Buzz Watch: Gossip Blogs are the New Guilty Pleasure

Authored by Jay Baage on August 17, 2006 - 2:27pm.

Celebrity blogs are getting a lot of hits these days. Just look at TMZ.com. The blog broke the story of Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest and anti-Semitic comments, which spread like wildfire over the Internet and into collective consciousness. The blog now reports getting over 10 million unique visitors daily.

TMZ's managing editor Harvey Levin recently explained to the Hollywood Reporter what his vision for the site is:

"Here's the deal: My job is not to dictate what people should look at, and it's ridiculous for anyone to do that. People have choices now ... and if they want to see Britney Spears coming out of Starbucks, who am I to judge," he says. "We present an unvarnished look at entertainment. We're not another venue to show wax figures on a red carpet ... we want to show what's real."

That gossip and celebrity news have a broad appeal is nothing new. Just look at the extraordinary success of magazines like People and US Weekly. Us Weekly's average circulation has doubled since 2001, rising to 1.6 million last year. Circulation of People, owned by Time Warner, rose to 3.7 million from 3.5 million in the same period, according to Bloomberg News. Us Weekly is now also competing with In Touch Weekly and Star, owned by American Media, for ad money. Ad revenue at In Touch, published by Hamburg-based Bauer Publishing, soared 87% in the first half, while Star's ad sales gained 34%.

But things are changing in favor of online gossip. People are realizing that gossip and the Internet is a match made in heaven. You can get immediate access to uncensored material that has not been under the scrutiny of any considerable editorial judgment. Like Yahoo Buzz points out: “What else is corporate bandwidth for, after all, than an excuse to soak in a brief but nurturing session with Go Fug Yourself before starting the work week?”

FYI: TMZ is an old-school term for Hollywood's 30-mile production zone.

Except for TMZ, here are some other hot gossip blogs that score high on Yahoo! Buzz Index.
0.      Defamer
0.      pagesix.com
0.      hollywoodrag.com
0.    The Superficial
0.      Hollywood Tuna
0.      popsugar.com
0.      Dlisted
0.      perezhilton.com
0.      Just Jared
0.      Pink is the New Blog