MUMBAI: Media managers have been much hyped in the past as those lovely people who can do little wrong, almost as much as the stars they help create. Well, not so much so any more. InternationalBusiness Week has listed four media executives in its worst managers of 2002 list announced in its latest issue. And they are people who were not so long ago glorified and hailed as corporate Gods.

Ousted chief executives Jean-Marie Messier of France's Vivendi Universal and Thomas Middlehof of Germany's Bertelsmann, Gerald Levin, who retired as CEO of AOL Time Warner, along with his former chief operating officer, Robert Pittman, are three executives who have been lynched by the magazine.

Business Week's list included its 20 best and worst managers, in alphabetical order without rating those within the lists.

Others managers who have found a place on the "worst" managers roster include former McDonald's CEO Jack Greenberg, and in the finance sector, Sandy Weill of Citigroup and Bill Harrison of JP Morgan Chase, both of whom who continue to hold their positions with their firms.

Bill Gates' former partner, Paul Allen, who rolled in the moolah with Microsoft, was polevaulted in the worst managers' list for the poor performance his new venture, the troubled cable firm Charter Communications has been turning out. Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, the audit firm convicted of obstruction of justice in the the Enron blowup, also figures in the list.

Among the big names who made it to the "best managers'" list include Steve Ballmer at Microsoft, Fujio Cho at Toyota, Lindsay Owen-Jones of L'Oreal and Lee Scott of Wal-Mart.