Nelson to exit Yahoo’s top edit post come June
MARTHA Nelson, the global editor-in-chief of Yahoo, won’t be making the jump when the $4.48 billon deal to sell the struggling Web portal to Verizon closes next month, Media Ink has learned.
Verizon has already announced that when the ink is dry, Yahoo will combine with AOL and its HuffPost unit under a new umbrella name, Oath, to be headed by AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong.
When word leaked about the new moniker, Oath, it was widely panned, even by AOL’s own digital site Tech Crunch, which tweeted, “Oof.”
Nelson was the first woman to be named editor-in-chief of Time Inc. in 2013 — but the joy of landing the top job was short-lived as then-CEO Joe
Ripp later that year abolished the title and replaced it with a chief content officer. Many saw it as the end of the once-sacred separation of church (editorial) and state (advertising) at the legacy publisher.
In August 2015, Nelson was hired by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who was aggressively expanding new vertical magazines as a way to boost traffic and return the once-pioneering internet company to the vanguard.
But by the following February, Nelson had shut down seven of the verticals, laid off about 300 and focused on news, sports, finance and lifestyle.
In the end, the Yahoo media strategy never clicked and the company was put on the block.
“I am proud of the work we have done at Yahoo Media and I am leaving the team in a great place,” Nelson told Media Ink. “Right now, I remain focused on Yahoo and a smooth transition to the new company. After a summer off and some exciting travel, I will sort out what comes next.”
Bravo for Maier
Bravo’s move to green-light a sixhour scripted series, “All That Glitters,” on the friendship and rivalry of Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, is already spawning a revision to the 1994 book “Newhouse,” which is the inspiration for the series.
“We plan to re-issue the Newhouse book with the new name ‘All That Glitters,’ with a new update on Tina, Anna, Si [ Newhouse] and the gang, also how it became a TV series and, most importantly, what it means as a watershed moment in American journalism,” said author Thomas Maier.
NBCUniversal, parent of Bravo, said no actors are assigned to the roles yet — but Maier already is rooting for some favorites.
“I’d love to see Scarlett Johansson as Tina and Cate Blanchett as Anna,” he said.
Wintour, at Condé Nast’s Vogue, and Brown, at Tatler, Condé’s Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, were among the hottest editors in late 1980s and 1990s — now seen as the glory days of the glitzy Condé Nast empire headed by Newhouse.
Universal Cable Productions and Sony Pictures Television are producing the series, according to Frances
Berwick, president of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment’s Lifestyle Networks.
“As both bold and driven women fight their way to the top of a maledominated industry driven by greed and betrayal, they each find new paths to change the world around them — Tina, through the intersection of high-culture and celebrity, and Anna with an instinct for high fashion and emerging talent,” said Bravo in announcing the deal as part of NBCU’s upfronts on Monday.
Publishing rights for the out-ofprint book reverted back to Maier. He sold the film option to Sony way back in 2013 while the drama, “Masters of Sex,” was in production for Showtime. “MoS” was based on Maier’s book about the pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson.
Press-ing ahead
The Long Island Press could d be returning to print.
The alternative weekly that drew its name from a daily that folded in the late 1970s changed hands last month when Morey Publishing sold it to Schneps Communications.
“I’m reviewing my options,” said Joshua Schneps, CEO of the family-run chain of 20 newspapers that includes the Ridgewood Times, the Queens Courier and the Brooklyn Spectator. “It’s possible we could see a return to a print version.”
Morey Publishing revived the Long Island Press name as an alternative weekly in 2003 to fill the gap when the Long Island Voice folded. It was forced to go monthly and then all digital in recent years as the retail market contracted. “When the retail market imploded, we found we were getting more money for Web development,” said Jed Morey, head of his family publishing business. Into the breach stepped Schneps Communications, which was founded in 1985 by Victoria Schneps-Yunis, mom of Joshua, who started the Queens Courier from her home in Bayside in 1985. Today, the company has 20 publications and Web sites. The deal for the Long Island Press marks its first venture outside Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island. And in a rarity, the transition seems smooth. Christopher Twarowski, the LI Press editor-in-chief, will stay with Morey as a Web developer. Tim Bolger, who started with the LI Press as an intern at its founding, is the new E-I-C. Schneps said the LI Press will continue its tradition of investigative reporting.