• Spanish-language L.A. radio host El Cucuy turns self in following New Year’s celebration that involved domestic violence charges.
• Oh look, sportscaster Jim Lampley joins that club, too.
• Ivanka Trump joins daddy Donald’s bid to trample on Rosie O’Donnell for Apprentice ratings.
• Atoosa Rubenstein pleased with: the selection of Ann Shoket to replace her at Seventeen; not having to battle with Teen Vogue anymore.
• Giant’s sale pricetag: $270k. Level of embarassment: seven figures, minimum.
CONTINUED »
Giant founder Jamie Hooper looks to follow in the illustrious steps of Time4Media, announcing plans to sell the magazine off to the highest bidder. In this case, it’s Radio One.
The decision to cash out may have something to do with Giant’s somewhat disappointing performance. Since its launch back in ‘04, Giant hasn’t exactly matched the successes of Dennis Group’s top-selling boobalicious titles Maxim and Stuff. (Then again, FHM was a decent competitor with 1.25 million in circ, and look how that ended.)
With more identity crisis than Augusten Burrough’s semi-fictionalized childhood characters, frequent punching bag Giant never much figured out what it wanted to be: a lad mag for the young types or a music mag for the lad types.
Hooper’s call to sell out, meanwhile, may have something to do with pressure from his principal backer, Mort Meyerson, who—in addition to being Investor Numero Uno—is also Hooper’s father-in-law.
A former business partner of Ross Perot’s, Meyerson initially staked Hooper with a $10 million-plus investment. “Giant hasn’t really done what Jamie told him it would do,” says one source who knows Hooper. “It must’ve made for an awkward Thanksgiving.”
An awkward Thanksgiving, indeed. And, most likely, a less than stellar champagne toast on New Year’s Eve.
However, it looks as though Hooper’s planning to turn over a new leaf in 2007, as he’s already made good on this year’s resolution: Stop squandering father-in-law’s investment on mediocre, money-hemorraging pet project that you’ve managed to screw up so badly even Grade B girls won’t sleep with you.
We wish slow days attracted good news — but they rarely ever do. Well, maybe this is good news for some people, we don’t really know, but it seems that the publisher of Giant (just like everyone else in the biz) is heading over to Vanity Fair. (You know, the mag with all the baby pics today?)
Michael Provus will take an advertising director role at VF, under former WWD publisher Edward Menicheschi and associate publisher Agnes Chapski, who joined recently from Lucky. (Yeah, yeah, we’re nerds.)
From Fishbowl NY:
If Provus’ move was to something other than Vanity Fair, where he will have the title of advertising director, it would make Hooper’s reportedly bizarre antics following the magazine’s most recent redesign a factor. For now, though, it appears the bright lights of Vanity Fair were too alluring.
We don’t pretend to know why Hooper’s antics (which were thoroughly reported here) don’t factor into his departure. But we’ll give our best guess, which is that Graydon Carter is way loopier anyways … and pays much better.
Giant Publisher Out [Fishbowl, NY]
Related: REVOLVING DOOR [WWD]
Somebody really needs to keep Giant magazine founder and president Jamie Hooper away from those office windows. Seriously, if he jumps out one day, well, don????????t say we didn????????t do everything in our power to prevent it.
The latest gossip comes in response to Jossip????????s report last week that Hooper went a bit berserk after reading the not-so-flattering comments on his mag????????s new site. (There were counter reactions in the comments section denying the crazy antics, but, no official email.)
Today, this bit just in from Mediabistro: (Note: apparently readers can’t send follow up info from our story to, uh, us … but we’ll take it anyways.)
Now comes word ???????? unconfirmed but from a reliable source ???????? that editor Rich Dorment has left the magazine.
Says a tipster: ???????Hooper was staring out the same window and refused to even acknowledge Dorment????????s presence.???????
Usually it’s pretty tough to acknowledge somebody if they’ve already left, so we’ll give Hooper the benefit of the doubt on that one. But what is with this guy and his window staring? We wonder if he was blabbering on about fires and smoke and the bad men coming to leave comments on his website, or if the mag just has some kind of ridiculously great view of a hot model exhibitionist across the way?
