The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : Compton’s New Media Founder Is Ousted : Multimedia: Tribune Co. replaces flamboyant entrepreneur Norman J. Bastin one year after it took over company.

A year after acquiring Compton’s New Media, the largest publisher in the burgeoning multimedia market, Chicago-based Tribune Co. has ousted the firm’s founder and general manager, Norman J. Bastin, and replaced him with veteran Tribune executive James N. Longson.

The shake-up is the latest in a trend that observers say will likely accelerate as corporate investors and venture capitalists who rushed to stake a claim in the interactive wilderness over the last year or two begin to look for their much-anticipated returns.

“It’s pretty typical that the entrepreneur doesn’t mesh with the corporate bureaucracy,” the flamboyant Bastin said Tuesday, a day after his ouster. “I don’t do very well in suit meetings in Chicago.”

Earlier this month, CD-ROM software publisher Sanctuary Woods replaced founder Brian Beninger as chief executive, though Beninger will retain the role of chairman of the board. And La Crescenta-based Knowledge Adventure--which Tuesday announced an alliance and investment said to be worth approximately $10 million by Random House--last week hired a new president to handle day-to-day operations.

“The stakes have gotten very high very quickly,” said Bruce Ryon, multimedia analyst at Dataquest, a San Jose-based consulting firm. “In an emerging market like this, you have people who are very entrepreneurial, creative, loosely structured. But at this point, with the investment levels you’re talking about to get out a good title, you need someone who has a good mix of creative and management skill sets.”

“It shows that the industry is getting serious,” Knowledge Adventure Chairman Bill Gross said. “A few years ago, I could run the whole show myself and it didn’t matter much to me. But this is not a kindergarten game anymore.”

Still, some say replacing the start-up visionaries may not be good for business in the long run. And many multimedia entrepreneurs who are deliberating their next move are placing a high value on independence as they watch what becomes of some of their peers and rivals.

“We’re choosing our investors very, very carefully,” said Drew Hoffman, a San Francisco-based multimedia developer who recently received funding from two venture firms. “If somebody came in here and offered us a lot of money to do things their way, our answer would be no. Our strategy is to concentrate and not to worry whether we get filthy rich this year. And we’re not going to get filthy rich this year--we’ve figured that out. But we are going to make some cool stuff.”

Under the agreement with Random House announced Tuesday, Knowledge Adventure will jointly develop and market children’s reference multimedia titles based on the publisher’s library of material, and Random House will distribute to bookstores the multimedia firm’s current software titles. The first joint CD-ROM, due out in November, will be a children’s encyclopedia.

It may have been partly the intense competition in the multimedia encyclopedia market-- which Carlsbad, Calif.-based Compton’s created pretty much single-handedly a few years ago--that led to Bastin’s removal, analysts said. Compton’s market share has been eroded by popular encyclopedia products from Microsoft Corp. and Grolier’s. And Bastin was more interested in diversifying the company’s product line into areas such as entertainment and music.

Bastin, one of the best-known figures in the multimedia industry, said he plans to start his own new-media firm. “I was in the acquisition business for a long time, so I knew at some time we were going to loggerheads. It’s standard fare to buy a company for what it’s done and intends to do and then come in and try to change it. And I’m not exactly your best corporate citizen.”