By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-20 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, 2011
In March 2011 The Hollywood Reporter’s parent company moved to quash a story that one of its backers wanted out — a denial that the following years would complicate.
Then
A New York Post story by Claire Atkinson reported that, 15 months after paying $70 million for The Hollywood Reporter and other media properties, backer Guggenheim Partners was looking to bail. Prometheus Global Media chairman-CEO Richard Beckman responded with an all-staff email, which FishbowlLA published in full.
Beckman flatly refuted the article, saying his partners at Guggenheim and Pluribus were committed to building a world-class media company and were not for sale. He listed evidence of momentum: THR advertising revenue up 52 percent since the relaunch, record web traffic of 3.5 million unique visitors, advertising gains at Billboard, a coming Billboard Music Awards telecast with ABC, and a relaunch of Adweek.
He closed by warning that the company’s success would make it a target for competitors’ ‘irresponsible commentary.’ The same day, FishbowlLA noted, an unnamed source told TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman that the Prometheus titles were, in fact, for sale.
Now
The skeptics were closer to right. Prometheus Global Media was rebranded Guggenheim Digital Media, and within a few years Guggenheim’s entertainment titles were spun out and sold — The Hollywood Reporter eventually landing, after several ownership changes, in the Penske Media–Eldridge joint venture.
Richard Beckman’s tenure did not last; he left the company not long after this confident memo, part of the executive churn that accompanied the ownership turbulence.
The episode is a useful lesson in reading corporate denials. The reassuring all-staff email, the cited growth metrics, the warning about jealous competitors — all of it was sincere in the moment, and most of it was overtaken by the sale it was written to deny.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.