Brills/Inside Merger



April 7, 2001



BOB GARFIELD: The merger of the week wasn't a mega-merger on the order of AOL/Time Warner but a meta-merger because the business of both companies involved is reporting on media.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Inside.com was known for thorough business reporting on every aspect of the media using in-depth graphics, a team of veteran reporters and a big PR budget in New York and L.A. But it also used up 20 million dollars in funding, and like most other Internet sites which peddled content, Inside found it couldn't sell subscriptions fast enough to stay afloat.

BOB GARFIELD:Along comes Steven Brill [sp?] who folds Inside.com's parent company into his own. Joining me now is Curt Anderson, one of Inside's founders and a vice chairman of the newly-formed Inside Content. Curt I don't know whether to congratulate you or not. Are congratulations in order?

CURT ANDERSON: Congratulations are very definitely in order.

BOB GARFIELD: Tell me why.

CURT ANDERSON: Well as one of my friends and employees said it's victory with an asterisk! The thing we've cre--the amazing thing we've created, Inside.com and Inside Magazine can go on to live many a, many another day and-- I can relax a little while and take fully seriously my new entirely amorphous role of vice chairman.

BOB GARFIELD: Things haven't worked out exactly as you'd anticipated however.

CURT ANDERSON:I had no specific anticipation. I stumbled into what looked like a lot of fun and interesting and something I hadn't done, and for about the first five minutes it, it looked like, you know, there might be some money -serious money in it.

BOB GARFIELD:The ease with which you got venture capital must have turned your head a little bit. You -your - one of your famous quotes was that getting funding was--: [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

CURT ANDERSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

BOB GARFIELD: -- oh, allow me to share it with our listeners, will you? -- getting funding for Inside was easier than getting laid in 1969.

CURT ANDERSON: Now let me use this opportunity to finally once and for all put that quote which I gave to Howard Kurt [sp?] to the Washington Post into context. Howard asked me what is so special about Inside and this team you've collected and this idea you have -- what is so special that, that you've been able to raise all this money? And I said no, no - it's not us - there's a lot of money around! Raising money now is as easy as blah, blah, blah. And may I also say that it was a mistake. I should have said '79, because that's frankly when it was easy, at least for me, to get laid.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Next subject.

CURT ANDERSON: Yes.

BOB GARFIELD:Your new partner Steven Brill has I guess there's two main aspects to his reputation, and one is shall we say for not being a shrinking violet, but also for, for being a scold - your, your Inside.com on line now call's Brill's Content the Church Lady -Journalism's Church Lady. How does it feel dancing with the Church Lady?

CURT ANDERSON: Well I think that the, the thing we intend to do will have next to no Church Lady aspects, and, and I'll tell you, one of the things I like about Steve in my - in the short time I've gotten to know him is that when I say exactly that and worse in my description of why Brill's Content has never been a must-read for me or my favorite magazine, he, he absolutely cops to it. So whether it's film or television or books or journalism or whatever, they all have interesting stories; no, they all have interesting business stories, and that a kind of scolding, prosecutorial approach is, you know, when deserved, one approach to take -but there are many, many, many other voices in the choir that can be allowed to sing. And so that is a vision of what we hope to create together.

BOB GARFIELD:In merging with Brill Media Holdings you're also merging with his partners which include CBS, NBC and Prime Media [sp?] -- having business ties with some of the companies you'll be reporting on. Does that cause you any worries?

CURT ANDERSON: No. None, frankly. Steve has shown himself in his track record sort of above reproach in terms of being willing to anger advertisers, partners of all kinds. I also, you know, having run a magazine, a couple of magazines and, and, and being around these worlds for a while, seems to me that it's cl-- absolutely clear to me in fact that the, the real pressure to change stories, pull stories, whatever are from advertisers, far, far more than any kind of corporate entanglement.

BOB GARFIELD: Finally, this is a very complicated deal, or at least it seems to be based on the stories I've read--

CURT ANDERSON: It's even more complicated than you can imagine!

BOB GARFIELD: -- but fundamentally--

CURT ANDERSON: Yes--

BOB GARFIELD: -- the unprofitable Inside.com--

CURT ANDERSON: Yes?

BOB GARFIELD:-- is merging with the unprofitable Brill's Content to form Inside Content Magazine and the associated web sites. In the current media advertising depression, does this combined entity have any chance of making it?

CURT ANDERSON: It really does, and first of all you're, you're leaving out the, the third and in, in, in many ways as a financial story the most important part of this story which is the Prime Media involvement. The part of Prime Media that is being thrown into this mix, in this enterprise, is a company that -- called Media Central which is a subsidiary of Prime Media -- that is a very profitable business today. So the story is persuasive to me that this can work and I believe it, and I'm happy not to be the person who is any longer charged with executing the plan.

BOB GARFIELD: All right, Curt. Thanks very much for joining us.

CURT ANDERSON: It has been my pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD:Curt Anderson is the vice chairman of the new Inside Content. He's also the host of Studio 360 - a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC and in the spirit of full disclosure, WNYC also produces On the Media.