Joe Levy, the former editor of Maxim and Blender and a one-time top editor at Rolling Stone, is going to succeed the ousted Danyel Smith as the new editor-in-chief of music trade Billboard.
In addition to Smith, Billboard publisher Lisa Howard exited in recent weeks, without a replacement being named.
Levy, who starts the new gig on Friday, insists his deep consumer mag experience is not a sign that Billboard is taking a new tack.
“We don’t intend to make it any more consumer-facing than it already is,” said Levy. “I hope I’ll bring more enterprise reporting and do more of the deep looks we’re capable of taking.”
“We’re always evolving,” said his immediate boss, Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard.
The music title is owned by Prometheus Global Media, which took it over along with Adweek and The Hollywood Reporter for $70 million in late 2009.
Adweek faced stiff advertiser resistance when it moved away from its trade mag roots under the leadership of Vanity Fair contributor Michael Wolff. He exited last fall after clashing with some of the owners.
The Hollywood Reporter has had more success under former Us Weekly star editor Janice Min. It dropped its daily print editions and moved its weekly to a glossy format. Web traffic surged to just under 5 million unique visitors in February while arch-rival Variety was put on the block last week by its owner, Reed Elsevier.
Richard Beckman, former Vogue publisher and head of Condé Nast’s Fairchild Publications, turned much of his attention to Billboard when he took over as CEO in 2010.
Although he relaunched the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas with a star-studded awards show on ABC, he has not so far had much success in trying to export the concept beyond the US.
For the past year, Beckman’s been working on projects with one of the principal investors, Guggenheim’s Todd Boehly, while day-to-day decisions are made by Jimmy Finkelstein.
Sapio booted
After 42 years, Bob Sapio, the No. 2 editor at the Daily News, was unceremoniously given the boot last Friday.
“It’s a terrible way to treat someone,” said one insider. “Of all the people at the paper, he was the one who always kept the ship afloat, and worked through all the transitions when they changed editors or moved offices.”
The mood within the newsroom was described as “very sour” by one source.
The paper is believed to be losing tens of millions. Its owner, real estate baron Mort Zuckerman, is said to be reluctant to invest any more money.
Former Boston Herald editor Kevin Convey, near the end of his Daily News tenure, went through a downsizing that saw 18 reporters and editorial people forced out through buyouts and axings.
Shortly thereafter, Convey himself was given his walking papers and replaced by Colin Myler, a former executive editor of The New York Post, who had been overseeing the News of the World in London. NOTW closed last year after disclosures about phone hacking in the pre-Myler era came to light at the weekly.
At the News, staffers are worried that Sapio’s ouster is a sign that another round of firings may begin. There is also the widespread belief that Myler, who took over in early January, will start to import friends from his Fleet Street days to staff the paper.
Among the names to disappear from the masthead in recent weeks was the managing editor of photography, Gretchen Viehmann. Sources said she had been unhappy with the staff cuts that were instituted last November and had resigned then but was asked to stay on for several months.
A Daily News spokeswoman did not return calls by presstime. Sapio also did not return calls and e-mails.
Novel effort
Former Post copy editor Hannah Brown, who emigrated to Israel a decade ago, is in New York to celebrate the publication of her first novel, “If I Could Tell You.”
The novel is loosely based on some of her own experiences raising an autistic child as a single mom and the experiences of other women facing similar challenges.
Brown, who is currently music critic for the Jerusalem Post, said that the vast majority of marriages where there is an autistic child end in divorce.
The book revolves around the lives of four women who are raising autistic children, while they worry about everything from husbands who grow impatient with a child’s disability to the many medical theories and sometimes quack treatments parents and mothers have sought in an effort to find a cure.
The book from Vantage Point Press hits on March 31. Brown plans to celebrate with a book party for friends and supporters at Madame X on April 3.