Yahoo Will Drop ‘omg!’ Brand from Celebrity News Site
Yahoo is abandoning “omg!” as the name of its celebrity-news site — the company’s biggest entertainment property and one of the Internet’s top destinations — replacing the Valley-speak-tinged name with “Yahoo Celebrity” in an apparent bid to widen the audience.
The change also means that CBS TV Distribution’s entertainment newsmagazine “omg! Insider,” which had teamed with Yahoo to coordinate their celebrity coverage one year ago, will revert to its original appellation, “The Insider.” The name changes will take effect on Monday, Jan. 6.
SEE ALSO: The Test of Both Worlds for ‘omg! Insider’
Yahoo omg! had 32.4 million unique monthly visitors in November 2013, down from 36.2 million in June, according to comScore. Still, that means the site for November had broader reach than Gawker Media, Disney Online and Condé Nast Digital.
Though CBS Television Distribution’s “The Insider” will return to its original brand name, the newsmag will continue to team with Yahoo for celeb news, Variety has confirmed. “Insider” initially blended the “omg!” brand into coverage in a bid to distinguish its program in a sea of competitor newsmags, including sibling show “E.T.” But the syndie series failed to see a true lift in ratings after the “omg!” rebranding.
Yahoo downplayed the decision to drop “omg!” as a straightforward rebrand. “It’s just a name change — there’s nothing changing about the site,” a rep for the Internet company said. The partnership with CBS Television Distribution remains unchanged, she added.
Yahoo simply wanted to make the name “more reflective of the content on the website,” the rep said. According to Yahoo, the decision was made by a team and not a single exec. The Internet media company launched omg! in June 2007.
AJ Marechal contributed to this report.
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