It's not all bad news for media men today: Sports Illustrated chief Terry McDonell – of Us Weekly, Men's Journal, Outside, Rolling Stone, and Newsweek fame – has pleased John Huey & Co. well enough to be named editor of "Sports Illustrated Group." That's Sports Illustrated Group, as in one of those umbrella titles Conde Nast has, of late, become so fond of. The position doesn't even exist, but for McDonell, mountains can be moved. Or at least Golf and Golf.com can; they'll now be part of McDonell's fiefdom. But don't think he's giving up his duties of running the SI ship — he'll still have the top spot there as managing editor, but now he'll be pissing off more people. Full memo, after the jump.

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October 11, 2006

To: Time Inc. Employees

From: John Huey

Re: Staff Announcement

I am pleased to announce the promotion of Terry McDonell to the newly
created title of Editor, Sports Illustrated Group.

In this expanded role, Terry will not be relinquishing his day-to-day
responsibilities for the editing of the weekly magazine. But with the
integration of Golf and Golf.com into the S.I. group, as well as the
exponential growth and increased importance of S.I.com, this title
change formally recognizes Terry's significantly expanded executive
management responsibilities.

Since joining S.I. in February 2002, Terry has done a phenomenal job
at the helm of S.I. The magazine currently enjoys its highest reader
satisfaction scores in more than a decade, and its circulation
profitability has thrived under his leadership.

Perhaps most important, Terry has been instrumental in building
S.I.com into what is by far the magazine industry's most successful
digital business. Digital profit growth at S.I. over the last year is
almost 200%; over the last three years almost 600%. All this growth
has added up to a digital business that is the largest contributor at
any of our magazine franchises.

Beyond that, S.I.com simply delivers the smartest, youngest and
wealthiest sports audience on the web today. According to our internal
tracking, September marked S.I.com's best month ever-surpassing even
the success of the last Swimsuit package in February. The site
garnered more than 22 million unique visitors and 455 million
pageviews, an increase of nearly 40 and 30 per cent respectively year
over year.

In addition to that most important element of the S.I. franchise,
Terry has overseen the rebirth of S.I. books (two New York Times
bestsellers in the last two years), the renewal of S.I. for kids, the
creation of S.I. on Campus (now thriving on the Web), and the exciting
recent launch of S.I. China.

As exciting as his accomplishments at the S.I. franchise have been,
his plans for its future are even more ambitious.

Please join me in congratulating Terry on this well deserved promotion.

J. H.