Tina Brown: Bringing Projects To HBO - Why?

We weren’t a fan of Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair. Nor her stint editing The New Yorker. Nor have we read any of her books on her Doppelganger, the late, great tabloid sensation Princess Diana. Either we weren’t interested in what she had to say (the books) or we thought her taste, while highbrow and smart, was a slightly off, like Masterpiece Theater with Heather Locklear and Jessica Simpson in crop tops. Now comes word via 70s and 80s gossip maven Liz Smith, who’s still squeezing the juice for the NY Post, that “the amazing Tina Brown” has signed a first-look deal with HBO to bring them exciting projects. Standing ovations to the network for Flight of the Conchords, Entourage (though let’s face it, that show seems to have jumped), and The Wire. We’ll have to wait and see the accented fare Brown serves up. In the meantime, why, when the media world is in a near-frenzied state of change, evolution, and potential for something new and different, do deals like this, deals with 80s throwbacks, get made? For the same reason people by $110 throwback T-shirts plated with old photos of Bob Dylan. Because network execs want to be seen lunching with Brown at New York’s media hot spot Michaels and they want to invite her to their parties. The rest of us pay the tab.