Bloomberg Businessweek

52

Bloomberg Businessweek August 20, 2018

TMZ’s business team places the company’s annual reve-

nue in the ballpark of$100 million. This might not be much

for AT&T, but celebrity news sites contribute value in other

ways. Access to famous entertainers and favors doled out on

their behalf can be its own form of currency—even more so if

there’s a chance a celebrity could someday be a U.S. president.

This has worked for TMZ before. During his transition from

TV performer to commander in chief, Donald Trump showed

a shrewd understanding of the political value of outlets such as

TMZ and theNational Enquirer, both of which helped protect

Trump’s Hollywood-enhanced image against an onslaught of

investigative reporting. As the distance between Washington

and Hollywood closes, Levin may have hit upon a strategy for

bringing back TMZ’s clout.

Levin has always been interested in politics. He was

involved in political debates in high school and majored

in political science at the University of California at Santa

Barbara. Afterward he earned a law degree from the

University of Chicago and spent several years in academia

before entering the media industry. During the 1990s he

became a local TV news reporter in L.A. When the O.J.

Simpson trial captured the world’s attention, he was there,

rubbing elbows with the city’s top lawyers, including

Simpson’s then-friend and attorney, Robert Kardashian.

In the early 2000s, Levin began producing the syndi-

cated Warner Bros. TV news showCelebrity Justice, which

reveled in the legal chicanery of the stars. Back then, Time

Warner executives were feverishly trying to invent corpo-

rate synergies with newly acquired America Online. One idea

they seized on was to create a celebrity news website that

would combine AOL’s technology with Warner Bros.’ TV con-

tent, particularly the many interviews from the syndicated

showExtra. As the idea percolated, Levin’s TV show was

canceled. He accepted an ofer to run the site, which came

to be named TMZ, for Thirty Mile Zone, a reference to L.A.’s

historic studio district.

Inside a dreary space in Glendale, at a safe remove from

the constricting internal politics on the Warner lot, Levin set

up a gossip skunkworks. After years of legal reporting, he

knew that juicy information was half-buried in the L.A. court

system, awaiting anyone who understood how to uncover it.

TMZ hired a young staf, whom he trained in this impish art.

Scoops started to low, and the brand grew.

In the fall of 2007, he introduced a daily show calledTMZ on

TV. Levin would stand in the newsroom, discussing the celeb-

rity news of the day with a cast of hip young reporters. The

tone was snarky; the production costs, minimal. Fox picked

up the show, and it soon began attracting sizable audiences.

According to a former TMZ employee, TV revenue quickly

surpassed web revenue. Warner Bros. later signed Levin to a

so-called overall deal, which paid him handsomely to create

TV shows. “People in Hollywood don’t necessarily like Harvey

Levin, but they respect the empire that Harvey has built,” says

Kevin Blatt, a Hollywood publicist and gossip broker who’s sold

tips to TMZ in the past. According to Blatt, the website “became

incredible at breaking huge news stories.”

Even as TMZ made Levin inluential in the entertainment

industry, he remained engaged in politics. “We’ve always

viewed politicians to be just another branch of the celeb-

rity tree,” Beckerman says. In 2007 Levin sent an emissary

to Washington to scout oice space and interview potential

hires for a gossip venture. But two former TMZ employees

say Time Warner decided it had too many regulatory issues

at stake on Capitol Hill to have gossip reporters running amok

there. The company killed the project before it could begin.

Levin’s aspirations to political inluence appeared to fester.

And then came Trump.

Thanks to his role on NBC’s The Apprentice and former own-

ership of the Miss Universe pageant, Trump had long served

as a minor recurring TMZ character. Along the way, Levin had

befriended Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and ixer,

who appeared occasionally on TMZ shows. Levin is a longtime

supporter of various liberal causes and is passionate about

gay rights and preventing animal cruelty. But as the 2016 gen-

eral election heated up, he saw an opportunity to make TMZ

a bigger player in Washington. He seemed to back the GOP

ticket despite Vice President Mike Pence’s standing as a bête

noire of the gay and lesbian community. TMZ assisted Trump,

in particular by countering reports of his allegedly boorish

behavior within the entertainment world—the type of stories

TMZ might at least have been expected to capitalize on, if not

expose. At one point, when Trump was taking ire in the press

for his allegedly creepy behavior toward women backstage at

his beauty pageants, TMZ published a video in which former

Miss Teen USA Katie Blair testiied to Trump’s gentlemanly

behavior, called him an honest man, and categorically shot

down any suggestion that he’d acted inappropriately toward

other contestants. “I have great respect for him as a boss, as a

businessman,” Blair said.

TMZ’s support paid of. In the fall of 2016, the candidate

sat down at Trump Tower with Levin for a lattering hourlong

interview that aired on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News just after

the election. Levin went on to sellObjectiiedto the network.

In March 2017 he went to Washington and met again with

Trump, this time inside the Oval Oice. According to the Daily

Beast, Trump later did a favor for Levin, helping him arrange

an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

(TMZ’s Beckerman says Trump wasn’t involved.)

Levin’s chumminess with Trump was hardly a secret to

TMZ’s staf. Every day dozens of its ield producers lie in wait

outside L.A. restaurants, nightclubs, and airport terminals,

armed with newsy topics to raise during ilmed encounters

with celebrities. According to two former employees, though,

one topic was essentially verboten during the 2016 presiden-

tial election and the administration’s irst year: Trump-related

controversies. It was widely understood that Trump-bashing

wouldn’t make it on the air.

“He’s an entertainer, like Ronald Reagan ...