xxl

Spotted on MTV:

For 17 years, XXL Magazine has been a staple within the hip-hop community, and though it was reported that the brand would put it’s print edition to bed, MTV News has learned that isn’t the case at all.

“We are going to continue doing magazines,” XXL’s editor-in-chief Vanessa Satten told MTV News in an exclusive interview on Tuesday (October 14).

Satten confirmed with us that XXL will put out another issue before the end of the calender year. Their current October/November issue features 50 Cent’s G-Unit crew on the cover and was reportedly set to be the brand’s last, according to the New York Post.

The initial reports came in September after Harris Publications sold XXL to Townsquare Media, a digital-based giant which raised about $100 million in an initial public offering earlier this year thanks to it’s 331 radio stations and music-based websites. Satten says news of XXL‘s move to a digital-only format came prematurely and after a very swift sale.

It was a whirlwind of a time for the brand’s staff.

“It was a shift early on, everything happened suddenly,” she explained. “We found out [about the sale] on a Monday, we’re packing on a Tuesday and we’re in the new office by Wednesday morning. We were surprised by the whole thing.”

Before the sale, XXL was on a bi-monthly publishing schedule, but starting in 2015 the mag will come out four times a year, a Townsquare rep tells us. Satten also assured fans that the brand’s annual freshman issue isn’t going anywhere.

“We’ll do another issue this year, several issues next year, I’m not exactly sure what the number is, we’ll figure it out but [they’ll] definitely [be] magazines next year,” she said of the new and developing plan with Townsquare. “There’ll definitely be Freshmen and we’re going on with a new company.”

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