Brad McDonald, publisher of Ride and Transworld BMX magazines, earned a promotion to general manager of Transworld Magazines, the action sports division of Time. The move follows the departure of several key Transworld employees who quit after butting heads with Time management.
McDonald founded Ride BMX in his college dorm room. For the last year he has managed the Transworld group's operations and finances. He remains the publisher of Transworld BMX, Ride BMX, BMX Business News and Transworld Motocross, all of which are published in Tustin.
He now oversees all 11 Transworld titles, which include Transworld Skateboarding, Transworld Surf and Freeze, among others. Those magazines are published in Oceanside, California, about 45 miles south of Tustin. McDonald will split his time between the two offices.
“I've been working with the entire group so this is just an expansion of responsibilities,” McDonald said.
McDonald said Time likely will keep the two offices. “There's been a lot of turmoil in Oceanside, but I think we've consolidated everything that makes sense to consolidate,” he said.
Several high-ranking employees of Transworld Skateboarding, including the general manager, editor in chief and photo editor, left the company earlier this fall to start an independent skateboard magazine. They said Time's cookie-cutter business model clashed with the magazine's irreverent and independent employees and readers.
“The blueprint they are using is like Burger King and Wal-Mart and it's like, look man, you have a bunch of kids who are nuts and you can't put them in a corporate mold,” Mike Mihaly, the magazine's former general manager, told the Wall Street Journal.
