ABC's Robert G. Burton: championing print in a TV world

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 1987 by David Tuller

ABC's Robert G. Burton: Championing print in a TV world

Several months ago, Robert G. Burton, president of Capital Cities /ABC's publishing unit, held a meeting with a dozen high-level executives from his staff. As he glanced around the room, he chuckled mischievously. "We've got too many vice presidents again,' he cracked. "We're going to have to make some changes.'

The room erupted in nervous laughter. No one had reason to believe that Burton planned to fire anyone. But everyone knew he had no compunction about doing so should performance or profits drop off. Indeed, one of Burton's first actions when he became president of ABC Publishing at the end of 1981 was to fire 14 of the unit's 16 corporate vice presidents. The reason: The unit had 1981 revenues of $275.5 million, but only $4.4 million in profits.

"The business and costs were out of control,' he explained. "We had checkers checking the checkers. We were in a house on fire, and we had too many people still making beds.'

That initial bloodletting has turned out to be typical of Burton's willingness to employ Draconian measures to boost performance. "Bob killed the staff not only to cut costs, but to demonstrate to top management at ABC that he could make tough decisions,' said Anthony Morgano, who left ABC Publishing in 1983--he said by mutual consent--and is currently vice president of finance at American Express Publishing.

Burton has more than turned ABC Publishing around. He has made the unit, which publishes such magazines as Modern Photography, High Fidelity and McCall's Needlework and Crafts, one of its parent company's brightest spots at a time when its broadcasting business is causing huge headaches, and when the magazine business in general is struggling.

But his performance has not won kudos all around. A number of former employees said he was far too ruthless in his firing policies, and that he may well have sacrificed the company's long-term future for short-term gains. "The guys Burton put in came at the company with meat cleavers,' said James Miades, who was an executive vice president at Chilton, one of ABC Publishing's units, when he left in 1983. "There was no concentration on long-term strategies, just quarterly improvements ad nauseum.'

Still, even Burton's critics conceded that those short-term results have been dramatic. In 1982, Burton's first full year as president, revenues dropped to $255.5 million, yet profits jumped to $23.9 million. That year the company began a string of 16 consecutive record quarters.

Even in 1985, when the magazine industry suffered a dramatic slump, ABC Publishing fared well. It earned $35.5 million on revenues of $322.6 million, a profit margin of 11 percent. And industry insiders had predicted that last year the division, which publishes some 90 trade and consumer magazines and has 1,200 book titles in print, would see revenues up by about 3 percent and profits up about 7 percent.

So far, ABC Publishing, unlike the network's other corporate divisions, has been left virtually untouched since the 1985 takeover by Capital Cities Communications Inc., the communications giant renowned for its cost-cutting strategies. Although CBS's announcement last year that it was selling its book division, coupled with reports that it was entertaining bids for its magazine unit, raised questions in some circles about whether ABC would follow suit, Thomas Murphy, chairman of Capital Cities, insisted that "we're very committed to the publishing business, and Bob Burton is doing a first-rate job.'

The kudos do not surprise industry analysts. "Bob Burton is very much at home with Capital Cities,' said Richard MacDonald, a vice president at the First Boston Corporation. "He was a stranger in a strange land at the old ABC, which was very undisciplined, a real candy store.'

No lack of experience

If the old ABC did mismanage ABC Publishing, it was not due to any lack of experience in the field.

The broadcast company first entered the publishing business in 1959, when it purchased WLS, a Chicago television station that owned the Farm Progress Companies, a publisher of agricultural trade magazines. Over the next 20 years, ABC acquired Word Inc., a religious publisher; Schwann Records and Tapes, which markets audio record and tape guides; the Miller Publishing Company, another agricultural publisher; the Hitchcock Publishing Company and the Chilton Company, which together published almost 30 trade magazines; and several other properties.

When it purchased Los Angeles Magazine in 1977, the company gathered all its publishing operations under a single umbrella and hired Seth Baker, the publisher of Los Angeles, to run the group. In 1980, Baker brought Burton, who had been a publisher at both the International Business Machines Corporation, where he over-saw corporate publications, and at CBS, on board as vice president of operations. Baker left the next year to head Reese Communications, another publishing company, and Burton succeeded him as president.