This the first I’ve heard of this story…
Anybody care to give my a quick tldr recap??
From what I gather here...
Time Inc. owned S.I. for nearly 70 years.
-The Meredith Corporation then bought Time around 2018. The had no interest in the S.I. portion so they sorta sold it to Authentic Brands Group and one of them (not clear who) licensed the "rights" of S.I. to TheMaven Inc.
-Once that happened the first round of layoffs and shedding salary started in 2019.
-In 2021 TheMaven acquired more websites and consolidated those into the S.I. brand with their goal to get their name into new avenues, which they did (resorts, apparel, etc).
-Late 2023 S.I. (with a skeleton staff at this point) was caught publishing A.I. articles with fake authors, a serious no-no especially for that brand (whatever was left of it).
-Finally, this month TheMaven (under a new name now) missed a multi-million dollar payment still owed to Authentic Brands and Authentic then terminated the entire deal.
-In response, TheMaven announced it would be laying off all employees.
-In response to THAT, Authentic announced they plan to continue S.I. operations, including during a transition to a potential new publishing partner. “This will not go dark,” Authentic said.
but the side stories are too real
