US: New York Times expands video/entertainment holdings

Posted by John Burke on August 29, 2006 at 12:50 PM

The New York Times Company has acquired Baseline StudioSystems, a subscription TV and film database service used by Hollywood and video production companies. The site will be used to add depth to the company's entertainment reporting and blogs through biographies and other features that Baseline provides.

Vivian Schiller, SVP and General Manager of nytimes.com, reacted favorably to the news, commenting, "The Baseline data, in terms of film and TV credits and biographies together with our movie and TV criticism, is a home run. The more traffic we have, the more visibility we have, and the happier our advertisers will be."

The acquisition could help boost Hollywood advertising for NYT.com as Tinseltown strays increasingly from print to announcing its upcoming releases on the Internet.

PaidContent reports that the deal will bring the Times Co. more subscription revenue which it expects to reach $6 million this year.

The information in Baseline could also tie in nicely with the Times feature TimesTopics which highlights names and events in an article that when clicked on deliver the reader to a page containing relevant information as well as all Times articles concerning the subject.

Source: MediaPost, PaidContent

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