Looks like good ol Aaron Singerman read this and is putting out more of the rumors.
Muscle Gossip #36- Interesting Times In Bodybuilding Media
As recently as three years ago, bodybuilding media outlets were locked up like Fort Knox. No one came in, and no one went out. Job security was at a all time high, and very little had changed for years. In magazines you had Joe Weider, David Pecker, Steve Blechman, and Robert Kennedy. Those four names are still securely at the top of the heap, but all the players under those kingpins have changed. Starting with Peter McGough being replaced with Allan Donnelly at FLEX, working down to the firing of Dave Palumbo and John Romano. Those changes were the first of many, and as of this week, the hits keep coming.
This will be banner week for shape-ups within the bodybuilding industry, and it started late last week with Robbie Durand quitting at Muscular Development (he will officially be done on November 1st). When Dave Palumbo and John Romano were fired Robbie replaced both of them. In reality, Shawn Ray moved into the frontman position and Robbie was more of a behind the scenes guy. I saw him at almost every major show throughout the years, and he is generally thought of as a good, hardworking guy. When Robbie originally quit, like most industry insiders, I thought he quit because he was overworked. When I spoke to Robbie he often complained that he had too much to do, and not enough time to do it. That turned out not to be the reason he decided to quit.
At the same time this was going down at the New York offices of Muscular Development change has also been brewing at the Weider offices. Allan Donnelly, the editor-and-chief of FLEX Magazine, had decided he wasn’t willing to relocate from California to New York to continue running FLEX. Recently, money problems forced Weider/AMI to close it’s longtime historic offices in Woodland Hills, California and relocate the office and a few staff members to New York City. Donnelly was one of the very few staff members David Pecker, CEO and Chairman of American Media, had planned to keep on. That left a big hole in FLEX Magazine. It’s been widely known within the closed circle of bodybuilding media insiders, for a number of weeks now, that the heir apparent to Donnelly was Sean Andros. Andros was the once assistant to RxMuscle’s own Dave Palumbo, and several years became RxMuscle’s first vice-president.
Here is where it gets mashugana (editor’s note: A Yiddish term used as an exclamation to describe something as crazy or bizarre.). Today Sean Andros unexpectedly gave his two week notice at FLEX. Turns out he found out that he wouldn’t be promoted to Editor-and-chief of FLEX, but that Robbie Durand would be coming on and replacing Allan Donnelly... Effectively passing Andros over for the job. Instead of continuing his current job as Online Editor and working under Durand, he chose to pick up his toys and take his game elsewhere. Where will Sean be bringing his skills? To MD, is the current rumor on the street.
Robbie is going to be heading up FLEX magazine, Sean is heading over to MD. Where is Allan Donnelly going? I think we’ll know that, and likely a lot more very shortly. Expect a very interesting week in the behind-the-scenes happenings of the bodybuilding world!
