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Forbes pulls the plug on its plans to go public via a special-purpose acquisition company. The deal, which was announced last August, would have taken Forbes public through a merger with Hong Kong-based SPAC Magnum Opus Acquisition at a valuation of $630 million. As part of that deal, Forbes agreed in February to a $200 million investment from cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Since the deal was announced, Forbes says its financial performance has been solid, with Q4 2021 profits up 80 percent from the previous year. The fate of the SPAC marketplace as a whole, however, has been spotty at best. BuzzFeed’s value has declined by more than 50 percent since its December 2021 SPAC deal, and more than 35 SPAC mergers have been called off since the start of November, according to financial markets platform Dealogic.
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Creem, the magazine that was Rolling Stone’s slightly edgier cousin during its 1969 to 1989 run, is returning for an encore. The comeback is the brainchild of JJ Kramer, son of the magazine’s original publisher, Barry Kramer. Headquartered in New York (though it anticipates opening an office in its original hometown of Detroit), the new Creem will have a staff led by former Vice magazine publisher John Martin as CEO. It will include a website and newsletter (to be named “Fresh Creem”), a digital archive of the original Creem’s 224 issues, and a quarterly print edition, which will be a subscriber-only publication. “Just like Creem in its first iteration, the collection of people makes it what it is,” Kramer told the Detroit Free Press. “We have an editorial team developing today’s unique points of view and voices.”
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Gannett has split its media properties from its digital marketing business in a corporate restructuring that creates two new business units. The Gannett Media business unit, which will focus on news, content, such operations as print and distribution, business-to-business marketing solutions (including advertising) and subscription growth, will be headed by Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president of news for Gannett and publisher of USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. The other unit is Digital Marketing Solutions, which includes LOCALiQ, a provider of digital marketing services. Kris Barton, Gannett’s chief product officer, will lead that unit. Chief revenue office Kevin Gentzel and president of US publishing operations, Bernie Szachara will be leaving the company.
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.
