Remember how TV Guide was sold by Macrovision to OpenGate earlier this year for one whole dollar? Well, that deal included a cause which said a) Macrovision would lend Opengate $9.5 million, b) Macrovision would retain the rights to TVGuide.com, and c) Opengate could do whatever they wanted with the mag's title…including making cuts as soon as they owned the rights.
Which is exactly what's going on.
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HSBC bought all the ad pages in this week's issue of New York magazine, remarkably outbuying all those CBS and and ABC attempts to do the same in People and TV Guide, respectively. Hey, people are still talking about the time Target bought all the ads in The New Yorker a couple years ago!
Still, the HSBC (which, it bears mentioning, is not an American bank so you'd probably be safer there then your current 10-year plan of stuffing hundred dollar bills into a coffee cup under a floorboard) bought the most ad pages (24 total, including web splashes), and spent the most money on their campaign.
So at this point, is it even worth mentioning that the ad-monopoly is affecting how magazines do business, and not necessarily for the better?
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Now that Macrovision sold the print magazine TV Guide to private equity firm OpenGate Capital for $1 while holding on to the TVGuide.com domain name, and there's the possibility of The TV Guide Channel going to another separate party, how will three different owners manage to use the same brand name without trampling all over one another? Ehhhh. CONTINUED »
Much like the time Bart Simpson went to an auction and accidentally bought an abandoned warehouse, Macrovision finalized its deal with OpenGate Capital to sell the unprofitable TV Guide to the equity fund for $1. A buck.
And that's even after the "glorified database" Macrovision offered OpenGate $9.5 million in loans with little interest to keep the fund interested and able to do business, although Macrovision still gets to keep control of the dot-com division. Meaning these days a $9.5 mill loan is worth approximately 100 pennies.
Nice, America.
Back in April, glorified database company Macrovision picked up TV Guide from Gemstar for some $2.3 billion (or $2.8 billion? Confused!). But Macrovision wasn't interested in TV Guide the magazine; just the technology services of parent Gemstar. But in the transition, the new owner ousted longtime editor Ian Birch and installed Debra Birnbaum, then the exec editor and the former editor of Life & Style, into the top slot. And it was there, for the first time in months (years?) that the media press began its reversal of calling TV Guide a relic of the past — TV listings? In print? Really? — and started cheerleading the resized book. And now, a new twist: After keeping the print magazine on its books for a full half year, but making it no secret it didn't want the magazine, Macrovision finally found a buyer to get rid of the dead tree product. CONTINUED »
Just when you thought it was safe to turn off the TV and open a magazine, CBS announced it will be taking out 20 pages in next week's People to promote their new fall line-up. Not only is this an unholy synergy of print and television, but it's already been done before. Watch out ABC: CBS' newest creative director, Lesli Lawrence, is going over to your gym and secretly videotaping your guys' moves.
People loathe, loathe, loathe being sold things. Much like the canvassers parading up and down the block with clipboards, it's easy to avoid most hard sells if you keep your eyes to the ground and your finger on the TiVo button. Banished to the realm of petty annoyance, advertisers have had to adapt to the increasing chatter that consumers use to drown them out, and the result haven't always been pretty. Your shows get "paused" by snipes. Your reading material gets absorbed by advertisers. And now, you're basically reading advertising copy in your leisure time. CONTINUED »
If you haven't read CoverAwards.com — former Life & Style editor Mark Pasetsky's attempt at reinventing himself as a media consultant — you can be forgiven: Most of the website consists of magazine cover scans accompanied and bits of celebrity gossip disguised as tabloid coverage, and really, don't you have an RSS reader stuffed with those sites?
But now Pasetsky is reviewing a crop of magazine each week, focusing in on the tabloids — something we grew tired of, but is still done by many a website out there.
So what's so special about Pasetsky's write ups? For starters, they're less critical observations about the industry's products than they are an attack on his former colleagues.
FoxNews.com gossip Roger Friedman launched a seemingly personal battle against TV Guide today when he didn't see Tim Russert's face peering at him from its cover this week. While some folks think the media have gone overboard with Russert tributes, Friedman expected the magazine covering Russert's industry would put him on the cover. And when he didn't spot the mug of the deceased? He blamed new owner Macrovision, which is trying to sell off the print title while hanging on to its dot-com.
Except as so often happens with Friedman, his argument holds little water. CONTINUED »
… comes news that the magazine returned to profitability in Q1 of this year after 15 consecutive quarters of posting losses. Meanwhile, "ad pages continue to grow by double digits almost three years later. In 2007, they rose 23% to 1,138, and in the first quarter of 2008 they grew 10.9% to 281." [MP]
The excellent Michael Ausiello, who, among other assignments at TV Guide, maintained the Ausiello Report blog, is leaving the magazine after eight years for … Entertainment Weekly, beginning July 2 as a columnist for the magazine and website.
It's one of many high-profile departures for the just-sold TVGuide, which remains in a limbo phase as it waits to be sold off once new owner Macrovisiion can find an owner. [TV Guide]
Despite TV Guide's sale to Macrovision, Debra Birnbaum being named EIC, and the brand's reversal of mostly negative press, the magazine's outlook isn't all rosy, thanks to its attachment to Henry Yuen, the former CEO of Gemstar-TV Guide who is officially a fugitive from justice. CONTINUED »
The bitter blood between Debra Birnbaum and Mark Pasetsky has not disappeared, even though neither of them are running Life & Style anymore.
