Kent Brownridge, the former Wenner Media honcho who came out of retirement last year to become CEO and chairman of
Blender publishers Alpha Media Group, stepped down from his CEO role yesterday, although he'll continue to stay on as chairman. He claimed that his reason for stepping down was the combination of 100-hour workweeks and a new wife, although
WWD notes that
Blender's year-to-date ad pages are down 23.5% from where they were last year. (Circulation, however, is up 15% to around 952,000; meanwhile, ad pages at sister pub
Maxim are flat, while its circulation was down 1%.) [
WWD via
The Daily Swarm]
After being
temporarily promoted to head up the
Billboard group's editorial activities,
Billboard staffer Bill Werde has been given the mag's editorial director position outright. Congratulations, Bill, and congratulations to whatever copyeditor was inspired to use the construction "Werde Upped" in the the headline of the promotion's announcement. [
Billboard]
Billboard group editorial director Tamara Conniff is leaving the magazine to take a position with Front Line Management, which is run by music industry heavyweight Irving Azoff and which counts the Eagles and New Kids On The Block on its roster. Bill Werde will take over Conniff's duties in the interim, according to the mag, which I think means that there's actually a music-related editorial job available
right now! Holy bajoly! [
Silicon Alley Insider]
EMI's new senior vice president of digital strategy is not only trumpeted by the company as a founder of tumbleweed-filled virtual world Second Life, he's proud to say that he doesn't know of, or buy, much new music. He sure does like that Amazon sells stuff without DRM, though—and he complains about the iTunes Store's offerings being "broken" by copyright protection, even though the shop
made a big deal about going DRM-free with his new employer's wares last year. I guess he didn't have to endure one of those job interviews where you're required to prove that you know, you know,
something about your potential place of work and the job you'd be doing there. [
Silicon Alley Insider]
Monday morning headline-scanning just won't be the same now that music-business reporter Jeff Leeds has been let go from the
New York Times. Leeds, who was the only
Times writer covering the industry's inner doings, had been employed by the paper since 2004; he'd worked at the
Los Angeles Times before that. [
Deadline Hollywood Daily / Pic via
PBS]
The
LA Weekly has let classical critic
Alan Rich go because of decisions made "by the corporate people in Phoenix," where
Weekly owner Village Voice Media is headquartered. Just out of curiosity, how many full-time classical critics does VVM have left at this point? (For a point of comparison, Rich's ouster means that the entire city of Los Angeles has one.) [
LA Observed]
As
sorta-predicted by the Anono-Critic, pop omnivore and
Love Is A Mix Tape author Rob Sheffield is leaving his post at
Rolling Stone and following that mag's former executive editor, Joe Levy, to
Blender, where he'll write a monthly column. [
Page Six / Photo via
Random House]
Rolling Stone has put two people in the Executive Editor position recently vacated when
Joe Levy took the reins at Blender. The new hires: Jason Fine and Eric Bates, both of whom are being bumped up from the Deputy Managing Editor ranks. The mag has also hired former
Spin staff editor Michael Endelman as senior music editor and ex-
GQ senior editor Jason Gay as deputy features editor. [
The Music Press Report]
Idolator
VH1 talking-head staple and former Rolling Stone executive editor Joe Levy has been named editor-in-chief of Blender, according to a release that just landed in our inbox. Levy is apparently replacing Craig Marks, who had been Blender's editor-in-chief since 2004; the magazine also appointed a new publisher in December. Guess this means Levy won't be on the next season of I'm From Rolling Stone! Full release after the jump.
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