Conflict between Primedia Inc., a magazine publisher, and Steven Brill LAW ’75, a media producer and visiting Yale professor, will end merger plans for magazines Brill’s Content and Inside.

The end to the 10-month partnership between Primedia and Brill will result in 38 pink slips.

Brill is a visiting professor of journalism at Yale this semester. He also founded Court TV and The American Lawyer magazine.

Brill founded Brill’s Content in 1999 as a critique of media groups. Inside is an online media news Web site with an associated magazine.

In January, Brill became manager of Media Central, a Primedia venture consisting of Brill’s Content and several other publications. Inside joined Media Central in April, with plans for Brill’s Content to join the paper form of Inside.

The following month, Brill suddenly announced the merger would not proceed and that Brill’s Content would decrease from 10 annual issues to four.

Control of Media Central will return to Primedia, and the publisher intends to scale back Inside. Brill, who will run the Media Central publications until the end of the year, said Brill’s Content should shut down because it cannot survive as a solo publication.

— Marc Wiznia