AOL Won't Deny The Rumor That Patch's CEO Is Out After Just Two Months On The Job

Patch CEO Steve Kalin and "Chief Content Officer" Rachel Feddersen are out, a former Patch editorial director who remains in contact with people at the AOL-owned local news network says.

This former editorial director is hearing that AOL is going to run Patch less as an independent subsidiary, and more like an AOL division.

We've been unable to get AOL public relations to confirm or deny the news.

An AOL spokesperson told us the company is not commenting on Patch personnel matters.

He directed us to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and CFO Karen Dykstra's comments on Patch during AOL's earnings call yesterday morning.

During that call, Armstrong said that Patch would shrink from 900 sites to 600. We've heard this means about 250 people will be let go this week.

During that call, Armstrong hinted that AOL management has taken the reigns of Patch.

He said: "We have been able to spend a lot more time with Patch as we have got the rest of AOL kind of focused and going and work through some of the big things."

"I want investors to know that we have a deep analytic group working on Patch and I think its got our full attention in one of the major priorities for us in Q3 and Q4."

Kalin had been Patch's COO before May, when his predecessor, Jon Brod, left Patch to go run AOL Ventures.