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MMC, the company that recently acquired my Deadline Hollywood Daily and my services to run it, is expanding yet again. Love her or hate her, Bonnie Fuller is undeniably a high profile "get" for MMC and its boss Jay Penske. But let me clear up any confusion: I will be running DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, Bonnie Fuller will be running MMC's existing HollywoodLife.com, and editorially the two divisions will be absolutely separate but equal. Besides, everyone knows that I don't do celebrity coverage. (Full Disclosure: I will continue to post MMC's news only if it relates to Hollywood.):
New York, NY (July 16, 2009) — Media executive and magazine innovator Bonnie Fuller has accepted a position to lead HollywoodLife.com, announced Jay Penske, CEO of Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC), which owns the online celebrity/entertainment site. The new position represents an important step both for Fuller, who has been instrumental in reshaping the magazine industry for more than two decades, and for Hollywood Life. Penske described this hire as “an extraordinary opportunity,” adding: “Partnering with Bonnie allows us to chart a new course for Hollywood Life—to create an exciting and innovative online destination for women.”
As President and editor in chief of Hollywood Life, Ms Fuller will grow the brand, transforming the site into a vibrant, interactive digital destination for entertainment news and style-minded women, ages 18-35. Fuller has been widely credited with sparking the current pop-culture celebrity mania, after transforming Us Weekly into the first celebrity newsweekly and then successfully transitioning Star from a tabloid into a glossy magazine. After that, the celebrity magazine genre grew into the robust category that it is today, with Fuller creating the popular Us Weekly section, “Stars - Just Like Us.”
Fuller also brings to Hollywood Life her deep understanding of the young female audience—following successful stints as editor in chief of YM, Marie Claire (which she launched in the U.S.), Cosmopolitan (where she succeeded the legendary Helen Gurley Brown), and Glamour (where she followed the legendary Ruth Whitney). In each case, circulation at the magazines soared under her editorship. Advertising Age named her Editor of the Year twice. Over the past year--since leaving American Media, where she was EVP and Chief Editorial Director--Fuller transitioned her focus and efforts into the world of digital media, blogging regularly for Huffington Post, NYTimes.com, and Adage.com, as well as creating the three-times-weekly GossipGram for the new Nonstop New York TV channel, with Roseanne Colletti.
Fuller sees Hollywood Life as a tremendous opportunity to engage directly with women in the two-way conversations about celebrity issues that they crave. "Women view celebrities as part of their own circle of friends. They see them as role models for their own love lives and relationships, health, diet and fitness issues, careers and fashion, beauty, and even decor decisions. Furthermore, real women are fascinated by celebrities because they see them as mirrors of their own lives," says Fuller. "Hollywood Life's history in covering celebrity style and lifestyles makes it the perfect vehicle to expand on those conversations and develop a deep relationship as we rapidly grow its audience."
"Bonnie isn't just an editor, she's an innovator in the field of journalism," said Jay Penske of MMC about Fuller and her new role. "Her experience in transforming brands and publications, along with her unique understanding of women and how they consume media, makes her the ideal person to lead HollywoodLife.com. Adding Bonnie to our team radically enhances Hollywood Life’s market opportunity and further fortifies the company's position as a leading participant in the entertainment space.”
“After spending time over the last few months with Jay, I was impressed not only by his vision for MMC and his talented team but also their focus and ability to create, launch, and acquire such editorially focused and content-rich websites as Mail.com, OnCars.com, Nikki Finke's DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, and Movieline.com. I was fortunate to have had many opportunities to consider in both traditional and digital media; but I found that Jay and I shared the same vision in wanting to create the finest online destination for women who seek original content and who want to consume that content in new and exciting ways.”
Fuller will run Hollywood Life offices in New York and Los Angeles and will make additional staff announcements in the coming weeks. The site's redesign and launch is expected to be complete by mid-fall of this year.
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You just do coverage of celebrity coverage.
Would you honestly have posted this were it not related to your new masters?
Are you actually trying to pass off this plug for your new boss as news?
Why no synergy?
I can just see it now…Brangelina pregnant again…TOLDJA!
Wonder how long it will take for Bonnie to get fired from this gig. Her tenure is typically 18 months before her bosses realize she’s a freak.
Keep everything separate Nikki! Try to have nothing to do with her as she is certifiable and will make your life hell if she can.
Wow, Nikki, things certainly have changed. In the old days you’d be the first person to point out Bonnie Fuller’s sleaziness and the fact that half the time she gets her facts wrong. I’m kind of missing the Nikki from the L.A. Weekly days but I guess like everyone else you’ve got your bills to pay. But a friendly hint…if you keep trying to prop up Bonni’s credibility, it’s going to cost you your own.
