You can’t pin down the spinmeisters.
The communications chiefs charged with keeping the corporate story straight at media conglomerates are flip-flopping jobs like at no other time in the past decade.
The latest stunner: Adam Miller (right), widely respected as a masterful corporate PR strategist at Abernathy MacGregor, last weekend became executive vice president of corporate affairs at NBC Universal, responsible for the worldwide packaging of Comcast’s newly-acquired content empire.
He approximately replaces Allison Gollust, who was the corporate spokeswoman for Jeff Zucker, the outgoing CEO of NBC Universal. What Miller's arrival means for the well-regarded Rebecca Marks, who runs the sprawling publicity machine at NBC, remains to be seen.
The changes began in November 2009 when after 10 years at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Gary Ginsberg (left) exited amid speculation that Murdoch’s London-based son and heir apparent, James, wanted greater control over the corporate messaging and Ginsberg balked.
Teri Everett (left), No. 16 on PRWeek's Power List, formally succeeded Ginsberg.
Last April, Ginsberg landed at Time Warner, succeeding Edward Adler, who decided to depart after roughly two decades, spanning the tenures of three CEOs and endless dysfunction. Adler has started his own consultancy at Medialink.
Meanwhile, at Sony Corp. of America, communications chief Ann Morfogen (below right) recently retired after 16 years of grueling New York-to-Tokyo flights as a top adviser to Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer. No successor was named, leaving her chief deputies--Mack Araki, a Sony veteran, and Sandy Genelius, who arrived at Sony in 2008 after 20 years at CBS News--to stand in.
Next week, Jonathan Friedland, Disney's No. 2 corporate communications exec under Zenia Mucha, moves to the increasingly competitive Netflix as vice presid
ent of global corporate communications, replacing the retiring Ken Ross. No word yet on who his replacement will be.
Only Viacom remains untouched. There, Carl Folta continues to hang in after 17 years in the oh-no-he-didn't role of speaking for the irrepressible chairman and controlling shareholder, Sumner Redstone. (And Paramount's Brad Grey has done away with an in-house corporate flack entirely, handing over communications to Steven Rubenstein in New York, to the frustration of many journalists.)
Representing the cantankerous and unpredictable Redstone requires the skill of a veteran. You can credit Folta with the “Content is King” narrative that Redstone has now peddled for ages. It rings loudly true now at Viacom, with its resurgent powerhouse flagship MTV, despite the company's greatly reduced size since Folta first started.
While the changes each occurred for discrete reasons, the communications bosses face a common challenge: spinning a corporate narrative in which an "old" media giant is repositioned for today's vertigo-inducing media markets, business models and new platforms.
Each company has “to tamp down fear that our business models are mortally challenged,” one top media communications boss told TheWrap.
"Google and Apple are making the money, having the growth.
