GERALDINE Laybourne is not gaining any friends at the West Side Y – or Business Week magazine.
For the third time, Laybourne has canceled a scheduled appearance on one of the Y’s highly popular CEO panels. The panel, this Thursday night, will be moderated by Business Week Editor-in-Chief Steve Shepard.
A steady stream of captains of industry have been grilled by Shepard over the last two years, including CBS’s Mel Karmazin, General Electric’s Jack Welch, America Online’s Steve Case, Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina and Seagram’s Edgar Bronfman Jr.
“Nobody else has canceled one time – let alone three times,” fumed one insider.
“She wasn’t even in the same league with the other players to start off and then she cancels,” grumbled the source.
The cancellation could have meant that the nonprofit Y, which uses the events as fund-raisers, would have been forced to refund the $30,000 in advance ticket sales that it had raked in for the sold-out night.
Oxygen seems to be having problems lately. Earlier this week the company laid off 12 staffers in its TV-production unit while the shows went on summer hiatus.
Laybourne has also not been able to convince Time Warner to carry the shows that are still being produced on its New York cable system. “She sure isn’t generating a lot of good will,” one insider said.