Adweek’s top editor, Michael Wolff, is out after clashing with the owners of the struggling trade publication over its direction.
Wolff will be replaced by long-time trade veteran Jim Cooper, the executive editor who will oversee day-to-day operations.
Wolff had clashed with Jimmy Finkelstein, the chairman of the parent company Prometheus Global Media. The Post first reported in August that Wolff, who shrugged of rumors of his impending ouster, was on his way out the door.
Finkelstein had grown alarmed after hearing complaints up and down Madison Avenue that ad agencies were upset with a sweeping redesign instituted by Wolff in the spring.
Many felt he was neglecting what was the traditional core of the magazine — the business of ad agencies and their account moves — in favor of a new tilt covering digital and social media.
Finkelstein, owner of the Beltway insiders publication The Hill, had made his fortune in the late 1980s when he sold a group of trade journals covering the legal industry to Steve Brill.
He apparently pushed to return Adweek to a more traditional trade publication, while Wolff was moving more in the direction of bigger, broader stories on the changing media industry that would interest wider audiences. But the core seemed to be drifting away.
It also came at a time of renewed tension within the entire company that had been formed in late 2009, when Finkelstein and his investors teamed up with Todd Boehly of Guggenheim Partners to buy Adweek, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard from Nielsen Media for $70 million.
Backstage, which was also included in the deal, was recently spun off into a new venture.
Richard Beckman, who had been recruited from Condé Nast to be the CEO in early 2010, was effectively sidelined earlier this year when Chairman Finkelstein became the de facto CEOwhile Beckman was said to be scouting internationally for new ventures at the company. So far, none of those moves have resulted in new ventures.
Wolff, who had been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a book author, including one about News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, landed at Adweek in October 2010. (News Corp. owns The Post.)
He quit the struggling Web aggregation site he had founded, Newser.com, to take the job.
At Adweek, with the spring redesign, he folded the smaller spin-off titles, MediaWeek and Brandweek, into the single Adweek title.
Adweek.com traffic was said to be up dramatically in his run, with more than 3 million unique visitors a month, but as with many Web ventures, it did not translate into big bucks.
He also axed many of the veterans he had inherited when he took over and with it went years of industry contacts.
While Adweek was said to be still eeking out a small profit, it had not had a transformational lift that the new owners sought. In fact, they were struggling on many fronts to deliver the promised ad revenues at their other publications as well.
Rumors swirled that they were trying to divest the entire operation. Although Boehly and Finkelstein both denied that Prometheus was on the block, they did spin off Backstage into a new venture with an outside partner and are said to be scouting for other new partners for a branded entertainment division.
The situation with Wolff was deteriorating to the point where even Wolff had been telling friends he was expecting to be axed any moment because he and Finkeltsein were at such odds. He had told friends recently that he thought there was no way he would survive.
Wolff could not be reached but in a statement on the Adweek Web site he said, “I’ve had a fantastic time at Adweek. “It’s been my privilege to be part of the brilliant transformation of the magazine and site.”
Finkelstein, who has been actively looking to dump Wolff for the past two months said, “We are grateful for Michael’s contribution to Adweek. His vision and guidance were monumental in our transformation.”