Newsweek and The Daily Beast are now The Newsweek/Daily Beast Co. LLC, as the merger between the two entities, originally announced Nov. 12, is now official.
The Daily Beast founding partner and editor-in-chief Tina Brown will serve as editor-in-chief of the combined properties, and Daily Beast president Stephen Colvin will be its CEO. Newsweek owner Sidney Harman will be executive chairman of its board, and IAC chairman Barry Diller will be a director.
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Reports of the demise of Newsweek.com appear to have been premature, as Tina Brown, newly named editor-in-chief of the combined The Newsweek Daily Beast Co., sent a Tweet denying that Newsweek.com would disappear in favor of The Daily Beast.
Brown Tweeted, “Woah! Newsweek.com‘s superb content will live on under its own banner & in URLs on the new site. Not shutting down, combining.”
Newly named CEO Stephen Colvin was quoted in Mediaweek as saying that The Daily Beast was the survivor “because The Daily Beast is a very credible and successful news and opinion Web site, and with great vitality and distinct voice.”
A blistering Tumblr site, Save Newsweek.com, written by an unnamed Newsweek.com staffer, appeared Sunday, with a passionate defense of the Web site and critical comments about Newsweek management. The post read:
It’s always nice to wake up and find out in the Times that your job is doomed. As they put it on Saturday morning, quoting the new CEO of the so-called Newsweek Daily Beast Co., Stephen Colvin: “Newsweek.com will cease to exist after the merger, and anyone who types the URL into their browser will be redirected to TheDailyBeast.com.”
This, of course, was news to Newsweek.com. So rather than going out and celebrating our merger after six months of uncertainty — and hopefully some stability after a year that saw four Newsweek.com editors-in-chief come and go — we’re spending our weekend bombarded by a flurry of emails, wondering how this could have happened. And writing this.
Once thought to be on life support, the agreement to merge Newsweek and The Daily Beast roared to recovery and became a reality Friday morning, as the magazine and Web site announced that they will merge their operations into a joint venture owned equally by Sidney Harman, who recently gained control of Newsweek, and Barry Diller-helmed IAC.
Harman will be executive chairman of The Newsweek Daily Beast Co., and Diller will be one director, with one apiece to be named from each side. The Daily Beast founding partner and editor-in-chief Tina Brown will be editor-in-chief of both entities, and the CEO of the joint venture will be The Daily Beast president Stephen Colvin.
Brown described the revival of the merger in a post on The Daily Beast:
Some weddings take longer to plan than others. The union of The Daily Beast and Newsweek magazine finally took place with a coffee-mug toast between all parties Tuesday evening, in a conference room atop Beast headquarters, the IAC building on Manhattan’s West 18th Street. The final details were only hammered out last night.
What does this exciting new media marriage mean? It means that The Daily Beast’s animal high spirits will now be teamed with a legendary, weekly print magazine in a joint venture, named The Newsweek Daily Beast Co., owned equally by Barry Diller’s IAC and Sidney Harman, owner (and savior) of Newsweek. As for me, I shall now be in the editor-in-chief’s chair at both The Daily Beast and Newsweek, bringing with us as CEO my Daily Beast business partner, Stephen Colvin, who launched The Week Magazine in the United States, as well as Maxim, as president of Dennis Publishing. His dynamism has created 66 new ad campaigns for us since I persuaded him to join The Daily Beast a year ago.
