But Townsend has told editors that they should expect a business session just for themselves at some point in early February back at 4 Times Square.
Though it’s the first time that the editors are being asked to attend a Condé Nast State of the Union hosted by Townsend, things have been trending this way. Back in September, Townsend hosted an all-hands-on-desk meeting with both publishers and editors in a room together — the first time that had ever happened. The big takeaway from that meeting: Focus on your magazines but please try to make some money from your Web sites.
It’s likely that both meetings this time round will be pretty optimistic affairs. In a company-wide note sent on Thursday, Townsend wrote that there is an “exceptionally sunny forecast for 2012. All the indicators point to an extraordinary year for the media business, in general, and for Condé Nast in particular.”