Comcast is buying shopping newsletter DailyCandy for $125 million, which is either a sign that old media is finally "getting it," or that old media can still be convinced to buy things at inflated prices. But in case you needed another signal that old media actually does not get it, look no further than VH1's new blog Scandalist, which launched this week. Not only did its namers take a cue from Web 1.0 (see: Gothamist), but the nature of the site — celebrities, involved in scandals, oooh! — represents a three-years-too-late attempt to join the fray of celeb blog gossip with an insta-tired brand and exactly nothing new to bring to the table, except some traffic dumping from VH1's homepage (which is how AOL drives traffic to any of its dozens of un-read weblogs). Also: It's a lesson VH1 should've already learned. CONTINUED »
The first public photos of Knox and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt have already been taken! And, despite our suggestion to nobody in particular that Brad and Angelina split their newborn twins into two separate photo shoots to really maximize profit potential, the babies were photographed together.
But the babies will be split up in one sense: People magazine has secured North American rights to the photos, while British tabloid Hello!, which sports numerous international editions, will have other worldwide rights.
Sound familiar? That's because People and Hello! teamed up in 2006 to publish Brangelina's other baby, Shiloh.
In the end, the price is pegged somewhere between $11 and $15 million, though that could be off by as much as a multiple of two. And while the price is certainly one for the record books (for now), keep in mind that the price includes two babies; so really, we're talking bargain.
Not that it's any consolation to OK! publisher Richard Desmond. CONTINUED »
Know who's not happy about Britney Spears trying to clean up her act, get her custody situation in order, and perhaps record some new music? The paparazzi. It's sort of been their job, and their windfall, to chronicle all of Ms. Spears antics (attacking a SUV with an umbrella, anyone?). Agencies would have entire crews stalking her around Hollywood, hoping she'd run someone over (perhaps a photog) trying to escape from a parking lot, stop by a public bathroom without shoes, or lay by the pool in her backyard as helicopters hovered above. Now? Now she might as well be Jessica Frickin' Biel: Girl is a waste. CONTINUED »
Joe Dolce, the former Star editor-in-chief who was ushered out with Bonnie Fuller, is trying to generate an income from DolceGoldin, the media strategy firm he formed with former MSNBC editorial director Davidson Goldin. His new agency's biggest client is none other than Oprah foe James Frey — and Frey's ability to get the media to come around to him, even writing positive book reviews about his latest effort, whether their doing or not, is great marketing for their little firm. It's also a chance for Dolce to shed his bad boy tabloid past, where he was all too complicit in the paparazzi-celebrity-magazine exchange, where cash changed hands for stalkerazzi pics, and everybody excused their behavior with "this is what the public wants" excuses. The same line drug dealers use! CONTINUED »
Angelina Jolie. Christina Aguilera. Jessica Alba. Jamie Lynn Spears. Matthew McConaughey. These are all boobs who have sold their baby photos to the highest bidder, making the action of Reproducing While A Celebrity a very profitable business venture. And while money (from $1-15 million) may be the motivating factor in all these cases human trafficking, surely there must be some way to distinguish the types of celebrities who turn their children in revenue generating commodities, yes? Well, somebody is trying to make the case.
Brad Pitt's loudmouthed attorneys at Lavely & Singer are, preemptively, trying to clamp down on a series of photos that "were surreptitiously taken of Mr. Pitt and his family as they engaged in familial activities on private property, namely, in the privacy of the estate in which they are presently residing in France and where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy." Not content with issuing a cease and desist letter after the pictures' publication, L&S want to make sure these photos never make it into the public eye. (Too late, as you'll see.)
Supposedly, the publication of these photos — showing Pitt and wife Angelina Jolie with the kids — infringe not just on Pitt's privacy rights in the State of California, but also in France!
Except, according to one understanding of the law, this is wrong. Oh, and also? In Touch already published the pics. CONTINUED »
Because the two most important things to an editorial cog in the media industry is 1) who is reading you; and 2) how much you are being paid, we shall note that Ben Widdicombe's new editor-at-large gig at Star will earn the ex-Gatecrasher some $125,000 a year. As we understand it, this sum is less than he was earning at the Daily News, but there he was required to file a daily column and party until the wee hours, where at Star he must merely run around town for on-camera gossip reports. (He also plans to attend weekly story meetings at the magazine.) More interesting, though, is that Widdicombe's take home pay is the same as his predecessor Julia Allison, whose one-year deal at the magazine also earned her a reported $125k. That Widdicombe — a veteran gossip columnist who might actually know what he's talking about without researching TMZ.com 10 minutes before taking a live shot — isn't getting a bump in pay from Allison's take must surely be evidence of strict budget restrictions at AMI. It doesn't make it any less appalling that talent is not paid accordingly.
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Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's decision not to sell pictures of their new daughter Sunday to the highest bidding tabloid has many an editor rankled over a lost opportunity to fork over a few million for the exclusive shots. And plenty of rags were willing to do so.
