For media reporters everywhere, Thursday will be one wistful day. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is expected to climb the podium and ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. With that, AOL will officially be unleashed from Time Warner. The divorce marks the end of an era. The [...]
David Maisel will soon be an ex-super hero. The Chairman of Marvel Studios, who helped build the comic book company into an action movie powerhouse, is leaving the New York-based company once its $4 billion deal with the Walt Disney is finalized, BusinessWeek has learned. Maisel confirmed his departure, which [...]
A Dow Jones executive charged with boosting revenues across the company's various print and online properties will become the first president of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Paul Bascobert, 45, will be responsible for finding new revenue opportunities for the magazine, as well as boosting circulation and reversing the losses that BusinessWeek has posted' [...]
John A. Byrne, for years one of BusinessWeek's most prolific writers and later one its most admired editors, is leaving the magazine to launch his own digital media company.
Byrne, 56, an executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com, said he will officially step down when the sale of the magazine to [...]
How’s the modern day “data room” work? Forget the locked conference room in a law firm, where the dealmakers of old used to pour over reams of facts, figures and assumptions while contemplating whether to bid for a company. MGM, the fabled but debt-hobbled studio, has set up an online [...]
Josh Tyrangiel, who was named this morning to be editor of a Bloomberg-owned BusinessWeek, says it's too early to lay out specific plans for the magazine but his goal is to create "a great indispensable business weekly."
In a brief interview, Tyrangiel, 37, says he plans to meet soon with BW' [...]
Josh Tyrangiel, a deputy managing editor at Time magazine and the top editor of its online operations, will become the first editor of a Bloomberg-owned BusinessWeek. The acquisition, announced Oct. 13, is expected to close in early December.
By selecting the 37-year-old Tyrangiel who is [...]
Walt Disney CFO Tom Staggs may soon get some on-the-job experience in another corner of the Mouse House. Disney’s top financial executive is expected to swap jobs with Disney theme park chief Jay Rasulo, according to knowledgeable sources. The swap comes at a crucial time for Disney, which is planning [...]
It may not be long before the troubled MGM studio is forced by its creditors to seek a buyer. That’s the word coming out of a Nov. 4 meeting between MGM CEO Stephen Cooper and the debt-hobbled film company’s 140-member creditor committee. According to one source with knowledge of the [...]
It may not be long before the troubled MGM studio is forced by its creditors to seek a buyer. That’s the word coming out of a Nov. 4 meeting between MGM CEO Stephen Cooper and the debt-hobbled film company’s 140-member creditor committee. According to one source with knowledge of the [...]
Even before Steven Spielberg's newly reformulated Dreamworks SKG makes its first film, his studio is moving – well, sort of. BusinessWeek has learned that movies made by Dreamworks, headed by Spielberg and producing partner Stacey Snider, will be moving from the Starz pay TVLMDIAto Showtime (CBS).
The move, which' [...]
Roger Neal, the general manager of BusinessWeek’s online operations, is the third top executive to resign from his post following the announced sale of the magazine to Bloomberg LP in mid-October.
BusinessWeek staffers learned of Neal’s departure through a memo sent out by Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg’s chief content officer. “We [...]
On Monday night, 150 or so of the media elite gathered at the Thomson Reuters headquarters in New York’s Times Square to listen to a panel discussion focused on one basic notion: how badly they’ve all screwed up.
The panel was assembled to help promote a new book, “The Curse Of [...]
Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris is quietly making plans to bring in a successor to help run the world’s largest music company , BusinessWeek has been told. Sometime this summer, Universal intends to elevate its international chief Lucian Grainge to take over Morris’s CEO slot for the company whose [...]
BusinessWeek President Keith Fox is stepping down from the magazine but will remain at the parent company, McGraw-Hill Cos.
Fox, 44, informed colleagues of his decision in a staff memo Friday afternoon, less than three weeks after McGraw-Hill announced it had reached an agreement to sell BusinessWeek to Bloomberg LP. [...]
Following on recent news of staff reductions at The New York Times and Forbes, The Wall Street Journal announced today that it is shuttering its Boston bureau, long a hub of education, mutual fund and investigative reporting. Nine reporters will be affected, according to a memo to staff from Journal [...]
During a visit to BusinessWeek on Oct. 23, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski expressed concerns about the available wireless spectrum for broadband devices.
"We've been spending time on long-term spectrum policy for the country because there is a spectrum gap that the data suggests that we face," he told a' [...]
