OK! Publisher Adds to His Empire of High Culture
In your positive Monday media column: Richard Desmond buys a TV network, HuffPo personifies the mysterious blog world, Mitch Albom is celebrated for some reason, media job moves are afoot, and Kathie Lee and Hoda are still there.
- Fabulously rich OK! publisher Richard Desmond has bought himself the British TV channel Five, "a free broadcast channel whose staple programming consists of reruns of U.S. television series like 'CSI' and 'Grey's Anatomy.'" Richard Desmond never stops contributing to world culture!
- The mystery of HuffPo: a huge number of readers, but relatively low profit per reader per year, compared to traditional media operations. Five thousand comments per linkbait story doesn't pay, for some reason? Could it be because dumb people don't buy stuff? No, the opposite is actually the case! Whoever solves this mystery will win the internet.
- Wealthy Tuesdays With Morrie pap merchant and peddler of the most vomit-inducing brand of feel-good sports hackery Mitch Albom won an award for being a good sportswriter, and now various people are upset for various reasons which we won't go into detail about here except to say that their disgust is, of course, well-founded.
- Various jobs are being filled by various people, in the media! National Journal is looking for "extreme talent!" Acting editor Ellen Rosenbush is now the new editor of Harper's Magazine! And Aaron Gell is the new online managing editor of the New York Observer! Congratulations to everyone able to hold down a full time job in the media today! It ain't easy.
- Hoda and Kathie Lee celebrated 600 shows together, and 492 cocktails, for Hoda.