You'll remember back in November 2006, we reported Bauer removed Birnbaum as the tabloid's EIC, where marketing type Pasetsky stepped in. Then we chronicled his handling of the magazine, which ultimately ended up with him leaving in September 2007, and Richard Spencer from sister In Touch stepping in to helm both weeklies.
Somewhere in the middle of that, Birnbaum headed to TV Guide as a consultant, and then executive editor. (She had been EIC of spin-off Inside TV, which shuttered.) Pasetsky left to run his own PR firm Mark Allen & Co. It's there he also launched the website CoverAwards.com, which claims to critique magazine covers with an expert's perspective.
In the past couple weeks, as TV Guide was sold to Macrovision and editor Ian Birch was shown the door, Birnbaum was elevated to the top spot.
And it's there, on Cover Awards, that Pasetsky is trying to take her down. CONTINUED »
Having just snapped up Gemstar-TV Guide for $2.8 billion, new owner Macrovision is, as expected, already looking for a buyer for TV Guide the magazine. [NYT] It was no big secret from the beginning that Macrovision was interested in Gemstar's technology, but not its print asset, or its television channels (the TV Guide Channel, and horse-racing station TVG). The new owner is, however, interested in keeping TVGuide.com, which in the digital era is viewed as a more substantial asset that the ink-and-paper brand, though hanging on to the magazine's domain name, we imagine, could be a sticking point for a sale.
Or not.
Very quickly, the magazine has done an about-face. This is interesting. CONTINUED »
Remember Debra Birnbaum, the editor of Life & Style who, as we were the first to tell you, was ousted by Bauer head Hubert Boehle in November '06, only to be replaced by Mark Pasetsky, who got himself the ax less than a year later?
In June of last year, she headed to TV Guide as the executive editor. TV Guide, if you're unfamiliar, is a magazine your mother used to keep on the coffee table so she knew what time her stories were on. Today, it's a magazine that's seen readership dwindle and is basically a commodity in the $2.3 billion sale of parent Gemstar to Macrovision, which only wanted Gemstar's video programming technology; the sale, of course, also saw top editors EIC Ian Birch, managing editor Lois Draegin, and exec ed Steve Sonsky leave the building.
Getting to the point: Now we're hearing rumors that Birnbaum is taking over as editor of the magazine. Mediaweek is hearing those same rumblings but notes "the title's long-term future is up in question," since Macrovision isn't expected to hold on to the magazine for very long. Which means Birnbaum assuming the top spot now could be trouble down the road. Or a brilliant career move. It's so hard to tell with these things!
Update: It's confirmed: Birnbaum is the new EIC.
TV Guide veteran editor Ian Birch, pictured, who oversaw the magazine's revamp away from a dial listings title, along with managing editor Lois Draegin and exec ed Steve Sonsky, were dismissed from the magazine following yesterday's shareholder-approved sale of Gemstar-TV Guide to Macrovision, Jossip hears. We're told the removals were expected, though some staffers thought brass would wait more than 24 hours for the dismissals. "What a dickhead move," says one miffed staffer. Indeed.
… just whose body did TV Guide stick underneath Britney Spears' Photoshop-slimmed face?
Macrovision's $2.8 billion proposed buyout of TV Guide-Gemstar might be hitting some hurdles. Namely, the wannabe buyer's investors are questioning the future of the TV Guide's stock price and readership. As in, they might fall!
Like they've been doing.
Also, Macrovision has no experience in publishing, which is somehow supposed to be a hindrance. Not that Joe Mansueto let that little problem stop him from buying Inc. and Fast Company. Then again, Joe spent $35 million, not $2.8 billion. So, apples and oranges?
It's hard to fault Hollywood 411, the new TV Guide channel stab at celebrity gossip programming. We'll give 'em this: They're trying. But just like their unappealing Golden Globes coverage, what's the draw of any show that's split horizontally across the screen while utterly useless channel listings scroll below it?
Which is why they're resorting to the tactic Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, and The Insider have been using since time immemorial: issuing press releases announcing the most minuscule of EXCLUSIVES! Like this one:
HOLLYWOOD 411 will air the first and exclusive interview with Michael Kosik, assistant to the Pastor at the Little Brown Church in Studio City, California.
Kosik describes the incredible scene as Britney descended upon the Little Brown Church yesterday and clears up questions about why she was there.
Also featured is an exclusive interview with the manager of Gaucho Grill, where Spears dined yesterday, who will give us a first hand account of Britney and Adnan and what transpired during their cozy lunch.
So: Britney randomly went to a church with pseudo-boyfriend and paparazzo Adnan Ghalib — and now every intimate detail, including which pew number they sat at, is a scoop. Split horizontally across the screen while utterly useless channel listings scroll below it.
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In 1998, News Corp. invested $3 billion in Triangle Publications, the then-owner of TV Guide. After a flurry of deals that involved selling off assets for cash, merging the company with Liberty Media (for which it received $800 million, and equity), merging with Gemstar (with News Corp. taking over Liberty's stake in exchange for $6b in stock). Now, with Macrovision's bid for Gemstar-TV Guide, the latter company's stock has continued its slide, leaving News Corp. with an investment worth just $1 billion, or a loss of about six and a half billion dollars. That's more than it paid for Dow Jones. [PC]
Editorial Director