Stephen J. Adler, who has been editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek for more than four years, will resign from his post once the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg LP is completed, as anticipated, in early December.
Adler informed his staff of his plans in a memo Tuesday night. He declined to comment [...]
Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM) “remains highly confident that” its planned merger with rival ticketing agency Live Nation (LYV) “will happen,” says Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff despite published reports that U.S. antitrust regulators have concerns over the combination. Azoff made his comments during an Oct. 17th entertainment symposium of [...]
The full team of top Bloomberg LP executives, along with McGraw-Hill Cos. CEO Terry McGraw, will address the BusinessWeek staff at 9 on Wednesday morning following news Tuesday about the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg.
On hand will be Bloomberg President Dan Doctoroff, chief content officer Norm Pearlstine, Bloomberg News [...]
Bloomberg LP, the global financial data and news empire created by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is the winning bidder for BusinessWeek.
Terms of the offer will not be disclosed by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg’s cash offer is in the $2 [...]
An announcement regarding the sale of BusinessWeek is expected within the next few days, say executives familiar with the situation.
By declaring a winning bidder, BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. is moving forward a process that started earlier this year when the company began soliciting interest from potential buyers. On July 13, [...]
The once fabled MGM studio is hanging by a thread. On Oct. 1, its banks agreed to allow the debt-hobbled studio to forego its monthly debt payments on $3.5 billion in debt through December 15, although bankruptcy remains a distinct possibility after then.
But back in May, I’m told, [...]
The scene could soon be set for General Electric(GE) to strike its rumored deal to sell its NBC Universal assets to cable operator Comcast (CMCSA), sources tell BusinessWeek. French telecommunicatons and entertainment company Vivendi is expected to discuss the sale of its 20% stake in NBCU at a [...]
It’s become standard operating procedure for CEOs caught in the press headlights of a potential deal. They issue a memo to the troops that bucks them up, extols the virtues of the company’s assets and tells them “don’t listen to what they’re saying in the press.” Well, right on schedule, [...]
After months of denying it’s for sale, General Electric (GE) seems to be entertaining offers for its NBC Universal unit. According to multiple sources, cable giant Comcast (CMCSA) is among those who are kicking the tires for NBCU, whose properties include the NBC broadcast network, the Universal film studio [...]
Sometimes in Hollywood, misery loves company. And, while three film studios are locked in a legal tussle with video vending machine operator RedBox and its $1 rentals, another company that’s feeling Hollywood’s the less than warm embrace these days is online DVD rental powerhouse Netflix (NFLX). At least three studios [...]
New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman says he is a bidder for BusinessWeek. In a telephone interview with BusinessWeek, the real estate billionaire would only confirm that he bid for the magazine. He declined to elaborate on the terms of his offer and on his plans for how he [...]
Revised bids are due today for BusinessWeek and at least four parties are still competing to own the 80-year-old magazine, according to executives familiar with the process.
With the latest bids submitted, it could be less than a week before BusinessWeek’s parent, McGraw-Hill Companies, announces a winner. Since BusinessWeek represents less [...]
By Ron Grover
It’s only a matter of time before the media industry consolidation begins. But when it does, Time Warner likely will be out there buying, according to its largest shareholder. Heavyweight media investor Gordon Crawford, managing director of the Capital Group, figures that Time Warner will continue to trim [...]
I thought that if I put this off long enough, then writing it would be easier. This notion is, of course, wholly divorced from reality.
As some of you may have heard, my wife and I will be taking a sabbatical until next spring, so that we can [...]
ZelnickMedia LLC, a New York-based investment firm, is teaming with the former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz, to make a possible run for BusinessWeek, yet it appears no formal bid has been made, according to executives familiar with the situation.
Interest by the Zelnick-Crovitz team offers an [...]
After being given a few days’ grace past the September 15 deadline for final bids for BusinessWeek, Bloomberg LP submitted its bid for the 80-year old business magazine, according to executives familiar with the situation.
A Bloomberg spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email, but previously declined to comment [...]
As the midnight deadline for final bids for BusinessWeek neared on Tuesday, Sept 15, the question looming over the process was whether or not late entrant Bloomberg LP would bid.
Given Bloomberg’s late entry into the fray—-its interest kindled quickly last week, and a coterie of its company executives just [...]
The following post is from Ronald Grover, BusinessWeek's Los Angeles bureau chief:
Anyone who ever wondered how important the Fox News Channel is to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (NWS) need only peruse the company’s recent proxy statement. Roger Ailes, the former media consultant for Ronald Reagan [...]
