The New York Post reported on the ouster of former Adweek Editorial Director Michael Wolff, capping the news source’s predictions of the event. The Post wrote, “Traffic to Adweek.com surged in the Wolff era…” Well, yeah, but most of the visitors were heading to AdFreak, which had little to do with Wolff’s presence. Surely traffic wasn’t surging to catch the latest editorial excrement from, say, Robert Klara.
Timberrr! Wolff falls
Adweek’s editor axed after battling top brass
By Keith J. Kelly and Claire Atkinson
The turbulent era of Michael Wolff came to an end yesterday after the acerbic media critic was ousted as Adweek’s top editor following clashes with management over the direction of the struggling trade publication.
Wolff will be replaced by long-time trade veteran Jim Cooper, the executive editor, who will oversee day-to-day operations but who has pointedly not been granted the editorial director job that Wolff held.
Wolff had clashed with Jimmy Finkelstein, the chairman of parent company Prometheus Global Media, who was concerned that Adweek had strayed too far from its traditional trade roots.
The Post first reported in August that the top brass were unhappy with Wolff and looking for a way to give him his walking papers. The outspoken Wolff dismissed reports of his impending ouster.
Wolff engineered a sweeping redesign in the spring and merged its sister publications, MediaWeek and Brandweek, into Adweek. In the process, he axed many of the longtime editors and writers.
Finkelstein had grown alarmed with the direction of the publication after hearing complaints up and down Madison Avenue. Many felt he was neglecting the core of the business—the ad agency moves and executives—in favor of broader media coverage.
“The magazine had got totally lost under Michael Wolff,” said one ad agency executive. “It lost its identity. We need another publication covering agencies besides Ad Age and MediaPost.”
The executive added, “They hired a lot of young people who didn’t know anything about advertising, who all thought they were working for the New Yorker. The publication … became completely irrelevant.”
Finkelstein began sounding out industry people, including former editors of Adweek and Ad Age, its main rival, but was having difficulty finding someone willing to tackle the job.
Wolff, who remains a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and Wired, had also been an author, including a biography of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and the company’s takeover of Dow Jones. (News Corp. owns The Post.)
One source close to the situation said that Wolff would often use the trade publication to settle scores and would at times change news stories to give them his personal slant.
Traffic to Adweek.com surged in the Wolff era, but it didn’t translate into major financial gains.
“He’s done a tremendous job over the years of attracting attention to himself, and that’s both a curse and a blessing,” said one ad industry exec. “Adweek has to be more than a vanity vehicle for Michael Wolff.”
In the end, all his changes still left it far behind rival Ad Age. Through July, Adweek had 325.3 ad pages, down 4.13 percent from a year earlier. Even after a 20.3 percent tumble in the same period, rival Ad Age still boasted a 100-page lead with 439 ad pages in the seven-month period.
Wolff was not the only departure from Adweek yesterday. Managing Editor Hillary Frey left to become the managing editor of Yahoo News. Will Levith, the online editor, also left.
After getting his walking papers yesterday, Wolff invited staffers to a party at his East Village apartment.
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