From a New York Times obit by Richard Sandomir headlined “John Veronis, Who Brokered Major Media Transactions, Dies at 93”:
John Veronis, an ebullient investment banker whose boutique firm specialized in major media deals, including Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the company that owned TV Guide, and who had earlier helped launch Psychology Today, died at his home in Manhattan….
Mr. Veronis had spent 30 years in the magazine business — he started at Popular Science in the late 1940s and helped make Psychology Today a quick success in 1967 — when he discovered his facility for putting buyers and sellers together. In one instance, Irvin J. Borowsky, a publisher of profitable trade magazines, asked for his advice about Cue magazine, the entertainment and dining guide, which had been losing money.
“He couldn’t see it clearly,” Mr. Veronis said in a 2007 interview….He told his client that Cue would continue to bleed red ink and endanger his stronger magazines.
“Why hold onto Cue?” Mr. Veronis recalled asking, to which Mr. Borowsky replied, “My wife loves it.”
“Get rid of her or it,” Mr. Veronis told him….
He earned $400,000 for arranging Cue’s sale to Mr. Murdoch in 1980. He was surprised to hear from a friend that he had done the work of an investment banker.
“I couldn’t believe this was what investment banking was about,” he said. “All I did was sell experience and knowledge.”
In 1981, Mr. Veronis brought that experience and knowledge to Veronis, Suhler & Associates, which he started with John Suhler, a former president of the CBS Publishing Group. Their timing was good: Media deals were taking off.
The firm quickly became a leader in brokering the sales of magazines, a thriving medium that had not yet been fragmented by the internet.
Over the next decade, the firm arranged the sale of Diamandis Communications, which published Women’s Day and Car and Driver, to Hachette Publications for $712 million; Details, the fashion magazine, to Condé Nast Publications; and Triangle Publications, the owner of TV Guide and Seventeen, to Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation for $3 billion….
In 1990, Mr. Veronis helped broker the merger between two nascent satellite services in Britain — Mr. Murdoch’s Sky Broadcasting and British Satellite Broadcasting, which had accumulated total losses of more than $1.5 billion in a short time — by easing tensions between Mr. Murdoch and Peter Davis, the chief executive of Reed International, a key British Satellite shareholder.
“The two men were not just fierce competitors,” Mr. Veronis wrote in his memoir, “they despised each other.”
During dinner at Claridge’s in London, Mr. Veronis wrote, he advised the rivals that if they continued to compete, “they were doomed to fail.”
The merger, announced in November 1990, created British Sky Broadcasting, also known as BSkyB. Mr. Veronis earned $1 million from Mr. Murdoch — a cut-rate fee, Lauren Veronis said, “because Rupert was busted.”
The company came to be called Sky, with operations across Europe. It was acquired by Comcast in 2018 for $39 billion.
John James Veronis was born in 1928, in New Brunswick, N.J., and grew up in Easton, Pa. He was one of six children of Greek immigrants; his father, Nicholas, had been a writer but took jobs in a fur factory and diners in the United States….
After graduating from Lafayette College in Easton, John headed to Manhattan, where he was hired at Popular Science magazine and soon became its advertising director. He moved to Field and Stream, then to The American Home, a monthly magazine where he achieved a major breakthrough for the publication by bringing in advertising from Procter & Gamble. He rose to publisher; several years after the magazine was acquired by Curtis Publishing, he became president of the company’s magazine division.
After leaving Curtis, he spent nearly two years at the Interpublic Group of Companies, the advertising giant, where he conducted research on what motivated consumers. His findings revealed, among other things, the potential market for a magazine about psychology.
Coincidentally, in 1967, Nicolas Charney was trying to launch Psychology Today. Mr. Charney, who had a doctorate in biology and biopsychology and knew Mr. Veronis’s brother George, a prominent oceanographer, asked Mr. Veronis for help. Mr. Veronis guided him to business and circulation experts; once the magazine began publication, Mr. Charney contacted him again.
“We had a tiger by the tail, but our debts were growing,” Mr. Charney recalled. “So I said: ‘Let’s join forces. I’ll give you half my stock and we’ll move forward as equal partners.’ He joined, and within two weeks he raised $1 million.”
They built a business that included a popular textbook, games and educational films, then sold the company in 1971 to the Boise Cascade Corporation for an exchange of stock valued at $21.5 million. (Psychology Today lists its current circulation at about 250,000.)
Mr. Veronis and Mr. Charney were less successful in their acquisition that year of Saturday Review for a reported $5.5 million; after splitting the venerable magazine into four separate monthlies, they filed for bankruptcy in 1973.
They had one more venture together: Book Digest, a magazine filled with excerpts from current best sellers, which started in 1974 and was sold to Dow Jones four years later for about $10 million….
After Mr. Veronis retired in 2010, he devoted some of his time to helping his son Nicholas with his financial technology company, iCapital Network, and his stepson, Harlan Peltz, with his mortgage lender, iBorrow….
Before Mr. Veronis’s first meeting with Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Davis to discuss the British satellite merger in 1990, he and his wife knocked on doors in London. If a home had a satellite dish, they asked if the resident was satisfied with the service. At homes without dishes, they asked residents if they would consider subscribing to Sky or British Satellite.
It was the type of market research that Mr. Veronis had done in his early days in magazines — and it gave him important information to bring to his discussions with Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Davis.
Mr. Veronis learned that some subscribers didn’t know the differences in quality between the two satellite services, and that others were wary of the steep cost of a dish.
“They were confused,” Ms. Veronis said, “but John had clarity.”
Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.”
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