In your transitional Monday media column: the State of the Media is okay, James O'Keefe may not be a totally trustworthy journalist, hiring at HuffPo, Lou Dobbs is back, Larry King may join The Daily Show, and Mental Floss has a mental owner.
In your merry Monday media column: Happy birthday to the Huffington Post, Time Inc's magical advertising salesmanship, working for Felix Dennis is always a party, and the biggest dope ever on television, revealed!
"They're an elitist pestilence," Andrew Breitbart says of liberal Hollywood celebrities in this Wired profile of the conservative internet publisher. And then, after saying that, Andrew went to a Manhattan nightclub to drink Cristal with rich people.
Maniac publisher Felix Dennis sold Maxim for $250 million to Steven Rattner's Quadrangle Group in 2007; now, Rattner's firm is about to lose control of the magazine. Related: Dennis "once exclaimed at a meeting, 'I need to stop smoking crack.'"
Ah, the good old days—when crazy oddball media titans stood astride the magazine world, being odd. We have more fun stories about former Maxim publisher and admitted killer Felix Dennis! He's a neat freak who takes care of friends.
Felix Dennis is publishing's wild man! How is the former Maxim publisher and admitted (then hastily retracted!) murderer keeping himself busy these days?
• CBS posted a first-quarter loss as the ad recession took its toll. [THR, NYT]
• News Corp. reported a 70 percent drop in quarterly profits. [LAT, B&C]
• Profit dropped by 46 percent at Warner Music during the same period. [PC]
• Sirius XM posted a $236 million quarterly loss and also announced that its number of…
Wild-haired and possibly murderous publisher Felix Dennis sold Alpha Media—home of Maxim and Blender—to a private equity group last year for about $250 million. Now, hey look, Alpha Media may have to be turned over to its creditors because, you know, advertising revenues are down thanks to the economy. The company is…
Remember Felix Dennis, the kooky billionaire British magazine publisher who gave us Maxim? He recently admitted (while admittedly drunk) to having "killed a man" in an interview. (He later took it back, post-interview and post-sobering up.) For an new interview in Business Week, Jon Fine asks the tough questions in an…
Maxim publisher Felix Dennis, who grimly admitted to a murder during an interview, keeps trying new and various ways to backtrack. He was drunk! He only kills magazines, ha ha! His latest claim, at a Columbia Journalism event last night: it was all a big prank to sell books! Dennis said it was an April fool's joke.…
When eccentric billionaire and Maxim publisher Felix Dennis confessed to killing a man in an interview last week, he quickly realized, once the hangover wore off, that he'd need some expert public relations help with this mess. So he turned to the trusty Drew Kerr, the former Radar publicist who managed to hang on…
Whoops! Casually admitting to a maybe-murder 25 years after the fact, like billionaire publisher (and poet) Felix Dennis did in an interview published last week, can and does have consequences. "Police in Dennis' hometown of Warwickshire were considering whether or not to question him over his statements in the…
Today, we learned from the Times of London that Felix Dennis, Britain's eccentric billionaire entrepreneur and the vice-engaging publisher of Maxim, may have already killed a man. But besides the events of one dark night at the edge of a cliff 25 years ago, did you know that he's also an accomplished poet? Here's one…
Maxim publisher and very rich man Felix Dennis is an eccentric throwback to the old-school journalism of yore: he also writes poetry and is trying to recreate an ancient forest in England. In an interview with the Times of London, he talks about his old crack habit and how he spent three years trying to "save a young…
"Ink-on-paper magazines" are having a "long slow sunset," according to Felix Dennis, fun-loony former Maxim owner—but they're not making up the cash on the web, in part because publishers just won't lower their standards far enough. Time Inc., the Economist says, "has stuck to its big magazine brands with People.com…
Felix Dennis offloads Maxim, Stuff and Blender on Steven Rattner's Quadrangle group to the tune of about $250 million. [NYP]
• Felix Dennis will never see a broad as costly as a tree. Also, it takes a lot of dosh to get people drunk enough to listen to your doggerel. [Radar]
• On the other hand, anyone who calls Greg Gutfeld "Darth Vader," must have his finger on some kind of pulse. And, look forward to The Week on the web. [Independent UK]
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So just to recap the last 24 hours in magland: AMI shuttered three titles and moved one back to Florida while replacing its EIC, Hachette closed ELLEgirl as a print pub, and we got word that Time Inc. is prepping for yet another round of layoffs. Could there be yet another nail in the coffin of the magazine business…
· According to the upcoming issue of NY Magazine, Tommy Mottola lost his job through "a combination of lousy record sales, a penchant for presidential-type security, and lack of reverence for his bosses." [Page Six]
· Gotham Editor Jason Oliver Nixon was offered Us Weekly's "Scene and Heard" section, but declined…
