Kent Brownridge, the former No. 2 at Wenner Media, is leaving his post as CEO of the Quadrangle Capital-backed Alpha Media Group, which snapped up Dennis Publishing's Maxim and Blender (while shuttering the print edition of Stuff); he will still hold the title of chairman, while being replaced by CFO Stephen Duggan and COO Glenn Rosenbloom, who will split chief exec duties. (Brownridge hired the pair of 'em.)
What you won't read in MIN's report, however, is that Brownridge isn't leaving his post voluntarily. We've heard rumblings for a few weeks that the magazine group's progress hasn't been impressing the private equity guys at Quadrangle, who might have originally picked up the lad mag brands as a hobby sport, but now want to see a return on their investment. So, as best we can tell, Brownridge is being forcibly demoted. Also, as best we can tell, Jann Wenner has a macho grin on his face right now.
STABBING BACK The war between Kent Brownridge and Jann Wenner rages on! Like a writers strike! Brownridge, the current Maxim and Blender guru and former Wenner No. 2, poached Rolling Stone exec editor Joe Levy, who will be installed atop Blender next month. Watch now as Kent starts a celebrity weekly just so he can send love letters to Janice Min. [AdAge]
• Nice abs, Fergie. And by nice abs Fergie, we mean nice airbrushing, Blender.
• We took a nap, and we totally missed Tara Reid's anorexia move. We saw it coming, though.
• Amy Winehouse is arrested for perverting the course of justice. We love it when British courts talk dirty.
• The children are always to blame: Kate Hudson claims when her son was born, she realized things would never work with Chris Robinson. We thought it had something to do with the weed, her raising career and his vanishing one.
• If not for Jessica Simpson, would anyone know that it's football season?
Kent Brownridge and Quadrangle are going with "Alpha Male Group" as the name of the new Maxim and Blender parent. And the chance to school advertisers on their awesome alpha male demos is going to make for one kick ass media kit. [WWD]
What's a guy to do with a trio of mags? First off, change the name of their corporate parent. Kent Brownridge, who led Quadrangle's $240 million buyout of Dennis Publishing, will be renaming the umbrella company, giving the Stuff, Maxim, and Blender laddies a new daddy. The former Wenner Media exec, meanwhile, is said to be in the business of adding jobs, not cutting them (which would be hard, given that staffers are already doing multiple jobs). Well, except for Dennis prez Steve Colvin, who's, like, leaving and stuff.
But where's Kent gonna find all this money for new hires? CONTINUED »
Maybe today is just a strange day, or maybe we didn't get enough sleep last night and are hallucinating, but … what the hell is this about Blender? And why exactly are they torturing their contributors?
Blender magazine editors chose Starship's 1985 hit "We Built This City" as the worst song of all time. Now they've assigned contributor Russ Heller to set a world record for repeatedly listening to the worst song ever.
He'll sit in a plexiglass booth at the Best Buy in NoHo starting Friday at 8 a.m. and grit his teeth as "We Built This City" is played at least 324 times over a grueling 24 hours.
Maybe it's some kind of Blender ritual we've never heard of? Or maybe this is left-over angst from the mag's Andy Pemberton days? Anyways … if you're bored on Friday, watching how Blender says "thanks" to its freelancers makes for a really nice time-wasting activity.
AUDIO AGONY [Page Six]
Following in the steps of Maxim and Blender, FHM is the next lad mag to commit a mass staff execution. Just in from Mediaweek:
On Friday, the six-year-old title fired five, including Anthony Wright, its founding fashion director. Others let go are Elisabeth Dick, fashion editor; Sean Johnston, art director; Meghan Conaton and Mark Yarm, associate editors.
Insiders say FHM has been putting more resources toward its Internet property, having recently hired four more staffers to support its Web site.
Last year, the magazine also cut from fashion coverage when it shuttered FHM Collections. We guess it's tough to hold on to a well-paid fashion staff when your models don't actually wear any clothes.
Earlier: Editors Fired in Maxim-um Axings?
