AOL teaming up with Ellen DeGeneres online

[September 07, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- AOL is adding talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres to its family of Web properties as it looks for ways to draw more people to its sites.

The company will begin sharing traffic, content and promotions with the website for "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," starting Tuesday. AOL sites such as KitchenDaily.com and Popeater will promote DeGeneres and provide links to her site, and vice versa.

No money is changing hands. The company that produces the TV show, Telepictures Productions, will still have control over what appears on the show's site and will sell the ad space next to it.

The deal is part of a strategy at AOL Inc. of hitching itself to established brands that complement its own original content. That, AOL hopes, will help it replace revenue from its shrinking dial-up Internet business with online advertising sales.

In a similar arrangement, AOL launched a new site this summer called Cambio with the Jonas Brothers, the famed Disney trio. The company says it expects more deals along these lines this fall.

Telepictures Productions is a unit of Time Warner Inc., which spun off AOL into a separate company last year.

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.