The list of suitors for BusinessWeek just got a little shorter. Bruce Wasserstein has decided against making a final bid for the magazine, say executives familiar with the situation.
A spokesman for Wasserstein declined to comment. Wasserstein, the chairman and CEO of financial giant Lazard, owns the business weekly The Deal [...]
I’ve done a bunch of stories chronicling the developments in the ongoing process in which McGraw-Hill is seeking to sell BusinessWeek.
As the deadline for final bids nears, though, I thought I’d compile the key facts from those pieces in this post.
THE KNOWN [...]
The following post is from Ronald Grover, BusinessWeek’s Los Angeles bureau chief:
While no one has been watching, the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) may well be overhauling the way movie studios are being run. Since February, when Disney signed Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studio to a long-term film-distribution deal, [...]
Bloomberg LP has re-entered the bidding process for McGraw-Hill’s BusinessWeek, several sources familiar with the situation say, and is expected to meet with BusinessWeek executives to get more detailed information on the magazine’s operations early next week.
The news comes as a surprise, as Bloomberg previously passed on BusinessWeek, following much [...]
The following magazines missed making rate base for the first six months of 2009, according to the figures released yesterday by Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Which means what? “Rate base” is the minimum circulation level guarantee that magazines offer advertisers. Miss delivering your rate base, and you’re primed to get [...]
Glass quarter-full department, from Dan McCarthy's Viral Housing Fix :
Here’s another entry for the things-aren’t-good-but-they’re-better-than-six-months-ago file.
The Association of National Advertisers polled its members to see how they are thinking about marketing spending over the next year. The net result? 87% of respondents are looking to cut costs in marketing, [...]
Final bids are due for The McGraw-Hill’s Cos. BusinessWeek during the week of Sept 15, persons familiar with the process say, and another potential bidder for the 80-year old magazine has surfaced.
ZelnickMedia, a private equity firm that’s long sought out distressed media assets for turnaround, was one of nine companies [...]
Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto has expressed interest in pursuing a deal for BusinessWeek, individuals familiar with the situation say, and representatives from his Mansueto Ventures are expected to meet with BusinessWeek management at some point in the next several days for a detailed presentation of the magazine and its finances. [...]
I've been very quiet around here this week, in large part because I've been working on a story updating where things stand in wake of last week's confirmation that BusinessWeek parent The McGraw-Hill Companies is exploring options regarding this magazine (and Web site).
That full story, with financial data, [...]
The sharp-eared Mickey Kaus picked up on this (scroll down to the fourth item). The following is from an on-air interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel with GM’s veteran top executive Bob Lutz last week. Lutz is foregoing retirement--he had previous plans to step down as vice-chairman--in order to help [...]
In a move that confirmed weeks of increasing chatter, the McGraw- Hill Companies today stated that it is evaluating “strategic options” for its 80 year old magazine BusinessWeek—-a confirmation that generally precedes seeking a buyer for a property.
“The McGraw-Hill Companies today announced that it is exploring strategic options for BusinessWeek,” [...]
I am trying to decide if this story, this kind of threat—albeit an indirect one--is the sort of thing that can be taken seriously. Eric Pfanner in today's New York Times:
Leading European newspaper and magazine publishers on Thursday called on the European Commission to strengthen copyright protection as a [...]
I am playing around with an idea, and I have no clue as to whether it’s totally offbase or not. Nevertheless! Thought I’d struggle through my preliminary reasoning here and see what you all think about it.
The idea is this: While local TV stations are getting killed in this [...]
This week, in the ever-tired, ultra-binary "battle" between old-media bona fides and new-media triumphalism:
--TMZ.com broke the news about Michael Jackson’s death.
--Columbia S.C.’s daily newspaper The State did an old-school stakeout at Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport to break the news about Gov. Mark Sanford’s trip to Buenos Aires. (They also [...]
Many media types routinely namecheck The Economist as a favorite magazine. I am not among them. Yes, The Economist is global and comprehensive and all that, but more often than not the tone strikes me as smug and, good Lord, it is not a particularly energizing read.
But while I [...]
Earlier this month, I expressed some puzzlement over the new GM “revivention’ ad campaign (and accompanying Web site). I was having a hard time deciding whether or not they ads seemed strange because, yknow, the ads are actually strange, or because GM was trying to navigate such unprecedented [...]
