Rodale Promotion Leads to Internal Speculation of a Group Sale

New group publisher of Runner's World oversaw $14M Backpacker divestment.

By Dylan Stableford and Bill Mickey
04/29/2008

This week, Rodale announced the promotion of Chris Lambiase, VP and publishing director of Bicycling since 2004, to vice president and group publisher for its running and cycling titles.

Andy Hersam, VP and publishing director of the Runner's World group, is leaving the company May 9 to join Tom Buesse, a former Rodale president and Time Inc. vet, at Westwood One, according to a source with knowledge of Hersam's plans.

The promotion of Lambiase, effective May 12—coupled with the departure of a popular executive in Hersam—has led to some internal speculation that the company may be prepping the Runner's World group for an eventual sale.

A Rodale spokesperson said the company has no plans to sell any of its magazines.

The last time a high-profile publisher left—Eric Zinczenko in 2006—Lambiase added Backpacker to his publisher duties. The magazine was sold to Active Interest Media for an estimated $14 million a year later. It seems employees are worried history will repeat itself.

According to one source, "The first thing that came to a lot of people's minds was ‘Oh [expletive], does that mean we're getting sold, too?'"

Perhaps not, or at least, not yet. Three M&A sources contacted by FOLIO: said they were not aware of any plan to sell the magazines, though would not rule out the possibility. "[I] would not be shocked," said one M&A source. "They are slowly getting out of the special interest field and going to books with large circ."

Indeed. If the sale of the 340,000-circulation Backpacker, as CEO Steven Murphy said at the time, was to help the company focus on long-term growth, then perhaps the sale of Runner's World (at 640,000 circ) and Bicycling (416,000) aren't far behind. Rodale's blockbuster brands of Prevention, Men's Health and Women's Health carry circulations of 3.3 million, 1.8 million and 907,000, respectively.

Hersam, for his part, was credited with driving Rodale's 2007 acquisition of RunningTimes.

Lambiase will oversee Runner's World and Running Times. David Willey, SVP and editor-in-chief of Runner's World and editorial director of Running Times, is expected to be named chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors on Thursday when Glamour editor Cindi Leive relinquishes the post.

Bicycling associate publisher Joao Correia is expected to assume day-to-day operations for the Bicycling brands and will continue to report to Lambiase.

Runner's World and Bicycling, like most consumer magazines, saw a decline in advertising pages during the first quarter. Runner's World's ad pages dipped 6.7 percent; Bicycling declined 3.5 percent, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.