harvey levin

It looks like John Mayer had a good time last night at Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn. As the 30-year-old crooner was leaving the exclusive West Village eatery, apparently alone, a TMZ videographer rolled as Mr. Mayer sounded off.

In the midst of his rant, he accuses TMZ.com managing editor Harvey Levin of abusing the freedom of information act by subpeoning Mr. Mayer's thoughts—specifically the ones he had on September 14, 2007.

“The reason I’m so worried about this night is that I had a little bit too much to drink that night and I fell asleep with the gay network Logo on,” he told them with a straight face, pausing to look at the ground for a few moments. “A lot of dreams were had that night and if they ever get out, they represent a very small fraction of my day.”  read more »

Yesterday’s news that Us Weekly blogger Noelle Hancock (a former Observer staffer) is jumping ship to the soon-to-relaunch PageSix.com got us thinking about what the Post’s plans are for the new Web site. (We understand that the Post—through photo editor Dave Boyle; not Page Six editor Richard Johnson—has made offers to at least five Us staffers, though Ms. Hancock is the only one to jump ship thus far.) Gawker reported that the site is trying to staff up, especially on the West Coast, where TMZ currently has a stranglehold on the minutiae of what goes down every night at Les Deux.

However! A quick glance at the Nielsen/NetRatings stats for the past three months shows that the only celebrity site that’s shown growth is People.com, which had 6.5 million unique U.S. visitors in September, up by more than 1.5 million since July. TMZ’s growth appears to have stagnated in the same time period, though that site’s traffic still dwarves People’s: In July, TMZ recorded nearly 10.3 million visitors, which dipped to 9.4 million in August and jumped back up to July levels in September. By contrast, UsMagazine.com’s traffic has stagnated at around the 1 million mark since July, and Perez Hilton’s uniques have gone from 2.4 million in July to 2.2 million in September.

Taken together, the numbers point to what can only be a worrying trend for celebrity news and gossip sites: there is, perhaps, some audience fatigue. TMZ recently laid off one of its New York-based staffers, who was writing for the Web site; this staffer was told that the site was restructuring. Of course, TMZ also has its own successful venture in TMZ TV, for which Web site managing editor Harvey Levin serves as executive producer. Mr. Levin created the tabloid TV show Celebrity Justice in 2002, and some have speculated that since the show was canceled in 2005, Mr. Levin has been plotting his triumphant return to tabloid TV—an outlet that is ultimately much more lucrative than a Web site. Still, a TMZ spokeswoman told us that both the TV show and the Web site will continue moving “full-steam ahead” for the foreseeable future.  read more »