NYTimes set to drop advertising column

The New York Times will drop its long-running advertising column, a fixture for decades, as the buyout-taking Stuart Elliott pens his farewell column for the paper on Friday, reports Keith Kelly of the New York Post.

Kelly writes, “Elliott wrote the influential newspaper column for 23 years, breaking the old record of 22 years held by Phil Dougherty, whose tenure ended in 1989 with his death.

“Other notables who have held the job over the years include: Carl Spielvogel, who would go on to become an advertising exec himself, founding the ad agency Backer & Spielvogel; Peter Bart, who became a Hollywood producer and then a long-running editor-in-chief of Variety; and Randall Rothenberg, the current president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

“There has been no internal buzz on an Elliott replacement, leading many insiders and outsiders to conclude that there will be none.”

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