Kidman and Urban are hopping on the human trafficking is wrong theory, foregoing zeroes on a cheque for their mental well-being. And the good possibility that their daughter will grow up resenting her parents.
The couple reportedly have yet to decide whether they'll release an official photo — which would be a smart move, for their privacy's sake, since without anyone scoring the first photos, they'll be hounded by the paparazzi until someone gets it.
Or they could pull a Gwenyth Paltrow/Chris Martin or Sarah Jessica Parker/Matthew Broderick; both couples decided to alert the paparazzi ahead of time, bring their newborns to a public spot for a few minutes, and let the photogs snap away with equal access. It ensures the photo's value is near worthless, and that they'll be able to leave their homes, with their babies, with just 20 photogs in tow. Not 100.
The case could be made that we've already over-analyzed the over-analyzing of Brad and Angelina's baby twins as we tried to find the winners and the losers in previous nine months of baby speculation. But we did some digging through our tabloid archives and found a few shining stars among the blight, where some celebrity weeklies fared better in their guessing game — is she having a boy? a girl? twins? two girls? — than others.
It's not an exhaustive examination of every Brangelina-related baby cover of the past year, which would show that every tabloid got some info right and wrong at some point. But treat it as evidence that plenty of folks didn't really know what they were doing, and that "inside sources" could often be replaced by "magic 8-balls" or "Crazy Aunt Zelda." CONTINUED »
Sorry. No. Absolutely not.
The photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's new kids, Knox and Vivienne, will not be sold with a price tag as high as $20 million, as some outlets are reporting. Sure, "in the celebrity world, it seems to be the double-second coming," as Darryn Lyons, owner of paparazzi agency Big Pictures, tells it. But the fee that either People or OK! hands over, while enormous, will not even come close to the figures being reported. CONTINUED »
As Christopher Ciccone's publicity tour hits full stride this week — the book drops today — you've got the two-part Good Morning America interview, where he spends some time defending his sister's extramarital reputation, to concern yourself with. But there are two places where you might not hear about his scandalous accusations about husband Guy Ritchie's homophobia and his sister's obsession with Kabbalah.
We're hearing reports that neither Entertainment Tonight nor The Insider, both produced by CBS Television Studios, will be airing specials about Ciconne.
How come? Because Madonna's rep had them killed. CONTINUED »
The birth of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's new twins — son Knox Leon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline — is not just the second coming of Jesus, but also the culmination of nine months (longer if you count the speculation period) of a gossip industry frenzy, where celebrity weeklies flew off the shelves with breathless reports about Brangelina's coming spawn, tabloid entertainment shows drew ratings with each new "bump" report, and the gossip blogs recorded traffic spikes anytime they pasted their pages with Brangelina rants and raves. Everybody had an opinion. Everybody was a spectator. And everybody wanted in.
So now that Angelina finally gave birth, via C-section, in Nice, France, the matter of her pregnancy is all over with. And before we even get to figuring out which tabloid is spending the GDP of some small nations on scoring the first exclusive pictures of Knox and Vivienne (we suggest they split the two up, and sell each kid to separate magazines), there's another matter to clear up.
Namely, who actually was on their game with this Brangelina birthing business, and which media outlets were merely along for the ride, picking up the crumbs while others trailblazed the way with either a roster of excellent sources or, equally as plausible, very lucky guesses.
After all, if the biggest mystery is the sex of the twins, there's a 1-in-4 chance of getting it right. CONTINUED »
We already know how People magazine is conducting its Madonna/Alex Rodriguez coverage: By running quotes from her publicist Liz Rosenberg as truths. But how are magazines like riot-inducing Us Weekly getting their information — tips so valid they're calling for the end of Madonna and Guy Ritchie's marriage? An email that arrived in our inbox might shed some light. CONTINUED »
As Madonna fields another wave of negative press with her brother Christopher Ciccone hawking his new book — and handing Good Morning America the get with a two-parter on July 14 and 15 — she also has to deal with shenanigans from the likes of Vanity Fair, which today publishes an Ed Coaster-esque email exchange between Madge and A-Rod. (Madonna addresses Rodriguez as "Slugger" and signs off as "Esther." Authentic!)
This is, of course, just the latest round in the saga that is Madonna and Alex Rodriguez. And the tabloid press is on her ass more than ever.
So we got to thinking: Just what would the tabloids pay for the ultimate get — the first photos of Madonna and Alex Rodriguez together — if such a photo were ever taken?
We asked some high-level industry types to find out what the asking price would be for visual proof this duo has spent personal time together. Hint: Angelina's babies still cost more. CONTINUED »
Backtracking is often the unfortunate side effect of being a professional gossip. Sometimes you get things wrong. Sometimes your sources lead you askew. Sometimes you're so self-sure of your own version of events that you put blinders up against the common thinking that everybody else subscribes to, ignoring tell-tale signs and well-sourced reports so you can do the Slate-y thing and zag where others zig.
It explains how Fox News gossip Roger Friedman went from denying any possibility of Madonna romancing with Alex Rodriguez to plotting out how the duo might've maintained their secret affair. Get on the bus! CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
