Doubledown Media Shuts Down
Publisher of Trader Monthly runs out of money.
RELATED POST: How Doubledown Double-Dipped
Doubledown Media, the once-rising publisher of magazines aimed at the Wall Street elite, has shut down.
“These are unprecedented times,” president Randall Lane wrote in an e-mail to staffers late Monday night. “The combination of the media depression, the Wall Street implosion and the credit slowdown were collectively too much for our company—probably any company in our shoes—to overcome.”
[CLICK HERE TO READ LANE'S E-MAIL]
The New York-based publisher of Trader Monthly, Dealmaker, Private Air, Corporate Leader and the Cigar Report—which had been forced to cut the frequency and circulation of its titles, lay off more than a third of its staff and reduce salaries for the rest—was working desperately to find a buyer.
Late last year, chairman Jim Dunning, Doubledown’s primary investor, gave Doubledown a $300,000 short-term loan to cover operating expenses—on top of $3.575 million he invested in the second half of 2008. According to a source, Dunning’s total investment in the company is approximately $8 million.
According to a letter sent by Lane to investors in December, the company lost $3 million in 2008.
Double Trouble
The pressure had been mounting on Doubledown. According to court documents obtained by FOLIO:, on December 3, an arbitrator awarded Deedee Morrison, the founder of Private Air, $450,000 in salary, as well as payments contingent on "net annual sales revenues."
[CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THE COURT DOCUMENTS]
Doubledown bought Private Air from Morrison in January 2007. After a dispute over money owed to Morrison based on annual sales revenues went to an arbitrator near the end of 2007, Doubledown fired Morrison. The arbitrator found Morrison was “terminated without cause.”
According to the documents, Doubledown filed a countersuit claiming Morrison had defrauded the company over the value of the magazine’s advertising contracts. A judge dismissed the counterclaim.
On Monday, Doubledown asked for—and was granted—an extension for the award to be entered into judgment by the court; the judgment is now slated to be entered February 7.
In the letter to investors, also dated December 3, president Randall Lane painted an exceedingly bleak picture for Doubledown.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE LETTER]
“While the Company expects to finish 2008 with revenue growth of approximately 30 percent over 2007, to $12 million, we will fall well short of our revenue projections for the second half and for the year,” Lane wrote. “During the fourth quarter, which has historically generated 40 [percent] of the company’s revenues, marketing spending in our sectors almost ground to a halt. Accordingly, expectations of a positive second-half run rate turned into a significant loss."
Lane also encouraged investors to follow Dunning’s lead and increase their financial commitment to the company. “In fact, we encourage all our investors to do so,” Lane wrote. “We are talking to several venture capitalists who write smallish checks in the consumer technology space (the most likely raise is $2.5 million), and also several large strategic firms ... Suggestions from our shareholders on this front would be greatly appreciated.”
There is no mention of Morrison’s lawsuit or the arbitrator’s ruling in the letter.
The Dykstra Debacle
Last May, less than a month after launching the Players Club, a magazine for professional athletes, Lenny Dykstra—the former New York Mets star and car wash millionaire turned unlikely stock market guru—sued Doubledown, with whom he partnered to launch the magazine, for control over the magazine. Dykstra accused Doubledown Media's Randall Lane of breach of contract. Lane and Doubledown filed an explosive counterclaim, alleging Dykstra owed Doubledown more than a half million dollars.
The case was eventually settled, but not before legal documents detailing the rapid deterioration of Doubledown’s business relationship with Dykstra were made public.
Check FOLIOmag.com throughout the day for updates to this story.
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'm a b...ch!! and so is Randall Lane
Submitted by Karma on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 09:36.This maybe the funniest and most ironic story of the year. Giving the timing and the market forces, you would think DD would be better prepared since they claimed to be "insiders". I guessed they didn't have their finger on the pulse of the industry as they claimed so much, they were busy using them to strong arm innocent business partners. Having met with this group of idiots some time ago, in retrospect I'm glad we were able to see through the smoke and mirrors. For a man who claimed to have all the answers, his comments seems awfully thin. The media space is taking a hit we all understand that, but as with any business, it's the people the make it work. Not sure what type of pictures Lane had on Dunning, but Lane was the wrong guy from the start.
