Can Details muscle up?
The perennial little brother to GQ at Condé Nast, Details is trying to add a little bulk by borrowing some of the fitness service that has long characterized the Rodale flagship, Men’s Health.
Starting in March, Details will add a new monthly fitness section, “The Body,” headed by Tyler Graham, author of “The Happiness Diet,” published by Rodale.
“We’re still first and foremost a fashion magazine,” said Dan Peres, the editor-in-chief. “We’re not looking to compete with Flex. I don’t think any retailer will move us out of the fashion category and stock us with the workout magazines, but it is certainly an area that we will be focusing more of our attention on in 2011,” said Peres of the fitness/service push.
“We’re not looking to become a mass book focusing on health, but we are looking to provide a little more service in an area that is very important to our readers,” he added.
Details weathered rumors in 2009 that it would be shuttered and produced only so-so results in 2010, with ad pages off 1 percent, to 776. GQ had a 10.1 percent rise in ad pages, to 1,309, while Hearst’s Esquire jumped 10.8 percent, to 830 ad pages. Men’s Health bounced back with a 6.3 percent rise, to 863 ad pages on the year, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Beast delay
Daily Beast/Newsweek may have hit a paperwork snag, and the deal may not close until January.
Newsweek owner Sidney Harman and IAC/InteractiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller are still insisting that the finalization of the deal to merge Newsweek and The Daily Beast into a new joint venture is moving along.
But at least one source on the IAC side of the deal now says “it will probably roll into January.”
Harman said only that the closing will be “pretty soon. I hate reading all that legal stuff. I’m leaving it to the attorneys, but it’s just routine stuff. There are no problems.”
Tina Brown has been hiring staff even though she doesn’t formally take over the combined newsroom until after the deal creating the Newsweek Daily Beast Company is finalized.
Yesterday, she added two more to the roster — Brekke Fletcher, a managing editor at Maxim, who will take on the same job at Newsweek Daily Beast, and Michelle Cottle, who has spent 12 years at The New Republic, most recently as a senior editor. She will be a Washington reporter reporting to Daily Beast bureau chief Howard Kurtz.
Maxim Editor-In-Chief Joe Levy heaped high praise on Fletcher in his farewell memo about the ME’s departure: “We lose a trusted colleague, a skilled editor, a guardian of our brand identity, and a woman who shakes a mean martini. Brekke made each and every page of this magazine better, smarter and funnier, and she made everyone’s job here more fun and easier. She leaves us all much better for her tireless work and effort. She will be missed.”
Tina’s also just hired former Washington Post chief art critic Blake Gopnik, who will be joining as special correspondent, arts and will relocate to New York.
HuffPo
Timothy O’Brien is bolting from his job as Sunday business editor at the New York Times to be the new national editor of the Huffington Post, working on politics, culture and business. He’ll get a chance to do what hasn’t been done at the Times in years — expand the staff. “We’re looking to hire 20 more people next year,” said O’Brien. That is in addition to the existing newsroom of 90 people.
NYT Business Editor Larry Ingrassia said he has nobody lined up for the job. In a farewell note about O’Brien, he offered the last-minute hope that O’Brien would change his mind before he finally steps away on Dec. 23. Ingrassia noted in the memo that he was once able to counter an offer O’Brien got from Condé Nast Portfolio, now famously defunct.
O’Brien stayed put then, but he said that’s not going to happen this time around.
“I signed a contract with the Huffington Post,” he said, “so it’s off to the races.”
Bloomy view
Bloomberg made a big splash earlier in the week with its announcement that David Shipley, deputy editorial page editor and op-ed editor of The New York Times, and James Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State, will join as executive editors to head a new editorial page to be called Bloomberg View.
But don’t look for the columns to start flying any time soon. The new duo do not report to Bloomberg Editor- In- Chief Matt Winkler until January, and a spokes man said the new venture won’t be formally launched “until late in Q1” — which means late March.