Does the world need another entertainment web site?
    Alan Mruvka thinks it does. 
    Mruvka, founder of E! Entertainment Television in 1987 and now CEO of Filmtown Entertainment, yesterday announced the launch of CelebStreet.com, a new entertainment portal that officially debuts tomorrow.
   CelebStreet.com will go live in full-blown L.A. fashion. Actress Pamela Anderson Lee will flip a switch at the Internet World trade show at 2 p.m. PDT Wednesday to put the site online.
    Only five months in the making, CelebStreet.com will feature both original video and text content. 
     There will be seven basic content sections: movies, music, television, fashion, auctions and celebrities. There will also be a section devoted to webcams that will show visitors the views from live online cameras at parties, premieres, movie and TV studios and other Hollywood locations.
   Among the companies that have signed strategic- partner relationships with CelebStreet are TV Guide and Global Fulfillment.
    The site will depend upon both advertising and e-commerce for revenue. There will be standard banners and sponsorships available, says Mruvka, and CelebStreet.com will also sell 15-second commercial spots in conjunction with the streaming content.
    The main reason Mruvka believes the world needs another entertainment web site is because he doesn’t think the web really has any yet.
    "The plain fact is the internet stinks right now," he says. "Sure there are entertainment sites out there—there’s Hollywood.com, E! Online, Mr. Showbiz, all of which are not very entertaining. I think the trick to having an entertainment site is you have to be entertaining."
   Mruvka doesn’t think he needed to be first in as long as he does it well.
   "In a broad stroke we’re lumped into the ‘entertainment site’ category," he says. "But there’s only one person who’s done it before and that’s me. I’m the only guy who’s started a successful entertainment network."
    "All these other entertainment sites are basically cut and paste UPI articles. People don’t need to go to CelebStreet.com to read a UPI article. CelebStreet is set up as a TV network, and more as magazine than a newspaper.
   "Just to have a news article on entertainment isn’t going to motivate someone to log onto CelebStreet," he says.
   He says that CelebStreet, like a magazine, will have a strong voice that will be evident across all its features. He identifies the voice as "fun and irreverent."
   And the reason CelebStreet.com is like a TV network, he says, is that it has been created to be watched if the user wants to. Thought by many to be one of the internet’s strong suits, interactivity to Mruvka is somewhat overrated.
    "One of the things I don’t like about the internet is that the sites are passive and the user has to be proactive. So I’ve tried to create a proactive site. A user can if he wants be passive. If you want you can go cook dinner and an "Entertainment Tonight"-like program will be on."
   Among the people signed on to host CelebStreet programs are ex-MTVers Julie Brown and Ricky Rachman.
   CelebStreet will also be a repository of movie trailers and music videos. There will be 7,000 of each of these for viewers to choose to watch.
    Auctions will be another specialty. CelebStreet has a deal with a major Hollywood auction house and expects to offer items above and beyond standard memorabilia.
    Mruvka says the site will auction seven genuine Marilyn Monroe dresses, the hat Vivian Leigh wore in "Gone With the Wind" and Will Smith’s jumpsuit from "Independence Day," among other things.
    And of course e-commerce will be a big part of the site. CelebStreet will offer 1.8 million DVD, VHS, CD, videogame and book titles in six languages. The site will accept 150 currencies and have distribution outlets in a half-dozen countries.
    This is Mruvka’s first internet project. This he believes is an advantage.
   "I come to the internet with fresh eyes because I’m not an internet guy. I come along and I look at it and I can see what’s wrong with it. I’m a TV programmer. So if someone shows me a chunky full-motion video on the internet I think it looks terrible. I think that’s a real positive for me."
   CelebStreet will lean towards a youthful look and feel, says Mruvka, but he is not aiming the site at that narrow a demographic. "Look, people say the movie-going audience is 18 to 34. But it isn’t really. The audience that loves movies is 8 to 80. The site is slanted to be young and hip but we’re really going after a bigger audience than that."
   And how does he plan to drive them to the site on a medium with an almost literally endless supply of programming alternatives?
    "You have to be creative to get attention," he says. "We have a lot of co-promotion deals in the works that will get a lot of eyeballs to the site. You have to be creative and entertaining. I don’t think a billboard saying CelebStreet.com is going to drive people to the site"
   Mruvka was executive producer of more than 8,000 hours of TV on E! from its founding in 1987 until he turned control over to HBO in 1990. He also created and executive produces USA Network’s "Pacific Blue," among other cable programs.

-Jeremy Schlosberg is the senior editor for new media. 

                     Cover Page | Contact Us