You Got New Media In My Old Media

You can call it poaching, selling out, or synergy, but the boundaries between the various forms of media are becoming blurrier by the day.

Popular gossip blog (and Time Warner property) TMZ has just inked a deal with News Corp’s Fox Television, reports the New York Post:

TMZ.com, the celebrity news Web site that made Lindsay Lohan and “firecrotch” synonymous, is coming to television.

The Web site, owned by Time Warner, announced late yesterday a deal with Fox Television to create an eponymous daily, half-hour show that will air on all 35 Fox-owned television stations beginning this fall, including in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the nation’s top three television markets (News Corp. owns both Fox Television and The Post).

In the year since its launch, TMZ.com’s mix of short, colorful bursts of celebrity news often accompanied by paparazzi photographs and video reels has made it the go-to place for exposing celebrity foibles.

A post yesterday on favorite target Tara Reid illustrates the TMZ formula perfectly - included under a headline that read “The Sky Is Falling! Tara Reid Looks Hot!” was a few short paragraphs about the star vacationing in Australia along with a picture of her in a bikini on the beach as well as a video reel titled “Bad Asses” that showed some of Hollywood’s more unattractive backsides in succession.

Time Warner itself is clearly trying to move more aggressively into the online media market. and as one deal is announced, the inevtiable fall of the ax has been heard in the media giant’s old media divisions. They announced layoffs at flagship Time magazine to make room for more Internet-related ventures. In a piece entitled “As Time Inc. Cuts Jobs, One Writer on Britney May Have to Do,” Katharine Q. Seelye and Richard Siklos of the New York Times write:

Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner, is planning to cut more than 150 people, about half of them in editorial jobs across the company’s best-known titles, like People, Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune. The cuts follow about 600 last year, many of them from the company’s business side, and a decision to trim its roster by selling 18 of its roughly 150 titles.

Time Inc.’s top executive, Ann S. Moore, has not yet publicly outlined or discussed the cuts, and she declined to be interviewed for this article. But other executives said that, while Time Inc. remains profitable, with margins of about 18 percent, it is witnessing a downturn in print advertising revenue and increasingly fierce competition from the Internet.

To prepare for the future, they said, the company is cutting costs now and continuing to shift resources to its branded Web sites.

As these ‘content-sharing agreements’ typically involve deals betwween the six largest media companies, it’s hard to tell who’s cannibalizing whom. Continuing in this vein of media-mixing, the Washingtonian is reporting that none other than the Washington Post is reportedly negotiating with Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart to appear on the newspaper’s website:

Tomorrow it could be Jon Stewart on washingtonpost.com.

Sources who are part of the talks report that the Post’s Web site is talking with Comedy Central about joining forces with The Daily Show to cover the 2008 presidential campaign. These sources say that washingtonpost.com CEO & publisher Caroline Little and editor Jim Brady have been part of the conversations in New York.

No one could be reached to confirm the talks.

The prospect of mixing Jon Stewart’s brand of irreverence with Dan Balz’s serious analysis could draw more readers to washingtonpost.com.

Stewart and his zany crew covered the last presidential campaign with a mocking tone that delighted the coveted 25- to 34-year-old demographic. Their DVD—The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Indecision 2004—was a big seller. Many viewers thought that Stewart and crew at the conventions were much more entertaining than the talking heads on the evening news—or on cable.

Making a deal with Comedy Central would bring the Washington Post Company together with Viacom, which owns the cable network. At the upper echelons, the Post already is in league with Microsoft, with Melinda Gates on its board of trustees. A deal with Comedy Central would link the Post to Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom. The Post also collaborates with MSNBC and the Wall Street Journal.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I hope Jon Stewart corrupts the Wash Post, and not the other way around.

At 63+ I’m with Joanne–the Daily Show provides not only more news, but also more truth. And, having stopped subscribing to the Post when they endorsed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I’m with Dana and Shirley, as well. Let’s hope the Post does not corrupt Jon Stewart.