Shocker!
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 10:36.Well, what a surprise! Yet another example of so-called "entrepreneurs" who really didn't understand how to control costs effectively, overpaid staff for underperforming and claim they put out "world class magazines" - I think not. Using the same editorial pieces in Dealmaker, Corporate Leader and Private Air, with only subtle changes to the layout - such as making a RH page in one a LH in another - duh! They couldn't get advertisers to commit to every issue. Why is that? - Because the magazines had NO value. Quite simply, the leaders of "TroubleDown" media have no clue how to run a business.
Funny
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 12:31.DD, wow what a trip! Doubledown asked for trouble!
Lay off, vultures
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 13:26.Having worked with some of the folks at Doubledown Media over the years, I cannot share in schadenfreude of the vultures above. Yes, Randall Lane may have made his share of mistakes, but the team they had assembled was a talented one, with good people who consistently put out quality publications with very little resources. Blame Lane for underfunding it, or blame Dunning for not having the guts to see it through. But the Doubledown editors are to be applauded for doing strong work in challenging conditions.
What Happened?
Submitted by Rory on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 13:56.Does this mean Marie Antoinette's magazine CAKE won't be published anymore either?
second that motion
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 14:16.For all who dare comment on the ability of ddm's talented staff, shame on you. I know for a fact, having worked with many of these fine editors that magic was acheived almost daily with little budget and guidance from RL. Pure aNd simple, his greed and ego drove this company into the ground.
Haters out there
Submitted by anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 14:37.Looks like Doubledown has some real haters or ex employees/vendors that are owed money - who else would right with all that venom. Your laughing at good people who lost their jobs. Mock management but dont mock the employees - in this economy your day too will come.
I have not heard good things
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 15:07.I have not heard good things about Lane's managerial abilities, but the editorial quality--I only saw Trader and its website--was actually pretty good. Not sure how much of the venom here is toward Doubledown/Lane and how much is toward Wall Street. Bad to see yet another media business go down.
LOL
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 17:46.Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy than Randall Lane. He can always fall back on writing those restaurant reviews for Timeout. In the end, that type of work speaks more to his speed and style. Besides, he seems to genuinely enjoy it. Too bad it won't pay the bills. He'll find some other sucker. Hello Dunning.
I thought "Trader Monthly" was entertaining as all hell...
Submitted by Mark on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 20:48.The only thing that bothered me about it was that the calorie count on the "meal of the month" always seemed overinflated.
my Fav Mag! gone? DAMN IT GUYS!
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 01:29.I have honestly enjoyed the great words that Magnus Greaves has shared over the years with his readers.One thing that does trouble me...If DD Media is suffering and about to disappear, how are major companies like Conde Naste/GQ,Source Media and Institutional Investor Magazine staying afloat with $3,200 dollar subscriptions.Trader Mag was only $10 a momnth"expensive" but sheessh...maybe the "free" trader Mags to industry professionals really tk way too much revenue out of your pockets guys.I hv every Trader mag. since issue one up until Nov.08.Good luck folks...I will miss this magazine...I loved the toys and stories immensely!
They didn't pay their bills....
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 09:10.I did an assignment for "The Players Club" they never paid me. Doubledown Media owes me five thousand dollars. I understand they made a deal to get paid by Lenny D. But didn't pay the writers and photographers who's good work graced their magazines. If I see Randall Lane in public I will place an invoice in his Gucci.
Really Sad.
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 21:35.This was the only magazine I actually enjoyed reading.
I was a day trader so I didn't pay for it but it was the most enjoyable magazine out there.
It was better than Forbes and all the other stupid financial magazines that have no clue what is going on in the markets.
Their cover a few months ago about the crash of 1987 was an amazing article. If any of you would have read it you may not be looking at a YE 2008 401K statement that is down 40%.
A real shame but so goes life...
Another one bites the dust
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 11:35.Well I'll be. Another magazine that screws it's content providers but pays themselves huge sums of money bites the dust.
my favorite mag
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 12:57.this was the only magazine that I really read cover to cover, i guess i will never make the 30 under 30.
