Having closed up Unzipped, you’d think the seas would be a bit calmer at Paul Colichman’s Regent/Here Media. Well they would, if they didn’t owe freelancers so much money that one is comparing the whole operation to a Ponzi scheme. It would be funny, if it wasn’t affecting people’s livelihoods.
kevin
Simply the WORST group of people I’ve ever encountered, professionally and personally. I hope the entire business collapses.
And, EVERY one of their products – from online to print to on air – is just simply sh*t.
Burn baby, burn.
hardmannyc
I’m one of the freelancers in the Gawker piece. I’ve been writing for them for over 15 years. It tears me up to see how shockingly bad they’re treating me and other loyal freelancers.
Brendon
I’ve written this before on here, but everyone who works at Regent/Here knows what a vile, dishonest and incompetent company it is. Nobody cares though as long as Paul Colichman gets his end of the Ponzi money!
mediabusiness
Prior to it’s purchase of the old LPI print brands and assets (Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, HIV Plus, SpecPubs, Alyson Books), Regent was a B-movie producer and distributor which had recently entered the cable pay-channel market with the launch of here!TV.
By all accounts Regent was and still is a successful B movie production and distribution business. The g&l content of the movies it produces and distributes is estimated at less than 10% of their projects.
However, no one at Regent had any experience in print or online businesses, let alone lgbt print/online experience. That includes the “senior managment” from Regent/here!TV that moved over to “manage” under Colichman’s “direction” Regent’s newly formed gay market-focussed Here Media.
But that certainly has not stopped them from knowing it all.
After all, they’re successful Hollywood producers (or wannabes)–and they’re Gay Hollywood.
Who among Here Media’s senior “management” care if the freelancers, vendors, book authors. etc. who have contracted and delivered get paid? They are expendable peons, and are treated as such.
Mike
Have any of you seen the dreadful “Advocate On Air” program that was supposed to save the “Advocate brand”? (Most of you probably didn’t cuz you have to go to the magazine’s website or watch here! TV, which clearly almost no one does.) It’s freakin’ horrible to the point of unwatchable. The company was too fuckin’ cheap to pay for B-roll footage, so they instead used a billion still photos and make them move all over the screen to try to disguise the fact that they have no actual video. I’ve seen junior high A/V Club productions that were more professional and polished. I’m taking bets the whole place collapses financially by the end of the year.
Recession watcher
@Kevin; @Brendon, et al.
I couldn’t have said it any better! I’d add something about morality, though. (I think some of us can remember that.) “Bad”, “vile,” and such terms say very little. Again, why aren’t people looking to legal counsel. I did once with a company, and I’m glad that I did. That company deserved everything they paid me and got.
“Fairness” is something that I just can’t recall that was ever used by Regent. Frankly, until Obama was elected, I didn’t even remember what that was anymore. No wonder he is so unpopular there.