John McKie, the former editor of the music magazine, Q, has agreed a £20,000-plus payoff from Emap after he threatened legal action following his abrupt dismissal last year.
The publisher has narrowly avoided an embarrassing public employment tribunal after settling out of court with McKie, a respected journalist who has also edited Smash Hits and worked on the Londoner's Diary for the Evening Standard.
The tribunal was scheduled for today but McKie agreed an eleventh-hour settlement after Emap upped its compensation offer.
Q's editorial director, Paul Trynka, and other senior Emap executives would have faced a gruelling cross-examination at the tribunal had it gone ahead.
McKie is thought to have received a £20,000-plus payoff. He was sacked last July after just four months in the post.
"We can confirm that we have settled but I can't say anything else," said a spokeswoman for Emap.
But management at the company will be hoping the settlement will bring to an end a troubled period in Q's history.
Danny Ecclestone, who took over the editorship after McKie, is the fourth person to edit the magazine in the space of a year.
Former editor Andy Pemberton, who resigned suddenly in the summer of 2000 amid reports that Emap had not been happy with the magazine's direction, was replaced by Andrew Harrison on an interim basis.
McKie, who had had a successful editorship of Smash Hits, took over the editorship of Q in a bid to make the magazine appeal to a "broad church" of readers.
He has consistently refused to discuss his situation and today said he had no comment on the settlement.
McKie's suddeen dismissal raised eyebrows at Emap. At the time, Trynka, who is in charge of the overall editorial strategy of the group, said McKie was "a creative guy" but added that "ultimately we need someone different to drive the magazine forward".
Insiders said McKie's vision for the magazine - aimed at the more serious end of the music market - clashed with that of Trynka and other Emap executives.
Q's circulation is relatively stable at 200,000 per month, but Emap is monitoring an overall trend of declining circulations for music magazines, which has claimed the scalps of the veteran Melody Maker and the Britpop bible Select in the past year.