Thanks Readers
Submitted by Teri Buhl on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 18:58.RE: Really Sad
Thanks for the feedback on the 1987 Trader Monthly cover story. I reported and co-wrote that piece and it was an amazing saga to investigate. The editorial staff was really what made TM a success, Rich Blake, Chris Gillick, Leah McGrath Goodman and all their great columnist. It was sad to see it's managment couldn't keep the cash flow running.
Congrats to Folio for breaking this story and reporting the truth.
Randall Lane is a Good Guy
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 10:22.There's a lot of nasty BS about Doubledown head Randall Lane. Why gloat over someone else's bad fortune? I have known Randall for years. There's no way he paid himself "huge sums." He always put his journalistic products over his personal gain. And he's a guy who cares about his staff. Unpaid freelancers have a right to gripe although I'm sure Randall had numerous sleepless nights over that. Good for Randall and others who try to find the next new thing - and then go for it. Too bad, in this case, it ultimately didn't work.
A Mess
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 04:11.All one had to do is see the incredible mess in Lane's office, especially his desk, to see that this guy was highly disorganized and reflected his cluttered mind. He also had a massive ego and never treated his writers, or his editors for that matter, with any respect or sense of caring. This was no leader, unless you call leading the DD magazines into the ground leadership.
trader mag
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 09:56.i for one am very sad this magazine went belly up. it was by far my favorite publication out there and it was also one of the only mags i get that was free. i sure would have paid for the subscription had i known that they were going to shut their doors. too bad.
Tough to feel sorry...Except for the employees
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 11:53.Seeing the likes of Jim Dunning and Randall Lane fall flat on their ego-driven faces is pretty hard not to enjoy. Wait till a judge picks their pockets in receivership court. Ofcourse we all feel badly for the poor employees that were driven like lemmings to put out this self-gratuitious manafesto proposing that 'excess is good'. The jet leasing ads and invitations to sample 50 year old scotch at their self-indulgent parties, usually cast to appease advertisers (because they probably didn't make rate base), took on a nauseating tone even before Wall Streeter's met their personal and professional Waterloos. Wonder how many 'goody bags' distributed at these events end up as 'era of excess' displays at a future Publisher Hall of Shame museum.
Will miss it
Submitted by Vincent on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 13:07.Celebrating success is a good thing.
Get Over Yourselves
Submitted by RD Ross on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 19:58.I'm a simple fund manager and real estate developer and don't understand the ins and outs of the media business. However, I thought that information and entertainment was the whole point; I got lots of both out of TRADER and DEALMAKER, and I couldn't afford half the shit advertised in it. For all of the critics, get over yourselves, have a beer, and remember that the end products were really great magazines. If any of you are half as talented as the Doubledown crew, please get busy developing a new product. As for me, I sure will miss those two publications.
wtf?
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 18:58.Wheres my f@c)7^9 Trader Magazine! f*&$ sake
I think that says it all.
Time to Short Media
Submitted by Paul on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 19:05.What a disappointment.. The magazine was rather good, now what else do we have? Well at least this is an indicator of sorts to begin shorting old media. Informative .. right to the end.
Disruptive Times for the Magazine Market ... My Two Cents
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 01:32.I actually looked forward to receiving TraderMonthly.com magazine monthly, but what can expect from companies that fail to adapt in this disruptive times for publishers of all kind (Music, News, Magazine, Books, etc), especially in these bad economic times.
If what is true among the comments above, where staff was in charge of direction, then the staff is to blame it seems. I am not saying the staff was not working hard, but it does not make a difference how hard your work if your not working smarter. However, management is usually to blame when a company fails. So, who really knows who was in charge, which might explain a lot.
There are a list of things I would have tried differently or executed faster.
1. If the cost of producing the DoubleDown Media magazines was not profitable then the staff should have cut all print offline production and focused on online production instead. This is probably one for the first steps they should have taken and could easily see other competitors doing the same.
2. The fact that you had to login to create an account to access news content was probably not favorable.
3. No working RSS feeds, I would have preferred to subscribe by RSS feed for convenience and do my part in the global environment wars*. The few RSS feeds you did offer never seemed to update or work.
