The Weinstein Company, publisher American Media and Jupiter Entertainment have banded together for a content creation and distribution company that will target television, film and digital mediums.
The programming venture will be lead by TWC’s TV head Patrick Reardon, Jupiter CEO Stephen Land and American Media’s Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard.
“There is an enormous, untapped opportunity at AMI to develop unique and engaging programming,” TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein said in a statement.
AMI, which counts Ron Burkle as an investor, has a robust stable of brands that lend themselves to this kind of partnership — the strongest being entertainment titles like Star magazine, RadarOnline, OK! and the National Enquirer. It also owns lifestyle titles like Men’s Fitness.
“Producers have long relied on the investigative reporting from our magazines as source material to create non-fiction television,” Howard said. “This innovative partnership will directly leverage the world-class reporting of our titles, editors and journalists to create the most authoritative programming in the category.”
TWC has a hugely successful TV division, mostly in the reality genre, with projects like “Project Runway” and its spinoffs, “Mob Wives” and “Mob Wives Chicago” on VH1 and “Myrtle Manor” on TLC.
Jupiter, founded in 1996, counts several projects on the air including Animal Planet’s “Wild West Alaska,” Oxygen’s “Snapped” and Investigation Discovery’s “Homicide Hunter.”
The new venture has yet to announce a development slate.