TMZ’s Future Under AOL: Armstrong’s Views
Last week we reported that TMZ had stopped its ad sales arrangement with its JV owner AOL, and raised some questions about AOL’s stake in the celeb site following the portal’s spin-off from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). Staci asked AOL CEO Tim Armstrong about it in her long interview with him, but thought best to break out his response:
“Are you disappointed that AOL is no longer selling advertising for one of its own properties, TMZ, and is that something that might happen more?
Armstrong: No. As a matter of fact I think we have to look at TMZ from an ownership perspective so if you ask me is TMZ selling their own ads a good thing or not a good thing in relation to AOL, I would say,
Harvey Levin is a smart and savvy guy. What does he need AOL for? Armstrong's party line is jive. If he knows the TMZ "people" well, and has talked to them "multiple times", TMZ obviously had a clause in their partnership with TW that allowed them to blow off AOL….so they did.
Bringing up Popeater was a low rent slam at Harvey and TMZ. If Popeater is such a big deal, then why did TW not roll it out into a TV show?
Get your stats right, Tim. Alexa has TMZ traffic ranked at 383 with 4.4 min/day in time spent compared to Popeater being ranked at 658 and 2.7 min/day over the past six months.
How does Armstrong figure Popeater with twice the traffic of TMZ? It is close to the opposite.
Rather than just publishing whatever stats people like Armstrong spout, you guys should verify the accuracy.