• The bed springs finally popped out of Tom Cruise's couch of crazy.
• Paris Hilton's Internet "experience" won her a fab new gig with YouTube.
• Jann Wenner believes in sharing; otherwise known as making celebrities go through the back Us Weekly door to get to Rolling Stone.
• Joanna Coles proves that she really was made for women's mags. And she has new BFF Maggie Gyllenhaal to prove it.
• Tactless Dennis Publishing picks really great times to give their employees bad news. Well, at least they can't blame that one on Chris Wilson.
• Wolf Blitzer is a moron, Michael Noer is a douche, and Tucker Carlson likes to be sparkly.
• Budget Travel doesn't think its appropriate to celebrate the fact that their entire staff is leaving for Travel + Leisure.
• No more Kitty Delicious at Life & Style.
• No more SHOP Etc. or Weekend at Hearst.
The masthead slashing party continues, with today's edition brought to you by the letter D. For Dennis Publishing. Or dickhead.
Just put through the chopping block was Andy Ryan, Blender's solo full-time designer. The 30-something received the news of his axing at a most appropriate time: while on the way to the airport to catch a London flight to be with his dying father. It was his boss, Dennis group creative director Andy Turnbull, who delivered the news — a sad fact when you consider the two Andys were quite friendly. Ryan, in fact, was well liked among the entire staff.
Meanwhile, instinctive chatter suggests Dennis brass felt it would be easier for Andy to deal with two catastrophes at once, instead of one after the one. That's Dennis, for ya: the publisher who cares.
• Since the end of Will & Grace and Frasier there aren't anymore gay people on TV. [AP]
• Blender's average reader = Radar's average staffer. [FBNY]
• In case you missed the William Shatner roast last night on Comedy Central, this part was really fucking funny. [Queerty]
• Harvey Weinstein has his eye on MGM. And if he doesn't get it, you best bet somebody's going to get eaten alive. [Defamer]
• We actually wouldn't mind smelling like Victoria and David Beckham … as long as we don't have to walk or talk like them. [TMZ]
Today Women's Wear Daily asks their readers if they know why Andy Pemberton sacked as EIC of Spin after only two issues? Our initial reactions: because he took a vacation a week after starting an EIC job? Because his new staff thought he was a total ass? While those guesses maybe things which are true, they may not be the exact reason he was let go.
The exact reasons lie more in the fact that his last issue of Spin was, uh, exactly the same as his last issue at Blender where he just happened to be the EIC.
A few of the noted similarities.
Blender:
* Front story in Burner: The assassination of Proof and Pig Hawk, two rappers and friends of Eminem.
* Signature colors: Red and yellow.
* Number of Pete Doherty cameos: 1
* Headline for feature on Gnarles Barkley: Who are these masked men?
Spin:
* Front story in Barometer: The assassination of Proof and Pig Hawk, two rappers and friends of Eminem.
* Signature colors: Red and yellow.
* Number of times Pete Doherty appears: 1.
* Headline for feature on Petey Kimble: Who is this man
Gotta' hand it to today's contributing writer, Jacob Bernstein, of New York magazine acclaim. Maybe he's on deck to fill Jeff Bercovici's shoes?
Parallel Universe [Jacob Bernstein, WWD]
Fresh into our inbox, an email announcing the fifth anniversary of Blender.
Wow!!! We really can't beleive this magazine has managed to survive for five years on the sole support of Tommy Mottola's subscription.
How great, the e-mail even announced the ads have gone up.
In other words, "we may have been around for half a decade, and finally have seven ad pages, but we still don't have enough money to throw a party."
• Turning 64 is as good as butta'. Barbra Streisand, today (like every other one) is your day! [Perez Hilton]
• Russell Simmons and Nick Lachey are in a competition to see who can sleep with the most women before his divorce is finalized. [Page Six]
• Rappers tell kids to be careful with their spending. No additional commentary needed. [ABC]
• First we had the list of worst albums ever. But now we have something even better — "The 50 Worst Things Ever to Happen to Music" according to Blender. [Mirror]
• It seems that George Michael's pot smoking has done wonders for his ticket sales. [Mirror]
We already know that you can get three Blenders for the price of one Cargo, but now that Cargo is totally defunct, how does this affect the fine economic balance of men's mag worthiness?
