FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 11, 2013
CONTACT
Nell Callahan, 202-464-6913
[email protected]
Rob O’Donnell, 301-275-9091
[email protected]
Tina Brown Announces Tina Brown Live Media
Tina Brown announced today that she will be leaving her position as editor in chief of The Daily Beast to
launch Tina Brown Live Media, a new company that will merge Brown's lifelong commitment
to journalistic inquiry with her innate ability to dramatically stage storytelling. Devoted to sponsorsupported summits, salons and flash debates, with special emphasis on expanding the annual Women in
the World summit she launched in 2010, the company's mission will be to bring compelling narratives to
life for a global audience.
“Creating the Daily Beast at the original instigation of Barry Diller in 2008,” she said, “has given me some
of the most exciting and fulfilling years of my professional life. I am enormously proud of what our
brilliant editorial team has achieved at the Beast. And I am proud, too, of what we did with Newsweek in
the battle we waged to save it from the overwhelming forces of media change.”
The Daily Beast got a rocket-like launch in election year 2008 with Christopher Buckley's news
generating endorsement of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Combining the adrenaline of the web
with a vibrant visual identity, the Beast swiftly established itself as an original and bi-partisan news
generator with a strong irreverent voice. For the second year running in 2012 it won the Webby award
for Best News Site and has seen steady growth of traffic-- up 22% since last year-- to nearly 16 million
unique visitors in August, as well as advertising growth of 23% year over year.
The Women in the World summit has been a success from its inception in 2010. Through strong
personal stories and journalistic revelation, the summit presents foreign affairs through the eyes of
women. Cohosted each year with Diane von Furstenberg and Meryl Streep and Executive-Produced by
former ABC producer Kyle Gibson, the summit attracts such participants as Hillary Clinton, Angelina
Jolie, Christine Lagarde, Condoleezza Rice, Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Madeleine Albright, Oprah
and Susan Rice joined by the less well known, courageous female change agents from all over the world,
striving to bring a better life to women and girls. Last year’s summit drew an audience of 2,100 people
each day, and generated 1 billion press impressions, 44 million tweets, and 500,000 from live stream.
For the April 2014 summit, The Daily Beast will remain as media partner.
Tina Brown said, “It has been wonderful to grow the Women in the World summit into such a powerful
independent brand within The Daily Beast and now it will be even more exciting to see how it can
expand and develop.”
Joining her at the venture will be The Daily Beast’s events team led by Kathy O’Hearn.
Tina Brown said, “I leave The Daily Beast knowing it has never been better. There is in place a brilliant
team of gifted editors and writers who will continue to win prizes, break important news and blaze a
Beastly trail.”
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September 11, 2013