June 11, 2007 News

Andy Epstein, KCBS/KCAL TV News entertainment producer, has moved to TMZ.com as of today. KCBS/KCAL assignment desk says to pitch entertainment stories to Planning Editor Elaine Ledesma for now.


The LA Times' West Magazine will publish monthly rather than weekly beginning June 17 with an eye to exploring "health, fitness and beauty in Southern California." LA Observed has all the gory details.


New York Magazine Classical Music Critic Peter Davis has been fired from New York magazine. According to a Musical America story, Davis, described as among the most highly regarded music journalists in the business, "was informed of the decision last Thursday in a telephone call from a staff member he neither knew nor had ever worked with. He had been a staff critic for the magazine for 26 years. Asked if he would be replaced, New York spokeswoman Serena Torrey declined to comment, other than to say, 'We will continue to cover classical music in a robust way.' In recent years, and especially since Adam Moss has been the editor, the magazine’s classical music coverage has dwindled considerably. This marks the third major classical music critic to lose his job in the last month. Reorganization and/or cutbacks at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune have seen the position of classical music critic disappear. At this time, neither Pierre Ruhe at the former nor Michael Anthony at the latter is clear on what they will be doing at the paper, only that their positions have been eliminated."


More on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution situation is at New Yorker Classical Music Critic Alex Ross's blog, The Rest Is Noise.


Saul Levine's KMZT 1260 AM, which adopted a classical music format when its former location on 105.1 FM went country, is no longer all classical with the introduction of "The Great American Songbook" 7 to 10 p.m. Sundays hosted by Jerry Sharell. According to the Los Angeles Times, this returns the pop standards format to the station (at least for a 3 hour period), featuring the likes of Michael Bublé, Diana Krall, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand.


BizBash Magazine moved recently to 8721 Sunset Blvd., PH 7, Los Angeles 90069, 310 659-9510.


Not sure when this happened, but "IN Los Angeles" moved to 5657 Wilshire Blvd., 5th Floor, Los Angeles, CA, 90036, (323) 848-2200 phone, (323) 848-2058 fax.