More on the 944 mag bankruptcy
Folio magazine follows up on the bankruptcy filing of Phoenix-based 944 publishing earlier this week.
If you recall, it had something to do with some unspecified lawsuits in California. One, writes Jason Fell, has to do with a Super Bowl party the magazine put on with a company now suing it:
bq. I managed to dig up the documents for that particular case against 944, which was filed in March 2009 by California-based Explosive Productions LLC. The complaint alleges that the “Super Village” event was a financial disaster, in part because 944 kept sponsorship money for itself and “secretly” gave away thousands of tickets (including more than $1 million in VIP tickets to “potential magazine models”), actually selling fewer than 1,000 tickets. It also alleges that 944 investor Eric Crown (also co-founder and former CEO of Insight.com parent Insight Enterprises) took $180,000 worth of tickets and cabanas for his own “personal, social purposes.”
There’s another, more tawdry allegation:
Most “insidiously,” the claim continues, 944 Media’s “racial bias” led to its refusal to allow marketing of the event to Hispanic markets. “944 media was, above all, concerned with its image with the white and affluent audience it covered,” says the complaint. “That bias caused 944 Media to insist that no advertising would be purchased if that advertising was directed, even partially, at Mexicans or Latinos.”
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944's parent company files for bankruptcy
The move is apparently protective, Folio magazine says:
[CEO Marc] Lotenberg said 944 has received new financing to ensure that employees will continue to be paid as usual and that its magazines will remain in business during the Chapter 11 process. Later this spring, the company plans to unveil a new logo and a redesign of the magazine and Web site.
Besides the Phoenix edition (web site here), the company runs glossy lifestyle mags in Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
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