A few hours ago I interviewed IAC Chairman-CEO Barry Diller onstage at the Advertising 2.0 conference, During said interview, he came out much more strongly in favor of paid content online than I’d ever heard him.
I’m nowhere near so sanguine as he is that getting people to pay online will [...]
In the shoulda-done-this-earlier department:
I'm interviewing IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller onstage tomorrow at the Advertising 2.0 conference in Manhattan. There's no set agenda for our discussion, but, as you might guess, I'll be asking him questions about the whole media/advertising/Web environment, as well as about his company's' [...]
Finding itself in deeply strange terrain—a national icon in bankruptcy, owned in large measure by you and me and a few hundred million other American citizens—General Motors has started running a minute-long TV ad emphasizing the dusting-itself-off-and-picking-itself-up aspects of its situation.
GM is, obviously, also reaching out to consumers [...]
TicketMaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff, appearing at News Corp’s annual All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California, proved an interesting and free-speaking interviewee. Although, churlish as it may be, he was much more interesting and free-speaking about the macroeconomics of the music industry than on the specifics of his company—and [...]
(Liberty Media Chairman and overall media tough-guy John Malone just got offstage at this year’s All Things Digital conference. A question from the audience eprompted the following thoughts from Malone regarding the current problems of local media—disappearing ad dollar placing newspapers, radio and local broadcasters under severe stress.
I don’t necessarily [...]
Late last week Jalopnik pulled together its Ten Worst Car Ads of All Time. The unquestionably two most excellent-est of the lot—in a lovely bit of global symmetry, one comes from an American company and the other comes from a Japanese carmaker--are embedded below.
I sometimes feel that the [...]
I posted here on Friday about a shred of good news for newspaper companies. Consumers appear to be willing to pay for their papers—that is, the paper version of the newspaper. Or, at least, they’re doing so in numbers sufficient to make most companies’ circulation revenues increase in the [...]
People are still paying for the print newspaper. In fact, in almost all cases, people are paying more for the print newspaper: circulation revenues rose, if slightly, at almost all of the remaining publicly traded newspaper companies in the first three months of this year:
McClatchy: circulation rev up [...]
(The following item was written by BusinessWeek's Los Angeles Bureau Chief Ron Grover. Thanks, Ron.)
It’s the hottest topic on two coasts. Why in the world would David Geffen, perhaps the shrewdest investor Hollywood has seen in years, want to plunk down $200 million or so for the 19.9% stake in' [...]
Arianna Huffington and her Post. Tina Brown and her Daily Beast. Add The Stimulist, which went live today, to the, ah, list of Web news and commentary sites founded by a figure first made famous by elder forms of media.
Carlos Watson, MSNBC daytime anchor and weekend host on [...]
Earnings reporting time for Time Warner. And, in a fashion familiar to those who watch Time Warner—a company where things get done with the alacrity of a sloth dashing through a wading pool filled with molasses--its CEO Jeff Bewkes announced that AOL . . . well, that eventually there would [...]
Conde Nast Portfolio, the very big and glossy bet on a monthly business magazine made by the very big and glossy magazine company touted in its title, was shuttered today. Editor In Chief Joanne Lipman informed staffers of the news at an all-hands meeting hastily called at 9:45 AM. Lipman [...]
New model for auto-tune abuse also possibly the most promising yet.
Someone, please make the guys behind this famous. (Also, someone please give that Couric character a recording contract, stat.)
(Tipping my hat to my colleague Burt Helm, who passed this along to me.)
[...]Yes, this actually happened: In 1984 Paper Mate found an unknown poodle-rock band called Autograph, gave ’em some bucks, and got their product a starring role in said band's debut video. Paper Mate even teamed up their pens with the band in some promotional posters too.
In case you’re wondering: [...]
There’s plenty of bad news in the New York Times Co.’s first quarter earnings, but the worst of it is this: the steepening slide at its flagship New York Times.
Yes, the New York Media Group--which consists of the Times, the International Herald Tribune and radio station WQXR--turned in [...]
Magazine industry trade title Folio:, reporting on the just-released first-quarter ad data for consumer magazines:
Ad pages in consumer magazines dropped 25.9 percent while ad revenue fell 20.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009, according to figures released today by the MPA’s Publishers Information Bureau.
This comes one week after [...]
As you’ve probably heard, Carl’s Jr. just did another stunt ad. This one features extraordinarily attractive (and, in this case, scantily-clad) author and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi enjoying some quality time with their heart-attack-inducing Western Bacon Six Dollar burger.
