FRESH START!

Window Media collapse clears way for Mark’s List Magazine,

Florida Agenda

By DMITRY RASHNITSOV

Sitting inside the Bluebird Café in Kansas City, Missouri on a Sunday afternoon, where he was on vacation visiting his family, Mark’s List founder and CEO Mark Haines received a text message from his business partner that not only would change his week, but the entire landscape of GLBT media in Florida.

“EMERGENCY, call me,” read the message from Bobby Blair, Managing Partner and Founder of Multimedia Platforms, LLC.

Blair had just received a phone call from South Florida Blade and 411 Magazine Publisher Mike Kitchens informing him that parent company Window/Unite Media was going to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and close down all of their national publications. The sixteen people in the Wilton Manors office of 411/Blade were left unemployed.

Blair, Haines and a group of investors had put in an offer to Window Media in August to purchase the South Florida Blade and 411 Magazine for $175,000. Offers to purchase other Window publications had also been received, but the parent company chose bankruptcy instead of selling of assets.

Blair said he received a phone call from Kitchens days before, warning him of the upcoming plan to file bankruptcy.

“It’s time for you to put the transition in place if you are going to move forward with your plan,” Blair remembers Kitchens telling him over the phone.

That “transition” was already in place, however.  Haines said that when Window began to drag their feet with an offer, the group formulated a contingency plan in the case the company opted for bankruptcy.

Once all 411/Blade employees were informed of the loss of employment, Blair called a meeting that evening of Sunday, Nov. 15, informing the entire staff that if they wanted, they would all be hired on Multimedia Platform’s new venture Mark’s List Magazine and a newspaper, which has now been named Florida Agenda.  Most of the employees stuck on board with the new ventures because of the success of Haines’ Web site, Mark’s List.

“Mark is very well-liked and respected in the community,” Blair said.

Haines began www.JumpOnMarksList.com a little more than seven years ago, as “a way to get into bars and get free drinks,” he says. Now, the entrepreneur is the Publisher of both titles, and is going into unchartered media territory.

In recent months, long-standing publications have stopped printing and instead concentrated their operations in the online world, but this is the first instance an online established website is jumping into the foray of print media.

“I’m pretty sure we are the first website to purchase a magazine and move from online to hard cover platforms,” Haines said.

Mark’s List averages about 5,000 unique visitors to the website per day and is a one-stop shop for content for the GLBT community servicing Florida.

Blair, who previously owned Buzz magazine, said he has spent the last three years coming up with a plan to bring together the various media platforms. “We want to ensure that the viewer, reader and client has the best opportunity at getting access to news, information and what’s happening which also ensures advertisers are getting in front of every possible eyeball,” said Blair, who had been a professional tennis player in the 1980’s but spent the last two decades investing in foreclosure properties. “We are business as usual in a great new environment. The transition was smooth, the staff is happy and we are one big family.”

Blair said temporary offices have been set up in Fort Lauderdale and the company purchased, “state-of-the-art” equipment.  They are planning on moving back to a new space on Wilton Drive in the next couple of months.

The South Florida Blade started out as The Express Gay News in 2000 with local attorney Norm Kent as the founder and publisher. In 2003, he sold his publication to Window Media.  411 Magazine was started in 2001 by Brad Casey who had formerly owned Scoop Magazine, another gay publication. Casey started 411 Magazine with George Kessinger, who founded Georgie’s Alibi. They sold 411 Magazine to Window Media in 2005. 411 and The Blade moved to offices off of Wilton Drive in November 2008.

Window Media owned numerous publications along the east coast, including Washington Blade, a GLBT newspaper that had been in publication for more than 40 years, as well as Southern Voice and David Magazine in Atlanta.  Employees of those publications also found notes taped to their office doors on the morning of Monday, Nov. 17, stating that parent company Window Media and had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.