GQ, for one, has just been demoted. Where once you could get, say, five Blenders for a GQ, now that the monthly Quarterly is worth a Cargo, it can only be traded for three Blenders. Yet, this may not be a bad thing for everyone.
In one former mag editor's burning curiosity to test the powers of paying for a mag that no longer exists, he found a curious loophole in the Conde subscription system.
I often wonder why subscribe buttons still appear on web sites long after magazines fold, but this added a whole new level to my curiosity seeing as how Conde Nast announced yesterday that Cargo was packing up and, well, going under.
I wondered what would happen if I subscribed to the magazine today. So in my subsequent bad mood — hey, I liked the magazine ok? — I visited the site, and yes, it seems as if you can (as of today) still purchase a subscription. For $9.97.
And, as we all know, that means you'll be getting a year's subscription to GQ at a discount. Does it really matter what it costs, though? Conning the folks over at Conde Nast is always priceless.
This week only: Get GQ for $9.97! [Big & Sharp]
The folks at Blender thought their March issue would go splendidly with the most overexposed group of radio-friendly hook spitters of the past 24 months: the Black Eyed Peas. Their cover choice makes us wonder why people stopped reading Spin in favor of Blender, but we don't have time to get all philisophical here. Especially for a music act that's turned their backs on our kin.
Says Fergie in the interview:
I'm not allowed to read tabloids anymore. They are bad for my mental health.
Also bad for her mental health: seeing Internet photo forums have multiple orgasms over her "peed her pants" pics. It's probably time to unhook the DSL line too, Fergs.
• Katie Couric's jump to CBS could ruin Matt Lauer's plan to find a career at the Discovery Channel. [Page Six]
• It might be the good writing, or great editing by David Remnick that sells the New Yorker, or it could just be that people buy the mag to cover up their Us Weekly. [Haaretz]
• Blender will try to "hip up" AOL Music by throwing AOL's top 50 into their editorial mix. [Mediaweek]
• President Bush's statement, "I never met Jack Abramoff" is of the same level of truthiness as "there are WMDs in Iraq." [Time]
• Believe it or not, Conde Nast has a limit on their advertising pages. Like, only the first 25 pages can be ads, and then every other page after that. [WWD]
Last September, risqué photog David LaChapelle was hired by Rolling Stone to capture some Simpson on Simpson photos for a cover shot. However, by the time all the preparations were laid, Ashlee and Jessica Simpson pulled out of their "cover of a Rolling Stone" dream. This apparently caused LaChapelle to get really pissed, and he is now suing the sisters for $10,000. But sources tell Page Six that Jess had good reason to leave.
"Locations were changed. Jessica was told she couldn't use her hair guy [and best friend] Ken Paves even though David used him for other shoots," an insider says.
And we all know how hard it is for Jessica to leave her hair guy. Not to mention, LaChapelle was treating Jessica like a total slut, which was sort of unfair because she wasn't even sleeping with Adam Levine at the time.
"Then, he changed hair people three times the day before the shoot. He started making demands that made her uncomfortable … telling her the shot was going to be down and dirty and in a bar with snakes … like she was Paris Hilton. She has to protect her image."
Yeah, Jessica's not some kind of Paris Hilton sexbot, so, she took her sister, and marched on over to Blender magazine, a publication that never, ever portrays young women as kinky sluts.
PHOTO SHOCK FOR SIMPSON SIBS [Page Six]
You're not just looking at Ashlee Simpson on the cover of Blender. You're looking at Ashlee Simpson on the cover of Blender that was supposed to go to Madonna — who had to settle for Rolling Stone.
Ashlee Simpson Pictures from Blender [Egotastic]
Ashlee Simpson Boots Madonna Off 'Blender' Cover [Adrants]
How Madonna Got Her Groove Back [Rolling Stone]
Editorial Director