The extended remix:
Seriously now: Lakshmi—whose entire cred is based on [...]
My colleague and fellow blogger Burt Helm, who is substantially younger than me, looked up yesterday with a quizzical expression.
"Jon," he asked, "could you explain Max Headroom to me?"
And I kind of fumfered around, trying to come up with a response: "Well, it was a cable TV" [...]
How great is this quote?
“I’m not gonna tell you stories about teamwork or cooperation. My approach was very egotistic. I wanted my artistic statement. My interpretation of reality. I wanted to make posters. Not newspapers. Not even a magazine. Posters.”
Jacek Utko did stunning visual redesigns of Eastern European and [...]
Last week I wrote a column that touched on a company called Abrams Research, a newish company for which I had less-than-kind words.
Briefly: Abrams Research is a marketing/communications firm that plans to assemble a panel of paid experts to advise companies on corporate and media strategies. The [...]
The Wall Street Journal's Josh Prager is leaving the paper, and he just sent out an email informing colleagues of his decision.
Prager is likely best known for his Journal front-page story and subsequent book on how the New York Giants were stealing signs from the Brooklyn Dodgers during' [...]
The New York Times Co’s market cap is down to $720 million, as I write this, and the day’s tides of media and commentary bring in, virtually every day, pre-obituaries for the company and the career of its Chairman/family scion Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. Mark Bowden in Vanity Fair. [...]
I’ve been playing with the following notion for days now. By posting it here I hope to get it out of my head, and also enlist all of you to help me make sense of it.
Twitter is ushering in the purest and truest of all economies for media, if “truest” [...]
Some of you have asked for highlights/lowlights of that Media Summit panel I moderated last week.
I generally do a terrible job of taking notes on (and remembering)anything said onstage while moderating such things. But fortunately there's some video.
I offer the following 65 minutes of the panel with' [...]
I’ve been at work on an upcoming column about a company that produces ads for agencies and marketers. As part of my research for it, I ended up talking a bit with a film director who’s made both movies and ads.
Now, of course, there’s never really been much a bright [...]
This came over the transom today, as the headline to a piece summarizing some of MIN's most recent magazine ad-page tracking data:
No "Rebirth" In The Monthlies' April Ad Pages (-24.50%)
We've said it before! We'll say it again.
(And again and again, probably, given the way things are' [...]
At the annual Kelly Gang gathering, a rite for a particular New York media tribe each St. Patrick's Day, I pulled up next to a senior executive in the magazine industry.
In the course of the usual how's-business chit-chat, I repeated to him my theory that 20% down [...]
At the annual Kelly Gang gathering, a rite for a particular New York media tribe each St. Patrick's Day, I pulled up next to a senior executive in the magazine industry.
In the course of the usual how's-business chit-chat, I repeated to him my theory that 20% down' [...]
At today’s McGraw-Hill Media Summit, NBC Universal Jeff Zucker talked tough, cracked jokes, and, as executives do in such settings, gave carefully calibrated answers. Taken together, they painted the picture of a media executive currently fighting the fight of his life against a brutal and unyielding ad environment.
(Let’s get [...]
At today’s McGraw-Hill Media Summit, NBC Universal Jeff Zucker talked tough, cracked jokes, and, as executives do in such settings, gave carefully calibrated answers. Taken together, they painted the picture of a media executive currently fighting the fight of his life against a brutal and unyielding ad environment.
(Let’s get [...]
I’m sitting here getting ready to moderate a panel for Wednesday’s McGraw Hill Media Summit, a panel that looks at the challenges that the big news organizations of the world now face.
Or: let’s just go to the panel description!
Wednesday, March 18
10:45 AM - Noon
The Changing Face of [...]
I’m sitting here getting ready to moderate a panel for Wednesday’s McGraw Hill Media Summit, a panel that looks at the challenges that the big news organizations of the world now face.
Or: let’s just go to the panel description!
Wednesday, March 18
10:45 AM - Noon
The Changing Face of [...]
In prior ad slowdowns, I’ve had more than one wiseacre executive tell me that “flat is the new up”—that not losing ad revenues versus the prior year was the equivalent of posting a gain.
But this tough time is not like other tough times, as we are endlessly reminded. While [...]
In prior ad slowdowns, I’ve had more than one wiseacre executive tell me that “flat is the new up”—that not losing ad revenues versus the prior year was the equivalent of posting a gain.
But this tough time is not like other tough times, as we are endlessly reminded. While [...]
