Adweek

• 1. Introduction

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  Adweek launched in 1979 as a weekly magazine covering the American advertising business. It set out to follow the agencies, the clients, and the money that moves between them. In the decades since, ownership has changed hands more than once, and one small side project grew into something far bigger than Adweek intended. Who has controlled Adweek over the years, and what did that side project turn into?

• 2. Tracking An Industry

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  Cable television, the retreat from commission-based agency fees, and the arrival of the Internet all appear somewhere in Adweek's coverage. These are three shifts the magazine tracked as they reshaped the advertising business. Marketing, creativity, client-agency relationships, and the technology platforms behind that ecosystem all fall within its beat. Adweek ranks as the second-largest advertising-trade publication in the country, and its main rival is Ad Age. That rivalry has run alongside a very different kind of change, one involving who actually owns the magazine.

• 3. Changing Hands

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  In 1990, Affiliated Publications Inc., the company behind The Boston Globe, agreed to acquire 80 percent of A/S/M Communications Inc.'s common stock. A/S/M Communications published Adweek at the time. The magazine stabilized through the 1990s. In April 2008, editor Alison Fahey, who had held the job for ten years, was promoted to publisher and editorial director. Mike Chapman, previously of the Economist Intelligence Unit and eMarketer, took over as editor in her place. Canadian private equity firm Beringer Capital acquired Adweek in July 2016. Los Angeles-based investment firm Shamrock Capital then bought the magazine from Beringer on the 2nd of June 2020. Will Lee was named Adweek's CEO on the 26th of July 2023. On the 30th of November that same year, Zoë Ruderman became Chief Content Officer and Drew Schutte became Chief Revenue Officer. Long before that boardroom turnover, one acquisition had already reshaped Adweek's presence online.

• 4. A Network Of Blogs

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  On the 15th of January 2015, Prometheus Global Media had just acquired Mediabistro, Adweek's previous parent company. In response, Adweek formed what it called the Adweek Blog Network. The network brought together several business-to-business blogs, each covering a different corner of the media industry. AgencySpy covered advertising news, TVNewser covered cable and broadcast television along with streaming, and TVSpy covered local television news. FishbowlDC focused on politics and the media, while FishbowlNY covered New York City media specifically. GalleyCat tracked book publishing, LostRemote covered social television, PRNewser covered public relations, and SocialTimes covered social media platforms. One of those sites would go on to be read by figures far beyond the trade press it was built for.

• 5. TVNewser's Reputation

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  Brian Stelter was a student at Towson University when he founded the site as CableNewser in January 2004. He ran it until joining The New York Times as a media reporter in July 2007. Former MSNBC producer Chris Ariens took over as editor that year and now serves as Adweek's SVP and Editorial Director. The New York Times once described the site as "read religiously by network presidents, media executives, producers and publicists... because it provides a quick snapshot of the industry on any given day." Brian Williams, then anchor of NBC Nightly News, called it "the closest thing to the bible of what's going on in the news broadcasting industry." CNN's Miles O'Brien said the site "makes me feel like I'm in the middle of a cocktail party of all people who know what's going on in my business." Both MSNBC's Dan Abrams and CNN's Jeff Greenfield have praised the site for separating fact from fiction. That praise came entirely from television, a medium separate from the print magazines and live events carrying the Adweek name.

• 6. Sister Publications

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  Brandweek first existed as a separate weekly marketing trade magazine, running from 1986 until April 2011. In 2018, the company launched the first Brandweek event, a summit held from the 23rd to the 25th of September in Palm Springs, California. Later editions of that summit moved to Miami. Two other titles carry the Adweek name into different niches: Adweek Magazine's Technology Marketing, with the ISSN 1536-2272, and Marketing Week, with the ISSN 0892-8274. None of those sister titles carries the awards Adweek hands out each year to the wider industry.

• 7. Handing Out Honors

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  Adweek keeps an annual roster of industry awards. Among them are the Adweek 50, Brand Genius, Creative 100, Agency of the Year, Media Plan of the Year, and Marketing Vanguard. Adweek's Media All-Stars program has been running since 1985, honoring individuals in three categories: Executive of the Year, Rising Star, and All-Stars. That program, unbroken since 1985, will keep naming a new Executive of the Year, Rising Star, and All-Stars class in the years to come.