Sounds like two of the world’s most powerful (formerly known as PRINT) women are going to be (continue) publshing/building the webs best content
like it says. whatever…
Nikki, like the saying goes if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas and Bonnie Fuller is the mangiest dog I’ve ever come across. As a long time reader, I never thought I’d see the day you’d be going bare assed down a slide covered in razor blades. Hey but the money you made selling out sure does buy a lot of bandaids, right?
Egads. Bonnie Fuller? Queen of Tabloid Lies? That woman has ZERO conscience when it comes to lying about celebrities, making up stories based on the pictures, terrorizing her staff and making a mockery of the media’s first amendment rights. Fuller is like a cat with 9 lives and after American Media, ie Star, The National Enquirer and The Globe, fired her I really hoped she’d fade into the woodwork and no one would hire her to taint their “news” organization and turn young and impressionable “journalists” into lying scumbags like she did at Us Weekly and the American Media mags. But when all anyone cares about is the bottomline – then Bonnie Fuller is the person you want. HollywoodLife.com can kiss morals, truth, verified and named sources and just plain old good taste on the ass and wave bye-bye to it.
Ugh. I can see it now – On Fuller’s first day HollywoodLife.com’s homepage will read, “BRAD BEGS JEN FOR SECOND CHANCE” OR “ANGIE DRIVES BRAD AWAY FOR GOOD!” or “BRAD TELLS JEN, ‘I STILL LOVE YOU’”. Just when I thought this fuckery was going to end and I could start reading magazines again…along comes Bonnie Fuller out of the woodwork. Bleh. That’s the unfortunate thing with cockroaches – they’ll survive a nuclear holocaust and the rest of us will be deader than doornails. Roaches outlived the dinosaurs and Bonnie Fuller will outlive her fellow cockroaches.
Normally I think Nikki is right on the mark, but I’m honestly flabbergasted by her saying hiring Bonnie Fuller is “good get” for any company. Sure Fuller has got a proven track record of turning magazines back into the black, but at what cost? Her antics at Star eventually saw the magazine’s sales sink as quickly as they once rose. How MMC can acquire a site run by someone as forthcoming as Nikki and then in the next breath hire sleazebag Bonnie Fuller is pretty disturbing. I realize business is business, but Fuller was available for a reason – she sucks the life blood out of everyone who works for her and turned each publication into a reflection of her own lack of morals and good taste. She’s basically been unhireable for the last year since American Media fired here. I truly feel sorry for the employees at Hollywoodlife.com. Life for the foreseeable furture just got a hell of a lot rougher and could get downright ugly.
Ok…the bells of doom are clanging…..Bonnie Fuller, at this point the money they paid you Nikki have turned into the chains, you are connected to scum, you will get some on you….no you will get a LOT!
The article you posted is the first sign…oh well, we can’t really have truth in Hollywood now can we?
I say, give Nikki a chance. What other high-profile, respected journalist (yes, Nikki is respected, she cultivates her own sources, generates her own content, writes her own stuff…doesn’t just “aggregate” everyone else’s) has Bonnie Fuller worked with…? She’s taken over junky gossip magazines and made them even junkier, which she may do with hollywoodlife.com…but I disagree that she’ll necessarily taint Nikki. And you really expected Nikki not to post the release…? Give her credit for also posting a link to the NYT story that referred to her as “thuggish.”
Nikki+Bonnie= A Marshmallow Peep Slathered in Sleeze
oy! Bonnie the terrible is at it again! an innovator in journalism?? you must be kidding? i worked for her years ago and have other colleagues who worked with her at various venues and the girl is just a walking slow motion car wreck. everything she touches turns to shit, she knows nothing, parrots other peoples thoughts, does not have one original thought in her head and the fashion police have arrested her a 1000 times for moving violations.. how or why she has continued to have a career is beyond anyone’s understanding… 12 months or less and Mr. Penske will kick her ass to the curb! you’ve been warned Mr.P!
Nikki – apparently I am in the minority in saying that I believe Mr. Penske is buidling a very formidable media conglomerate by slowly starting to assemble a Web based wealth of information for indusry members and the fans that love their lives. Jay is nothing short of a genius and, if you have followed his career, he has always been out ahead of the trend. Jay’s next move is awlays his biggest and I would not want to bet against him or his expanding stable of talent.
~ 2 cents.