3. I would have offered a full layout of RSS feeds that include a feed for all content, as well as feeds for individual categories to individual columnists.
4. I would have offered the function for users to comment without being forced to login and the ability to subscribe to comments feed for each article.
5. I would have offered a function like ShareThis.com or AddThis.com on every page or at the very least on each article.
6. The outsource of the job board to eFinancialCareers.com I am kind of iffy on.
7. Widgets Galore! I would have as many customizable news widgets as possible (Facebook.com, MySpace.com, iGoogle, MyYahoo, NetVibes.com, MyTrade.com, etc).
8. Digg.com, StumbleUpon, Tipd.com, SeekingAlpha.com, these companies our your friends. I would setup relations to have my articles auto feed to these websites.
9. I probably would have dropped the classifieds and matching making page to offer a general forum.
10. Finally, it seemed like most people I observed who read the magazine would not buy or could not afford 90% of the advertisement or products offered.
Good lord, I spent way to much time on this comment, I need to get a life ... :-)
My Two Cents
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 12:43.NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO Trader magazine was my favorite magazine..and as a future trader myself..it gave me something to aspire to...darn it!!! Darn Recession
An Insider's Take
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 12:02.I worked briefly at DoubleDown Media and have had a long successful career in publishing. I found Randall Lane and Jim Dunning two of the most perceptive people I've ever met. Comments above about them appear to be written by people who either didn't know them, or didn't measure up - and probably for good reasons. Their products were well thought through and provided a unique mix of business and pleasure that NO other media provides. They created publications for "gated communities" of the working wealthy that were not being properly targeted by ANY other media company. Their downfall was caused by their strength of running faster and better than anyone else crashing into an economic downfall NO ONE - not even the Wall Street Journal - predicted. If the likes of Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns, GE, GM, Ford, Chrysler - and other AAA names - didn't see this tsunami coming, and even if they did couldn't do much about it, why the antagonistic response to DDM's demise? I'd been in financial publishing for decades, and DDM was the only publisher I've ever known that knew how to write so traders actually read! Think about that: Traders have the attention span of gnat; if someone can stop and make them read a whole magazine, then DDM knew what it was doing. Each and every one of DDM's titles were well targeted and well written and provided a unique "community" of high-net worth individuals perfect for high-end consumer and wealth management advertisers not offered by other media. DDM didn't hit the wall - the wall hit them! A normal recession would not have sunk this boat; this tsunami has claimed some of the most revered names in media - Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and even the NY Times was saved only by Senor Slim. Is it such a surprise that those just starting out making a name for themselves were dragged into the undertow? I don't think so.
I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake.....
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 14:39.But I only just now found out that Trader is dead. This is one of the saddest indictments of the state of the financial markets. I am a financial markets journalist, who is sadly underemployed suddenly. Quality financial publications are going under one by one, as mainstream media tries to fill our shoes (badly, I might add). And Trader Monthly was the best informed and most amusing one of them all. Come back to us please, Trader?
I certainly enjoyed Trader
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 10:17.I certainly enjoyed Trader Monthly and was VERY excited to get it. After what I thought was a few missed issues, I came online to see what was up. Found their site down and a search led me to this site. I am certainly very disappointed. It was a great magazine and served its purpose well.
In a time when Wall Street blew up and Wall Streeters were losing jobs in droves, its certainly understandable. I would not hold the failure against the people behind the venture.
A great entrepreneurial effort; Comments from a bunch of cowards
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/31/2009 - 20:02.I have just had a chance to read the email posts hear and it is embarrassing to see the number of people make such negative statements (including personal attacks) about those in leadership at this entrepreneurial venture - one that accomplished much more in a VERY difficult industry than almost any start-up (series of) publication. But it is so much more shocking to see the cowardice of those attacks made without individuals identifying themselves in their text - so that any third party can judge whether such defamatory statements are legitimate or simply ways to get at someone(s) because of alternative gripes or agendas. Nobody has to comment or make negative references - of people who gave their all to try to build something great - but if one does the latter one should have the guts to identify themselves. In the meantime, all should recognize the accomplishment of the leaders and the team here - who went so far against such odds, and who might have gone the distance but for macro events of a degree that almost nobody could have imagined.
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