 Tom Florio |
Former Condé Nast senior vice president and publishing director Tom Florio is getting back into the magazine business by acquiring pop culture title PAPER Magazine. Together with XRM Media and PAPER CCO Drew Elliott, Florio has formed ENTech Media Group, which has signed an agreement to purchase the magazine from PAPER Communications co-founders Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits. Plans are for the magazine to scale down its print presence while beefing up its digital offerings. "We will build on their digital and native content, social architecture and video,” said Florio. “In 2018, the magazine will go quarterly with an increased distribution in bookstores and single copies." PAPER isn’t exactly a stranger to incorporating digital communications into its game plan, however. In 2014, the magazine debuted its “Break The Internet” issue with a cover shot of a scantily clad Kim Kardshian that generated more than 70 million monthly unique visitors to Papermag.com
 Jarl Mohn |
The sexual harassment scandal at NPR that provoked the resignation of the radio network’s former head of news, Michael Orsekes, may be having some subsidiary effects. In a letter to NPR staff sent out on Tuesday, CEO Jarl Mohn announced that he would be taking a medical leave of at least a month to address a “dangerous level” of hypertension. He suffered a ruptured aorta in March. Mohn has come under fire for what some see as foot-dragging in response to the charges brought against Oreskes. “In retrospect,” he said in the letter, “I did not see the bigger pattern of poor judgment and unacceptable behavior.” In addition to the harassment complaints, that behavior included $1800 in invalid expenses, for which Mohn said Oreskes has reimbursed NPR. While Mohn is out on medical leave, NPR COO Loren Mayor will be filling in for him.
 Serena Williams |
Oath—the digital arm of Verizon that includes AOL, Yahoo! and the Huffington Post—has named Serena Williams the founding chairman of its board of advisors. Williams will lead a celebrity-studded group that includes Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, fashion designer Zac Posen and recording artists Chuck D and Ciara. The board of advisors will share the expertise they have gained from building their own brands with Oath leadership, as well as having access to the brands that operate under the Oath umbrella. They will also work with Oath’s philanthropic and social impact arm, Oath for Good, providing financial and volunteer contributions to the cause of their choice. Oath CEO Tim Armstrong says that the board “represents the leadership, creativity, work ethic, and philanthropy we aspire to as a company and they will help us make Oath a company unlike any other.”
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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