Jeff Bewkes Starts Cleaning House at Time WarnerMEDIA
• At least 75 Time Warner layoffs are expected to be announced today. The layoffs are among CEO Jeff Bewkes’s first public tasks since taking the helm of the company from Dick Parsons last month. Earlier today, Time Warner announced a 41 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings. [MSNBC & AdAge]
• Maybe some of those Time Warner folks can hang their hats over at Condé Nast. The Observer evaluates Portfolio’s recent spending spree, during which it recruited top talent from The New Yorker, the Post, and the Times. [NYO]
• (Product)Red, the love child of Bono, iPod, and the Gap, has raised more than $22 million for fighting HIV and AIDS in Africa. But considering the big advertising bucks spent during the Super Bowl and elsewhere, some are arguing that it’s not enough. [NYT]
company town
First You Save the Company, Then You Play GolfFINANCE
• Bear Stearns CEO Jim Cayne rewarded himself for firing the firm’s second-in-command by playing his first round of golf in almost three weeks. [NYP]
• Fidelity CEO Edward Johnson’s uncertain succession plan claimed another victim as Ellyn McColgan, a longtime exec and onetime heir apparent, got fed up and stepped down. [NYT]
• Were the threats against Goldman Sachs “Hundreds will die. We are inside. You cannot stop us.” just a prank by three teenage kids? [Newsday]
intel
All These People Wore Khakis
On Monday the Gap — you know, that ubiquitous purveyor of khakis and pocket T-shirts you stopped shopping at sometime in college — fired its chief executive, Paul Pressler, after it decided he couldn’t turn around the flailing brand. As the company searches for a new direction, we sent an intrepid New York reporter to the enormous Fifth Avenue store in midtown to chat with shoppers on their way out and see what advice New Yorkers have for the retailing giant.
21 questions
Lloyd Grove Gives to Panhandlers, Won’t Settle for Less Than 600 Thread Count
Name: Lloyd Grove
Age: None of your damned business
Job: Unemployed gossip columnist
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Geraldo Rivera, who fits all of the above categories.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
The grilled calamari at Gennaro, washed down with a bottle of Sangiovese.
What’s the one-sentence explanation of what you actually do all day in your job?
Ruining lives and destroying reputations when not hawking products and creating temporary stars.