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The intellectual property of Sports Illustrated–including its library of more than two million images, its name and such brands as its Sportsperson of the Year awards and swimsuit —has been sold to Authentic Brands Group for $110 million. What was not included in the transaction was the magazine and website, which Meredith will continue to run for at least two years. Meredith will pay ABG an undisclosed licensing fee for use of the brand name on the publication. Sports Illustrated editor-in-chief Chris Stone and publisher Danny Lee will keep their positions, according to a press release from Meredith. ABG currently owns the brands of celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley, as well as companies like Fredericks of Hollywood and Juicy Couture. It says it expects to make the deal pay off through endeavors including live sports, e-sports and sports gambling.
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It looks like Condé Nast is about to shed W Magazine, the last of the three titles it put on the auction block last year. A report in the New York Post says that Surface Media, which produces a quarterly magazine and website focused on design and architecture, is zeroing in on a deal to pick up the publication for around $7 million. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Stefano Tonchi earlier tried to put together a buyout proposal for the title. Adrian Cheng, founder of C Ventures, a Hong Kong-based venture capital company that focuses on emerging fashion & media and creative businesses, was also a rumored buyer. The Alliance for Audited Media put W’s circulation at 435,438 as of December 2018.
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PBS NewsHour is receiving $1.7 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help expand CANVAS, its broadcast and digital arts reporting initiative. As part of the expansion, NewsHour has launched a dedicated CANVAS website, relaunched its Twitter account and started up a new Facebook Group. It will also experiment with augmented reality and other innovative ways to model artwork for online audiences. The Knight Foundation says that its investment in CANVAS is part of its efforts to support the arts as a means to build stronger, better informed and more engaged communities. “Through its iconic national programming and expanded digital presence, PBS NewsHour’s CANVAS elevates art as national news, said Knight Foundation vice president for the arts Victoria Rogers.
 Jay Fielden |
Esquire editor-in-chief Jay Fielden, who took over from longtime editor David Granger in March 2016, has resigned. He will also be leaving the editorial director post at fellow Hearst title Town & Country, where he served as editor-in-chief from 2011 to 2016. Fielden joins a list of senior executives who have left Hearst Magazines since Troy Young was named president last year. In addition to president, marketing and publishing director Michael Clinton, who retired in May after 21 years, that list includes former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles, who exited her position as chief content officer last August. Hearst is in the midst of a major reshuffling that is placing considerably more emphasis on digital than print. Fielden’s departure follows an incident in which Hearst management pulled an exposé of film director Bryan Singer that Fielden had overseen, which was picked up by The Atlantic after it was killed.
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
