Despite a news blackout by both Media24 and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) to try stop speculation ahead of a crucial ABC Board meeting next week to discuss the results of a Media24 and ABC forensic audit across the group's magazines, it is emerging from sources that yet another division is affected: the Touchline media group, publishers of some of the most prominent men's and sporting titles. Sources have confirmed to Bizcommunity.com that the founder and current MD of Touchline, Marc Blachowitz, and senior members of his management team have resigned in the face of the growing scandal. This follows the detection of circulation irregularities in the woman's magazine division at Media24 earlier this month.
I wish you would publish fact and not fiction...nothing has been confirmed and all the garbage you are being fed is from small independants who will soon be audited to show thre irregularities...
Media 24 is great and Touchline rocks, they have awesome mags! Posted on 28 Sep 2007 15:57
If Marc Blackie Blachowitz has indeeded resigned as Touchline Media CEO, then it couldn't have happened to a "nicer" person. Posted on 28 Sep 2007 20:39
I've known Blackie do some dumb things in my time - like getting stuck in a revolving door when blind drunk in New York - but I can't imagine Blackie being so dumb as to cook the books, certainly on their International titles. Apart from the disastrous local fall-out; Rodale (parent co. of Men's Health and Runner's World) and Weider (Parent co. of Shape) are both ANAL about stuff like this and hate anyone messing with their International reputations. What suprises me is that nobody yet has pointed a finger at the invisible "accountants". In my experience every abc certificate has to be authenticated by an accounting officer. Who are the relevant imbeciles who were signaturies to the audit?? Why didn't they ask questions or at least highlight the risks involved. Clearly they weren't concentrating or failed maths. Posted on 2 Oct 2007 09:48
Well there goes Men's Health's and Shape's reputation and credibility. Interesting how today's blog from the Press Conference was all focused on Touchline and Blackie. Hardly any mention of the women's mags and guilty personnel there. I can understand the argument that we knew most of that anyway but there seems to be some heavy and deliberate deflection ie Forget about the mother ship, let's kick Touchline instead. Amazing how quickly you can destroy a top brand. Posted on 3 Oct 2007 16:34
these are still great titles. True, a lot of work and some tap dancing will be needed to repair the damage but they will definitely come through it! Posted on 4 Oct 2007 09:55
This all reminds me of a story a few years ago, when the editor of Conde Nast House & Garden (SA edition) was caught out red-handed as an accomplice in the theft of a Louis Vuitton kitbag from a private home. It was stolen from the self-same house in Joburg's northern, leafy suburbs that featured in a photo shoot organised by the editor's Greek-Cypriot boyfriend, aka the mag's "stylist" (who happened to be an illegal immigrant in SA at the time). The home had been interior-decorated by a friend of the editor's, and he was giving her a plug, as it were. When the theft all came to light, you would have expected Conde Nast to react with some vigour to this ethical and moral mess. After all, the current issue of a mag published in their name featured a crime scene, and the photos themselves, as published in the mag, provided clues that it had not been the maid who had pinched the madam's luggage -- as the mag's editor, had claimed when first confronted about the appearance of the self-same Louis Vuitton kitbag in premises in Sea Point from which he and the Greek-Cypriot had been evicted. Chages were not pressed by the cops because the Greek-Cypriot boyfriend high-tailed it out of South Africa the day after the shit hit the fan, but editor's role in the whole affair raised some very pertinent questions, which needed to be answered, you would think. Nevertheless, the magazine division's head honcha declined to ask them. Neither did any other newspapers in the self-same group that owned the Conde Nast magazine, after the word came down from on high and across the seas to leave this matter well alone. Astonishingly, Mr Kerton, Conde Nast back in NYC also declined to get involved, so Mr Blachowitz may well want to reflect on this, and take heart. The oceans are wide and South Africa is far away, might well be the view from NYC. Posted on 4 Oct 2007 19:33
I had the same sense that careful attention was made at the presser to highlight Touchline while deflecting the focus away from Media24. Smart but not so subtle. And let's not forget where those huge discrepancies came in. Certainly not in the TML titles. Posted on 4 Oct 2007 08:58
Let me just re-iterate that TLM is takihng the blame for a Media 24 issue...and the big irregulations are actually with womens magazines, TLM titles between 2-7%...not that much at all, they will compensate and their string brands will continue to dominate, and rightly so... Posted on 4 Oct 2007 09:30
Ok, Blackie did something stoopid but a 2 - 7% variance hardly compares to 49%. Is Marie Lategan going to lose her job or is the media24 broederbond still in operation?? If one person is slightly dishonest all must be punished, not just token staff members of smaller subsidiaries. Also media agencies get off your high horse. You don't give a sh*t about ABC certificates, you place advertising according to the BRAND / reader profile and to Amps data. Posted on 4 Oct 2007 09:52
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