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Michael Ausiello to exit Entertainment Weekly

One of Hollywood's leading scribe has been poached to set up a new TV website.

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Many readers of this site would be familiar with US news as reported by Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly / EW.com. He has a knack for getting great scoops on casting, Pilots, axings and more.

Ausiello will be leaving EW to embark on a new media enterprise owned by media and publishing company MMC, which owns industry heavyweight site Deadline with Nikki Finke. Finke’s site was a must-read during the US Writer’s strike and she  famously sold it for around $10m several years ago, but continues as a Editor in Chief.

MMC also owns HollywoodLife.com and Movieline.com.

Ausiello’s yet-to-be-named website will debut in January 2011, promising “top reporters will be added to complement Ausiello in MMC’s and Ausiello’s quest to build the finest TV site in the world.”

During the creation of the new venture fans will still be able to get read breaking news by following Ausiello on Twitter. He already has 1.2 million Twitter followers.

The poaching of Ausiello is at least his second high profile switch. Entertainment Weekly poached him from TV Guide a number of years ago.

“My decision to leave the best job I’ve ever had, at one of the best entertainment brands, was not arrived at lightly. But I had been following what Jay Penske and the MMC team have achieved over the last few years, and the chance to build a property with MMC solely focused on TV is a great opportunity,” said Ausiello. “I’m incredibly excited.”

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva at Deadline.com will continue her coverage with TV stories cross-pollinating between the new TV site and Deadline.com. “After competing with Michael for scoops for so long, I’m extremely happy to have him join our team,” Andreeva said.

“Over the past few years, Michael has become a top-notch TV reporter with an army of loyal fans larger than any other consumer TV journalist.”

Source: Deadline

9 Responses

  1. Yeah, he might get exclusive news… except he rarely does. Stuff he posts as exclusive news is hardly ever exclusive and often not even news.

    He’s like commercial network news to Deadline or THR’s ABC News. Not entirely useless, but far more populist and sensationalist.

  4. News about writers, directors, producers, execs is fine, they make television. But its not 60 Minutes, the reporter isn’t the story is what I’m saying.

  5. I do like his scoops. I’d just love it if he dropped the irrititating “sources confirm to me exclusively” that appears in just about all of his pieces. Still, I’ve followed him from his previous site (was it THR?) to EW, and I’ll certainly follow him to the new one.

  7. Ben I would have thought there was plenty of TV news here. I have always written about behind the scenes people from writers, directors, producers, execs and critics. I don’t plan to change that anytime soon. Many readers here are devotees of Ausiello’s work.

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