Former Dennis music mag Blender closed by new owners

by Staff, Brand Republic 27-Mar-09, 09:45

NEW YORK - Alpha Media Group, the US company that bought Maxim, Stuff and Blender magazines from Felix Dennis in 2007, has closed Blender's print edition to go online-only and merged Maxim's print and digital editorial teams.

The music monthly, launched in 2001, will cease publication after its April edition with the loss of around 30 jobs, following a 31% fall in the number of ad pages it had in 2008.

Alpha has also rung changes at Maxim, now its only print title. In addition to combining its print and digital editorial teams, Maxim's editor-in-chief Jim Kaminsky is leaving the company.

Blender.com will be housed within Maxim.com, as Stuff.com was when Alpha closed its print edition in 2007.

Joe Levy, Blender editor-in-chief, becomes editor-in-chief of the new Maxim operation.

There was also a major change at the top of Alpha, with the departure of co-chief executive Glenn Rosenbloom leaving remaining chief executive Stephen Duggan in charge.

Alpha was formed when private equity firm Quadrangle partnered with US magazine industry veteran Kent Brownridge, who became chief executive, to buy three magazines from Dennis Publishing's US operation in August 2007.

Felix Dennis retained the US edition of The Week but sold the global operations of Maxim (which his company publishes under licence in the UK), Stuff (which is owned by Haymarket in the UK) and Blender for $240m (at the time worth £121m).

Alpha has struggled since then. Brownridge left the company last year and was replaced by Rosenbloom and Duggan. After that it broke debt covenants in November and appeared close to losing control to its creditors.