Starlounge Launches in Brasil!

Starlounge Brasil, a new Portuguese-language celebrity news site: http://www.starlounge.com.br/, officially launched on April 12.   Over 400 clients, celebrities and journalists attended the site’s launch event at The Society Club in São Paulo.

Starlounge Brasil is a collaboration between Turner Latin America and Starlounge in Europe.

In 2010, Turner Europe took an equity stake in Sweden-based Starlounge, the number one celebrity news site in Europe.  Turner Latin America saw a strong fit with its portfolio to roll out the division’s first stand-alone digital brand and targeted Brazil, the biggest online advertising market in Latin America, as their starting point.

Turner Latin America partnered with Terra to launch the site; Starlounge will provide a backbone of international celebrity content, manage site operations and provide local coverage through a Brazil-based editorial team while Terra will drive audience to the Starlounge site by incorporating Starlounge content (and links back to the Starlounge site) into the lifestyle and celebrity coverage.   In turn, Turner will act as Starlounge’s exclusive commercial representative inLatin America including representing the site for ad sales and all forms of future business development.   This is the first time Turner Latin America has collaborated with an outside company to co-launch a new property in this manner.

The partners are in discussions to roll out Spanish-language versions of Starlounge in key Latin American countries in the future.

In partnership with their shareholders Turner Broadcasting Systems, Starlounge will be published on the Terra portal in Brazil and feature exclusive and original local and international celebrity news. More information will be released soon.

Turner Broadcasting invests in Swedish celebrity news website, Starlounge

Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) Europe, home to brands including Cartoon Network, TNT and CNN,  today announced an equity investment in Swedish media company Starlounge, Europe’s leading online provider of quality celebrity news, with operations in 12 countries in 11 languages.

The announcement comes as Starlounge achieves new traffic highs, recording 16.2 m monthly unique visitors, and as it embarks on aggressive launch plans in several new markets between now and the end of 2011.

For Turner, the move is the second investment within months  in Europe, following on from its recent acquisition of MMG, and signals possible content synergies from its TCM and TNT movie and general entertainment channels, as well as Hollywood-centric content from international news channel CNN.

“The investment is both strategic and commercial in aspiration”, said Jeff Kupsky, president TBS Europe. “With the great fit between our existing assets across both entertainment and news, and similar international expansion goals, over time we see opportunities across content, digital ad sales, sponsorship and promotion and business development. We are excited by the possibilities for geographical scale and audience growth that this new alliance represents for both parties.”

“We are very pleased that a diverse global media company has chosen us as its business partner. This is proof that Starlounge is a serious player in the media sector. Interest in celebrity news is on the increase and our aim is to become the number one celebrity news channel internationally. With Turner, we will be able to continue our development into new markets beyond Europe and to become the best global channel for news about celebrities, irrespective of media platform,” says Hans Becker, CEO and co-founder of Starlounge.

Starlounge has expanded rapidly since its launch and is now the world’s second-largest celebrity website. From late December, Starlounge will be available in 15 countries, when the media company launches sites in Ireland, Finland and Russia. It has signaled its intention for further launches in 2011, including in the UK, France and Spain.

“Our success so far is proof that our concept of high-quality celebrity news works. We have our own editors for all markets, which means that we are able to monitor both local and international celebrities. This is unique and is a reason for Starlounge’s expansion, as there are major differences in the different markets,” says Hans Becker.

“Turner’s expanding presence in the EMEA territory consists off  61 news, kids and entertainment channel feeds in 23 languages , so there are a whole range of prospective content  and distribution synergies across TV and Digital platforms,” added Kupsky.

About Turner Broadcasting System
Turner, a Time Warner company,  operates a number of internationally renowned brands in the media sector, such as CNN, TNT and TCM. Turner recently acquired Nordic company MMG, adding further to its diverse portfolio of brands in the news and entertainment space.

About Starlounge
Stockholm-based media company Starlounge was founded  in 2005 by entrepreneur Hans Becker together with Zoran Grahovac.  The growth of the business really took off when Starlounge became an important partner and main provider of celebrity news for MSN.se in 2007. This collaboration with MSN has since gradually expanded and now covers 12 countries. With over 16 million unique visitors per month, it has local editors throughout Europe producing content in 11 languages and from December 2010 will be available in 15 countries, with more to come in 2011.

Turner Broadcasting invests in Starlounge Press Release

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Swedish Version
Dutch Version
English Version
German Version
Italian Version

Hans Becker CEO Starlounge International

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