Giant Editor Out? [Fishbowl, NY]
When we get wind of the whispers, we run them. This little (not really that juicy but pretty friggin’ funny) rumor landed in our tattle box this morning — and because were always jonesin’ for some good magazine gossip, we thought we would share the unconfirmed rumors surrounding stressed out Giant founder and president Jamie Hooper.
His recent all-out panic attack was supposedly induced by some negative reader reaction on Giant’s website in response the mag’s redesign, headed up by former America EIC and Vibe editor Smokey Fontaine. The unedited email recount of this “incident” (along with our pathetic attempt at fact-checking) after the jump.
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• Media Guy Simon Dumenco goes down the dark path we traversed last week: Jared Paul Stern’s Skull & Bones clothing line. [AdAge]
• ABC is getting pretty damn good at screwing over its affiliates. [B&C]
• With EIC Gregg Lagambina on the way out, Filter second-in-command Chris Martins has this to say to his staff: “Filter Magazine is hurting right now.” It nearly rivals the way Celebrity Living motivated its own troops. [FBNY]
• Reason No. 5421 we heart Details‘ Dan Peres: He doesn’t follow his own magazine’s fashion tips. [WWD]
• Learning from the mistakes of Cargo, Giant’s editor-in-chief Smokey Fontaine is going on a mad dash to redesign the mag. [WWD]
• When the Boston Globe’s Eileen McNamara found out she won the Pulitzer Prize, she was trying to finish cooking her kids spaghetti. [E&P]
• Celeb weeklies aren’t the only mags seeing circs disintegrate. Teen titles, as evidenced by Elle Girl’s shuttering, are suffering too. Yep, even Seventeen is on that list. [Mediaweek]
• The seeds for the demise of Boldface Names were planted months ago when Bill Keller’s wife Emma Gilbey was overheard spanking the un-gossip column. [WWD]
• New Out editor Aaron Hicklin promises that his magazine will, once and for all, be gay. [P6]
• At least Radar had the decency to credit its cover photo inspiration. Not so for Vanity Fair. [WWD]
• Giant, in the wake of its gigantic (groan) overhaul, has hired an A-team of vets to help out the mag. Vibe founding editor Scott Poulson-Bryant leads the charge of Maxim wannabes. [FBNY]
• Yet another thing about freedom that terrorists hate: Hugh Hefner. [Reuters]
• Ladies and gentleman the long and oftentimes, sad story of a Mr. Ron Burkle. [Daily Transom]
We hope you have a few minutes for this breaking news/fresh rumored gossip on the magazine front. Take a seat, grab some M&M’s … this might take a minute.
Smokey Fontaine, best known for his most recent stint as EIC of America, the downtown but high end urban fashion and music mag, has been snagged for the top spot over at Giant. It is a position which has been vacant since Mark Remy (now of Office Pirates) left in April, and which oversized shoes Fontaine hopes to fill.
“We need to be big and feel big in a different way,” Fontaine stated. To do that, he’ll bring more boldness, both in the photography and the edit, a heightened focus on music reporting, and help attract more A-list celebrities to its pages. Fontaine’s first full issue will be its August/September edition.
No word yet as to what will be happening with America (and honestly we would be worried about the employees … except for the fact that the entire office was run by unpaid interns). Luckily for Mr. Fontaine, he won’t have to worry about those issues over at Giant — nor will he have to live in fear of his former publisher Damon Dash coming into his office and beating the crap out of him.
Rumor also has it that Giant is working out a merger with Complex, a mag that reaches out to those 10 people who can’t get enough of that Ashton Kutcher hip-hop hipster style.
Giant could be looking towards the mag in order to bring a music edge to the pub, in which case Fontaine is a natural choice to guide the Giant sails — and hopefully raise those other (15% newsstand) sales as well.
Giant hires Fontaine as editor in chief [Stephanie D. Smith, Media Week]
“Giant” Merger Rumors — New Editor-in-Chief [Magazine Death Pool]