Pride Media CEO Nathan Coyle abruptly resigns

Pride Media, which has been battling through legal and financial problems, on Thursday had its CEO Nathan Coyle abruptly resign.

He is going to become head of the Ford Modeling agency, .

Pride, which is the publisher of Out and The Advocate, is owned by Oreva Capital that tapped its chief revenue officer Orlando Reece to become interim CEO.

Pride on March 26 filed a suit in New York State Supreme Court against two companies, Grand Editorial and McCarthy Media, which had been hired to perform editorial services for the publisher over the past several years before it was brought in-house last year.

The suit claimed the outsourcing firms failed to pay freelance writers, photographers and designers who worked on the companies’ magazines and websites, even though the companies paid over $1 million for the work. The suit was seeking reimbursements of $120,000 and up to $10 million in damages. Grand Editorial and McCarthy Media denied the claims.

There was also a dispute by London-based publisher Pink News, which was claiming Pride owed it over $150,000 in unpaid ad commissions. Pink News signed a traffic assignment letter to run its content on the Pride network and share the ad revenue the content generated in the United States.

Coyle told The Post earlier this week that he intended to talk with Pink News to try to resolve the dispute. However it is unclear if any discussion took place before his sudden resignation Thursday.

The National Writers Union, which said originally that its members were owed over $50,000 for work performed on Pride-owned publications, said the company had been making progress on payments and so far paid off about half of the overdue invoices.

The company said the payment disputes had made it difficult to hire freelancers to work on its magazines.

Phillip Picardi, who was recruited from Conde Nast last year to be editor-in-chief of Out said, “I look forward to a future in which we can move forward to achieve our full potential.”

Adam Levin, chairman of Pride and head of Oreva Capital said, “We are confident Orlando will provide the necessary leadership required to serve the dynamic Pride Media team’s needs in order to move our business forward in a positive way.”

Levin said that first quarter revenue was up 10% compared to a year ago and that it is projected to be up 50% in the second quarter.