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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

That’s Entertainment: Old vs. New Media
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Entertain us…please! One of the true growth engines in Web traffic this year is entertainment news, which shot up 7% according to comScore data. More than 55 million Americans visited gossip, movie and celebrity news sites in May, but the most explosive growth is in the streaming media category where 53% more of us watched entertainment news video than in May last year.

The most interesting aspect of the entertainment category is the rich mix of media types users visit, from new brands at major portals to upstart blog hits, to TV shows to venerable celebrity magazine brands. Demonstrating the raw power of the portal to drive traffic, the two top sites in the category are attached to Yahoo and AOL respectively. Yahoo’s omg! is the runaway leader in the group, with 20.6 million uniques, up 65% since last year. AOL’s TMZ has 9.9 million (+7%), albeit before its scoop of Michael Jackson’s death in June. A cluster of celebrity magazines occupies the next three positions in the rankings. People.com (8.2 million unique) was off 10% from May last year, but arch-rival USMagazine.com (6.5 million) benefitted from substantial investment in the online property from parent Wenner Media to increase its traffic 325%. Also on the rise is People.com’s Time, Inc. sister brand EW.com (3.9 million), which saw a 64% traffic increase. That site’s PopWatch group blog has become a popular destination as has its much-enhanced video programming.

Curiously, the TV brands such as E! Online (3.7 million unique), TheInsider (2.5 million unqiues) and AccessHollywood (2.2 million unique) do not dominate the portal and magazine brands in this category. Traditionally on-air TV brands have had a distinct advantage in driving awareness of Web counterparts. But in the celebrity and entertainment news category, the weeklies seem to exert special credibility and cross-platform power. And while many snarky gossip blogs pepper the Web, only one, PerezHilton.com (2.4 million uniques) has broken through to the top ten.

When it comes to entertainment sites’ share of video viewing, however, the magazine brands start falling away. TMZ dominates that category with 10.2 million streams in April 2009, almost triple the number of streams at also-ran omg!. The only magazine brands to appear on the top ten video sites in the entertainment category are SoapOperaDigest.com and EW.com. As video becomes a more important part of the content mix for entertainment news surfers, the magazine brands may come under increasing pressure to follow EW's lead and diversify the platforms.

If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com

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