The world makes Money.com go round

WHAT’S left of 47-year-old Money magazine has been sold to a 3-year-old digital startup run by a former Google executive.

After shutting down its print edition earlier this year when parent Meredith failed to find a buyer, Money has sold its surviving brand, Money.com, to Ad Practitioners LLC, based in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Terms were not disclosed, but sources say the brand went for just over $20 million.

Although the $20 million was more than the $10 million Meredith was seeking earlier this year when it was still trying to sell Money.com in tandem with the print magazine, the sale is nevertheless a pittance of the $400 million-plus the magazine was valued at in the pre-internet era.

Ad Practitioners’ flagship is ConsumersAdvocate.org, a free content site of product reviews that doesn’t use banner or pop-up ads but instead generates revenue when consumers click on links in editorial content leading to an advertiser’s site. It’s a tactic that has some media pros worried about a conflict between edit and advertising.

“It looks like a site that is shilling for advertisers,” said Frank Lalli, who left as Money’s top editor in 1997, when it was cranking out profits of $47 million a year. “It’s a sad end of what was a very proud franchise,” said Lalli, who recalled that he oversaw a 100-person editorial staff in the 1990s — when the print edition had a circulation of 2.2 million.

Today, Money is down to only 14 staffers.

The mag arrived at Meredith in January 2018 as part of the $2.8 billion acquisition of Time. But a few months later, it was put up for sale along with Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time. The latter three sold for a combined $450 million. Meredith took down the For Sale sign on Money in April 2019 because no buyer came close to meeting its asking price — said to be $10 million. Meredith at that time folded the print edition. The June issue was its last.

Ad Practitioners is not shy about disclosing its method for generating revenue. The ConsumersAdvocate.org site discloses that “our content is free because we may earn a commission when you click or make a purchase on our site.”

In the More Info tab, it discloses: “To that end, you should know that many advertisers pay us a referral fee if you purchase products after clicking links or calling phone numbers on our website.

“On each page where monetized links are present, we disclose the specific partners in that category within the disclosure,” the site says. “We sometimes offer premium or additional placements on our website and in our marketing materials to our advertising partners. Partners may influence their position on our website, including the order in which they appear on the page.”

Ad Practitioners CEO Greg Powel defended the practice to Media Ink. “We understand the trust that readers have in this iconic brand,” said Powel, who spent a decade at Google and a year at Boston-based Endurance International Group before launching Ad Practitioners in 2016.

“We intend to insure that editorial integrity is at the core of all that we do,” said Powel, who hopes to dramatically boost traffic to the site, which is attracting about 4 million unique visitors a month.

Powel said he hopes to offer some of the 14 employees jobs.

Exit disputed

Michael Gross, the former editorin-chief of Avenue, insisted he quit — and was not canned — and the magazine’s new owner backs up his claim.

In the Oct. 18 Media Ink column, we said that Gross was let go as editor-inchief of the upscale magazine covering NYC lifestyles, when new owner, real estate mogul Charles Co

hen, axed existing staffers.

But Cohen said he expected Gross to stay and was surprised when he resigned suddenly in March. “He was the guy who first brought the magazine to me to buy,” said the 67year-old billionaire, who bought it from Manhattan Media in December.

“He resigned on his own,” Cohen said of Gross. “He surprised me.”

“I resigned a few days after my entire, talented staff was abruptly fired over my objections,” Gross said, adding that he had a June 2019 issue “teed up and ready to go with a Murderer’s

Row of new contributors and columnists.” He said he’s since become a contributing editor at Departures and has a deal for his next book.

Cohen initially said he was going to relaunch in September, but told Media Ink he has now pushed it back to the second week in January.

Do drop in

Hearst Executive Vice Chair Frank Bennack made an appearance on Stuart Varney’s Varney & Co. on Fox Business on Tuesday, to talk about his new book, “Leave Something on the Table,” when he got a surprise call to drop by and visit Fox Corp. Chairman

Rupert Murdoch.

“No deals, just two old friends catching up,” said Bennack, recalling that in the 1970s, he was starting his career at Hearst as the publisher of the San Antonio Light while News Corp., headed by Murdoch, was running the morning paper the San Antonio ExpressNews. The papers merged and the Express-News is now owned by Hearst. Bennack said his 40-year career at Hearst means he’s spent more time at the company than founder William Randolph Hearst.