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Meredith is giving 180 employees (about 3.6 percent of its workforce) pink slips, according to a report in the New York Post. About 130 of the job losses will come from the company’s television stations, with the other 50 hitting its national media group, which includes such magazines as People and Better Homes & Gardens and their related websites. Meredith’s TV operations will consolidate at its Atlanta location, where all graphic and creative services will be centralized. The move follows last week’s proposal of a change to Meredith’s corporate charter that will allow the company to divide its magazine holdings and TV stations into two separate businesses.
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| Chris Spadaccini |
Chris Spadaccini is exiting his post as chief marketing officer at WarnerMedia Entertainment. Spadaccini is the latest in a wave of departures from WarnerMedia resulting from a major revamp of the company led by CEO Jason Kilar, who came on board in May. Before assuming the CMO spot in 2019, Spadaccini had been with HBO since 1999, most recently serving as EVP, marketing. His duties will be divided up between several company employees. Kilar’s restructuring is intended to merge WarnerMedia’s content creation into one operation, with “efficiencies” expected to follow. It will also create a separate focus on HBO Max, which is expected to assume a pivotal role in the company’s future.
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Penske Media, which runs Variety, Rolling Stone, WWD and Deadline, has formed a partnership with The Hollywood Reporter parent company MRC. The partnership will create two joint ventures, with both companies holding significant ownership stakes in each. The first venture, PMRC, will be led by Penske Media and encompass trade and consumer brands from both companies. The second is a content partnership managed by MRC and operating out of its office. Intended to “activate the power of the production infrastructure and expertise of MRC across PMRC intellectual property," the partnership will include television, film and event production. No leadership changes at either PMC or MRC are expected to result from the partnership, and both companies will continue to operate independently.
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.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
