Radar Raiders ... and Runners

Buckle up, folks!

For a magazine nominated this month for a general excellence award by the American Society of Magazine Editors, Radar is weathering some stormy changes.

Deputy editor Christopher Tennant officially exited in March, yet remains on contract while finishing his upcoming book The Official Filthy Rich Handbook.

Last week, longtime senior editor Tyler Gray, who is also ready to roll out a book (The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands, and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History), is leaving for a senior editor post at Blender starting next month.

Now, Portfolio.com has confirmed that managing editor Leigh Ann Boutwell is exiting, and moving to Los Angeles to freelance.

Big changes in a short period of time, but Radar editors discount the significance. "There's always turnover," one said. "It's just what happens in this business."

Since its 2003 launch in one of the most dismal publishing recessions in years, the magazine -- a cheeky blend of Vanity Fair celebrity coverage and Spy snark and satire -- was an instant hit and celebrated as the best mag launch of the year.

By 2004, funds dried up and Radar went dark until Mort Zuckerman and Jeff Epstein resuscitated the book and signed on high-end advertisers like Prada, Kenneth Cole, and Oscar de la Renta.

Three issues later, Radar folded again.

Jesse Jackson's son Yusef, a Budweiser distributor in Chicago, agreed to fund Radar through 2011. [Full disclosure: I've written for both Radar the magazine and its website.]

"The magazine isn't dying," another Radar source tells Portfolio.com, adding that the magazine is moving in a new direction. "While media circle love to count the days until Radar sinks, it won't. It's just focusing more on celebrity coverage."

Detractors, meanwhile, revel in the magazine's rocky history of false starts and its celebrity and pop-culture content. "Each issue seems to be a clone of other," snarked website Magazine Death Pool. "Same small group of advertisers. Same Photoshop job. Same Tom Cruise and Scientology investigation. The only that hasn't changed are the art directors, who seem to come and go in the night."

"They're both big losses," said another source. "Leigh Ann has really been the heart and soul of this place. And Tyler has the kind of reportorial instincts that we'll sorely miss. But both departures are good for them, and in the end Tyler's leaving will give us more latitude in reshaping the website."

Assistant Managing Editor Jennifer Doll will take Boutwell's post.

Chris Cechin, who has shared online duties with Gray, in charge of the online reviews section, will now manage the site with former Gawker editor Alex Balk, Radar's the executive editor and daily contributor.

With all these shake-ups, you'd think editor in chief Maer Roshan would be nervous. Not so.

"Ad sales are great," he tells Portfolio.com. "Up 6 percent from last year."

He also reports the website page views this month have been the highest since the launch.

"And the month isn't even over," he said.

by John Clarke Jr.

(Jeff Bercovici is on vacation)

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