Within the last four days, Arianna Huffington and Keith Olbermann, have arguably become the Queen and King, respectively, of New Media. On Sunday, it was announced that AOL had acquired The Huffington Post for a reported $315 million cash deal. Yesterday it was announced that Keith Olbermann had reached an agreement to join Current TV, a cable network founded by former Vice President Al Gore. Both of these moves by two of the most prominent members of American media sent shockwaves through the media landscape.
The Huffington Post was founded by a group led by Huffington in 2005 for a reported $1 million investment. In addition to walking away with a reported $100 million in her pocket, Huffington will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch and StyleList. The Huffington Post can best be described as a left leaning and progressive news website. Prior to this agreement with AOL, The Huffington Post had reached an agreement with BET co-founder Sheila Johnson’s GlobalBlack website, an African-American based website comparable to The Grio and The Root. Black Voices is already an AOL property, so it remains to be seen what happens to that development. On the surface, it would appear this would be a great move for HuffPo. However, this move has not been well received in all corners. Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times in a less than flattering column predicts this move will hurt journalism and compared the business model of The Huffington Post to “a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.” (See Tim Rutten's column in the L.A. Times) Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, took a more subtle approach in an email to readers of her publication. In that email, vanden Heuvel stressed the “independence” of The Nation because it was not owned by a mega media conglomerate. Nevertheless, as media mergers go, this one is big.
The instant Keith Olbermann signed off of his last show on MSNBC, former Vice President Gore immediately began recruiting Olbermann to join Current TV. According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, Gore contacted Olbermann less than 24 hours after he suddenly left MSNBC under mysterious circumstances. (see What REALLY happened between Keith Olbermann and MSNBC) After his departure, speculation ran rampant as to what Olbermann’s next move would be and this announcement answers that speculation.
The move comes with many questions. In addition to hosting his own show, Olbermann will also be Current TV’s Chief News Officer; he basically will have editorial control over Current TV’s news operation. His yet-to-be-named show will air at 8 pm Eastern, going directly against “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell" which moved to his former time slot on MSNBC. Although Current TV is available in 60 million homes (compared to 95 million for MSNBC), not many Americans are familiar with the network. An obvious marketing campaign will have to take place in order to market not only Olbermann’s show, but the network in general. Since Current TV is on the digital band, cable operators will be more than happy to take on that task. In a related story in The Hollywood Reporter, Tim Goodman wonders if this move will make Keith Olberman irrelevant. (see Tim Goodman's story) Although financial terms were not released, it has been reported that he will receive an ownership stake in Current TV.
Instead of both Arianna Huffington and Keith Olbermann REPORTING the news this week, their future endeavors BECAME the news. It will be interesting to see how both of these stories develop.
I can’t wait.
Peace, peace in the Middle East.
Craig Riggins
Follow me on Twitter: @TheProdigal517
Facebook: Craig Riggins
Comments
Post a Comment