The Adweek Hot List, a staple of the magazine world since the legendary Clay Felker launched it in the mid-’80s, will not appear next month — and it may be scrapped for good as a closely watched barometer of the magazine world.
Richard Beckman, CEO of Adweek parent company Prometheus Media, said it will return at some point down the road, but was light on details.
“We want to reinvent and dramatically increase the scale of the Hot List,” insisted Beckman. “It’s a big step forward, not a big step backwards.”
The Hot List and its rival, A List, which is put out by Advertising Age in the fall, are closely watched by media insiders every year. So far, Ad Age — which this week relaunched its Web site — has no corresponding plan to abandon its franchise A List.
Media watcher Tony Case, writing on his blog, Tonyofallmedia, said yesterday that the redesign of the Adweek Web site is expected to hit on April 18. He also said that Brandweek and Mediaweek will disappear as weekly print publications on that date, leaving only the original Adweek as a print edition.
The three mags have been operating with only a single staff since the controversial columnist Michael Wolff came aboard as editorial director in October last year.
The editors of the already thinly staffed ad trades were sent packing months ago. Mediaweek Editor Michael Burgi exited and landed a public-relations gig in December while Todd Wasserman, formerly editor of Brandweek, landed at Mashable.com as business and marketing editor.
Case said the new redesign is going to carry the tag line, “The Voice of Media.”
Said one ex-staffer, “It should really be called the Voice of Michael Wolff. He’s just trashing the whole history of the place.”
The last time the Hot List appeared on March 28, 2010, it had Time Inc.’s most profitable title, People, taking top honors, followed by Rodale’s Women’s Health and Hearst’s Cosmopolitan.
One ex-Adweeker said Wolff has been surrounding himself with younger, cheaper writers, dubbed the “Wolff Pack.” Beckman said he wasn’t ready to divulge plans for the group just yet. Wolff didn’t return a call by presstime.
AOL memo
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong unleashed one of the longest inter-office memos we’ve seen in years to explain how he is going to integrate Huffington Post and its creator Arianna Huffington into the company.
David Eun, president of AOL Media, is out. He joins two other industry vets, Eric Hippeau, CEO of Huffington Post, and Greg Coleman, the president and chief revenue officer of Huffington Post, who are exiting once the $315 million deal closes.
Huffington will get the title of president and editor-in-chief, but Armstrong is dispatching one of his closest advisers, Jon Brod, to be the chief operating officer of the newly formed Huffington Post Media Group.
Rumors of layoffs are circulating.
“He’s giving a lot of responsibility to Arianna, and she’s a genius at public relations and promotion, but she’s not a manager,” said one source.
Wall Street still seems to be slightly negative on the deal. Yesterday AOL shares closed up 1 cent to $21.08. The online media giant’s market cap since Feb. 1 has dropped by $288.9 million. The deal could be finalized as early as next week.
E-Ellies
The American Society of Magazine Editors unveiled its nominations for its second annual Digital “Ellies” yesterday with Time Inc. snagging nine nominations from seven different titles: Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, Life.com, Real Simple, Sports Illustrated, Sunset and Time.
The two leading titles in terms of nominations were Slate and National Geographic, with four each.
The Ellies got their name because winners receive an Alex ander Calder-designed sculpture that looks like an elephant.
In the general excellence category, The At lantic, The Daily Beast, the New York Times, Slate and Wired.com are vying in the news and opinion segment.
In the service and lifestyle general excellence category, the nominees include: Epicurious, Field & Stream, POZ, Runner’s World and Self.
While the awards are clearly trying to highlight the digital offerings, ASME has only been partly successful in attracting publications without a print counterpart. Only nine nominees were online only: Chow, CNET, The Daily Beast, Epicurious, Life.com, Salon, Slate, Table and the Yale Environment 360.
The awards lunch will be March 16 at the Hilton New York.