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Entertainment Weekly is the latest print magazine to go from being a weekly to publishing monthly. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the switch will result in the loss of 13 jobs. EW’s July 5 edition will be the last weekly issue to hit newsstands, with the August issue marking the start of its monthly run. The August issue is being released to coincide with Comic-Con, which will take place July 18-21 in San Diego. JD Heyman, who was previously deputy editor, entertainment at People, is taking over as editor-in-chief from Henry Goldblatt, who had held the job since February 2015. The magazine has also indicated that it plans to make new investments in “digital, social, video and experiential platforms.” Its SiriusXM radio channel is being discontinued June 7. EW was under the Time Inc. umbrella until Meredith purchased the company last year.
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Barnes & Noble is being acquired by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited, the owner of Waterstones, the largest bookseller in the U.K. The all-cash transaction values B&N at $683 million, including the assumption of debt. Waterstones CEO James Daunt will also be CEO of Barnes & Noble following the completion of the transaction. Elliott says that each bookseller will continue to operate independently. With 627 stores, B&N is the largest bookseller in the U.S., and Waterstones operates 293 bookshops in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and Belgium. “Physical bookstores the world over face fearsome challenges from online and digital,” said Daunt. “Our purpose is to create, by investment and old fashioned bookselling skill, bookshops good enough to be a pleasure in their own right and to have no equal as a place in which to choose a book.” The transaction is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.
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Almost all of Esquire’s senior staff is out the door in the wake of Jay Fielden’s May 30 exit from the magazine’s editor-in-chief slot, the New York Post reports. Features editor Bruce Handy, executive director of editorial Michael Hainey, design director Emily Poenisch and entertainment features editor Matthew Marden are among those leaving the magazine. Hearst Magazines, under the leadership of Troy Young, who became president of the division in July 2018, has cut the magazine’s print schedule from monthly to eight issues per year, and the Post report says there are rumors that it could be cut further, perhaps to six issues per year.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
