: Yesterday XXL Magazine fired its longtime editor Elliot Wilson. Many in the industry were taken aback by the magazine's move, but MediaTakeOut.com spoke to an insider at XXL who claims to know exactly what happened.
According to our insider, XXL Magazines newsstand sales and subscriptions were down dramatically in 2007. And ad sales grew slower than expected.
But the insider claims that the problems with the magazine had little to do with Elliot's management. The insider explained to MediaTakeOut.com, "They made him a scapegoat for the problems of the industry. Every magazine is losing ad dollars because of [the troubled] music industry. And XXL's readership was better than most of the other magazines in the genre."
And those of you that work at an urban magazine - watch out. MediaTakeOut.com is hearing that two of the biggest magazines are only a few months away from folding....
@paperboy64 & 17th_And_Peachtree
Elliot Wilson is (or was) the Editor-in-Chief of XXL. He is responsible for get interviews with the hip hop artist. This magazine has been the number one magazine every since The Source got sued and went under the carpet about 1 1/2 years ago.
This is actually a great magazine. It gives a lot of info for up and coming artist under the radar. The subscription is on $12 a year. We need to support this company. This is our company, our heritage, our magazine...
poor man
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Sorry for everyones luck but I don't think nothing will change people gonna keep downloading music... Artist need to figure diff ways to make money like they concerts and commercials and other ways... U can't blame hip hop sales falling off for everything... Somebody needs to get at these marketing execs so they can figure new ways to make money cause sh!t anit gonna stop!
No surprise. People read less across the board and even less so in our community unfortunately. The advertisers figured this out and won't spend as much to purchase ads in publications catering to us. Elliot is a smart talented guy but as a people we seemed to have pinned our hopes on hip hop and now that's it's finished the business of black entertainment is fcuked. White folks aren't intrigued with thuggish negroes anymore so they won't support the music, imagery, etc., and please believe it was their dollars that drove the machine in the first place. Listen to all that talk about black buying power if you want but we refuse to support our own with our money on a consistent basis. Elliot is just one of the first. There'll be more in radio, TV and anywhere people bet the farm on hip hop. Once becoming successful for ANTICS rather than talent became the trend you knew this day wasn't far behind.
Oh and by the way, very little "black entertainment" is actually owned and controlled by blacks. Harris Publishing owns XXl, KING, Scratch, SLAM and a few more. Of course 3 Jews started the company. Who really knows how to pimp us better than them?
urban mag's get no love anyway.. look at the stands and tell me how many mag's are for us? i mean really, they dont last long, and on top of that i noticed at many stands they'll slowly but surely stop putting out that many until they stop selling them all together. its ashame but this is the "great" world we live in.....
YEA MTO aint said nothing new. All print is having a tough time when we have the internet. The rise of blogs has drastically cut magazine and newspaper subscriptions down. Why buy a magazine that was written and laid out 3 months before it was printed and sold with old news in it when you can go online to blogs and read news updated everyday currently. Damn shame, I got a BA in journalism just so I could work at a magazine but it seems like I need to jump on the blog bandwagon asap.
