Adweek was founded in June 1978 by a trio of former magazine executives—Jack Thomas, publisher of New York magazine, Ken Fadner, a former vice president of finance at New York and Esquire, and Pen Tudor, a sales executive at Life—who joined together to purchase three regional advertising trade publications in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The owners wanted to provide a regional focus on advertising industry’s creative process, account changes, and decision makers.
In 1981, Thomas, Fadner, and Tudor brought in the designer Walter Bernard to revamp the publications—which by then included editions in Atlanta and Dallas—under a single banner, which Bernard dubbed ''Adweek''. It was to be a national publication with regional editions, with an overall look was more consumer magazine than trade sheet. The following year, Clay Felker, the storied magazine editor, founder of New York, and father of “New Journalism,” joined ''Adweek'' and became editor-in-chief, a post he held until 1986. Felker’s tenure established ''Adweek'' as a hipper, more mainstream version of the standard trade publication and ushered in the era of modern advertising criticism.
''Adweek'' experienced a series of ownership changes throughout the following two decades. BPI Communications purchased ASM in 1991, adding ''Adweek'' to a roster of magazines that already included Billboard (magazine) and The Hollywood Reporter. In 1994, BPI was bought by the Dutch firm VNU, which changed its name to the Nielsen Company in 2007 after acquiring Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen.
Meanwhile, ''Adweek'' had produced two sister publications, Brandweek to cover brand marketing and Mediaweek to cover the media business, all three of which fell under the AdweekMedia banner. Adweek's regional divisions were discontinued in 2003 and replaced by a single national edition. Nielsen sold the magazines to its current owner, e5 Global Media (now known as Prometheus), in 2009.
In October 2010, Michael Wolff, a longtime columnist at Vanity Fair, author of the controversial Rupert Murdoch biography, The Man Who Owns the News, and founder of news aggregation website, Newser, was named editorial director of AdweekMedia. Wolff reunited and relaunched its three divisions under the ''Adweek'' name in 2011, returning the magazine to the objective that its three original owners intended: to provide an insightful, forward-thinking magazine that appeals to consumers and advertising professional alike. Adweek still operates the Advertising blog Adfreak
