UPDATE: This Adweek link was a story about Guggenheim Partners suit Dottie Mattison replacing Beckman....now the item is gone. Here's the original Google find:
EARLIER: Beckman was a favorite punching bag of journalists, Manhattanites and Hollywood insiders everywhere. And obviously, his departure doesn't really effect THR, as it's Janice Min's baby, and he had already moved on to something called "brand management" of Prometheus.
But can we say his tenure was at least semi-successful? Why not? He was the one who brought Min to the party. And THR's print issue looks great. More importantly, the Website has done what
nobody thought it could do … mainly, become a top-tier breaking news organization.
Or do we say he was a jerky failure? His personality was
abrasive, his handpicked Adweek chief Michael Wolff left in October, he ceded
daily control of Prometheus a while ago, he was a notoriously difficult guy, and
he didn’t blend well with Jimmy Finkelstein. And as for THR proper, he projected
the megawrong vibe for a Hollywood news org that needed something else more
in tune with the town.
I land somewhere in the middle. Whatever his initial enthusiasm and bulldog approach brought
to the THR part of the operation when Prometheus bought it (along with Adweek and Billboard), The Hollywood Reporter is now having
to deal with this problem: It's a very robust (but still just once-a-week) publication that has major overhead, including some very costly staffers.
But editorially, they indeed are on quite a roll, and it feels to me that the entire team, from the reporters to the sales staff, finally knows who they are. Rewind just two years ago, and I don't think anyone in the industry had an inkling that THR would revive itself as it has. And he started that ball rolling.
I just wish I could see the pricetag.
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