New Life for Kirkus Reviews, E&P?

Soon after it announced an agreement to sell eight of its trade media brands, including Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, Nielsen Business Media said it was ceasing operations for newspaper industry title Editor & Publisher and book industry magazine Kirkus Reviews. Now, it seems that Kirkus Reviews might be poised for a comeback.

According to a recent post on its Web site, Kirkus is “working toward an arrangement” with a potential buyer of the magazine and plans to publish a second issue this month under Nielsen. The post said more details about a deal could come before the end of the month.

In an e-mail to FOLIO:, Kirkus managing editor and nonfiction editor Eric Liebetrau said he is unsure who the buyer is or how far along the process might be but said the magazine’s staff “is set to return.” A Nielsen spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Ex-Editor & Publisher staffers are hoping for a similar outcome. On New Year’s Eve, a number of the magazine’s employees started a blog called E&P in Exile. In their first post, the team indicated that several buyers have “stepped forward” but that no firm agreement was in place. “There appears to be a fairly good chance that Editor & Publisher will resume but we cannot say when or in precisely what form,” the post read.

Nielsen closed Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews on December 10 after announcing the sale agreement of Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter—including other brands like Adweek, Brandweek and Meidaweek—to e5 Global Media, a new company formed by private equity firm Pluribus Capital Management and financial services firm Guggenheim Partners. At the time, Nielsen Business Media president Greg Farrar said in a statement that the divestiture allowed the company to “focus its investment on its core businesses and those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth, including our leading trade show group.”

Editor & Publisher was launched in 1901 but traces its roots back to 1884 when The Journalist, a publication it later merged with, was launched. Kirkus was founded by former Harper & Bros. children’s book department head Virginia Kirkus in 1933.

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