More Changes at Curtis

Three chairs stood empty at the directors' meeting of the Curtis Publishing Co. in Philadelphia last week. They belonged to ill and aging Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist, 85, daughter of the late Cyrus H.K. Curtis, who founded the company 71 years ago; to her son, Gary Bok, 57, who was also too ill to attend the meeting; and to President Robert E. MacNeal, 58, who was traveling in Europe. But even if all three had been there, the Curtis family and officers of the proud old company would have been in the minority--a position they had to accept last April when two new directors were added to the board through substantial stock purchases by New York investment bankers. And at last week's meeting, with some old-line directors of the company fully agreeing that drastic action was necessary, the board acted drastically: it fired President MacNeal from his $130,000-a-year job.

New Man. When its financial plight began to force the company's hand last year, MacNeal performed a series of rejuvenating operations on the Saturday Evening Post. Nothing worked. Instead of growing better, Curtis' financial condition worsened; advertisers had lost confidence. An anthology of rumors leaked out of Curtis' Independence Square headquarters. The most persistent: a major interest in the company would soon be bought by the Manhattan book publishers Doubleday & Co., which, along with the bankers, would then be in control.

MacNeal's dismissal temporarily stalled any major deal until Curtis finds a new president. Last week the company was conducting a public search to fill the job, at a lower salary. Most likely candidate was Adman Matthew Culligan, 44, a director of Interpublic, Inc., the parent company of the McCann-Erickson advertising agency.

Culligan (who wears an eye patch because of a World War II injury) is a favorite son in advertising but a stranger to the Curtises--evidence that the outside directors now have considerable influence.

A former vice president of the National Broadcasting Co. (where he turned the Today and Tonight shows into moneymakers), Culligan could lead Curtis to a new rapport with Madison Avenue--a necessary ingredient in any improvement at Curtis. Said one advertising executive: "Culligan is a tiger of a salesman." Faint Hope. Curtis is in desperate need of a tiger. In the past year, the company has experimented with a variety of schemes the family had traditionally opposed. The sacred subscription lists of its five magazines (the Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Holiday, American Home and Jack and Jill) have recently been used for a small mail-order business, and Curtis now suffers the embarrassment of offering its readers costume jewelry. The new economies the company has announced also fly in the face of the old Philadelphia tradition: fortnight ago, the Post announced it would move its editorial staff to New York during the summer; in final disillusionment, a brace of senior editors resigned. Other cutbacks, Curtis says, will save the company $6,000,000 a year. In a move toward new efficiencies, Curtis named Post Managing Editor Clay Blair, 37, vice president plenipotentiary--in charge of economies, modernization, new systems and editorial departments.

But due to sagging advertising. Curtis is still sinking into the red at an alarming rate. At this point, parsimony is little help.

In the year's first five months, Post advertising revenue fell 21% from last year's slim pickings, and the Journal's fell 12%; first-quarter losses reached $4,727,337--nearly $3,000,000 worse than the company's performance for the same period last year.

Sources close to the company say the directors' present hope is that MacNeal's removal will persuade advertisers that Curtis intends to "face its financial problems squarely."

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