Maybe Van Veen has been spending too much time with his purported bestie Ben Silverman, the former NBC executive who takes credit for the likes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Weakest Link. Because we can't imagine Van Veen's media sugar daddy Barry Diller envisioned this sort of thing when he funded Van Veen's studio, Notional, four months ago. It's such a retro format for a "multi platform" studio that's supposed to be inventing the future. Here's some of what's slated:

• "READY, SET, DANCE!: In partnership with a major production entity, "Ready, Set, Dance!" is a first-of-its-kind dance competition series that seamlessly combines the web and television."
• "YOU VS. AMERICA: Currently in development, 'You vs. America' is a ground-breaking game show that innovatively combines the immediacy of the internet with the excitement of a network primetime television game show."
• "CHASE THE MONEY: "Chase the Money" is an epic scale reality game show that combines the pratfalls of a classic prank show with the simplicity of a child's game of 'Tag'."
• "LOVE TAXI: The dating show that takes place entirely in a taxicab. "

Actually, now that we think about it, the dancing one was probably Barry "Twinkle Toes" Diller's idea in the first place.

(Pic: Van Veen, by Zach Klein)

Ad Age reports (via) that Silverman might take over CollegeHumor at the behest of Barry Diller, who bankrolls both CollegeHumor and Silverman's new online venture. Van Veen, meanwhile. is transitioning out of CollegeHumor and into his own Diller-funded media startup, Notional, which sounds a lot like Silverman's Electus (both have something to do with online video production).

We're told Silverman and Van Veen have been working very closely together and talking to each other every day. Perhaps a grander merger is in the works that would combine Electus, Notional and CollegeHumor into one venture. Silverman may have been ousted from old media, but he could still be lord of the new media flies. Especially within a venture that actually celebrates a refusal to mature, an inability to grow emotionally and a proclivity for partying to excess. Those are Ben Silverman's specialties, right there.

(Pics: via Getty, Webbyist)

Diller will play sugar daddy to Notional; the IAC chairman will fold it into his ConnectedVentrues division, alongside CollegeHumor.com. The video content will be similar — cheap to make, zeitgeisty — but on television proper rather than the Web. Read: Potentially more lucrative. Reports PaidContent:

The focus will be unscripted programming, broader than comedy aimed at young males that they have been known for, and will include all genres.

Van Veen will report directy to Diller. The elder mogul has run Paramount, Fox and USA Broadcasting and no doubt relishes the chance to bestow his knowledge on an adoring young acolyte. One imagines Diller might become something of a father to Van Veen. Or perhaps more like a stepfather.

(Pic: Van Veen, by Nick Gray)

It's funny, because the profile really does read like a motivational pull-a-day calendar. For example:

1. Compensate For Fears About The Economy And State Of Fashion With Complete, Blind "Confidence":

"It's more important than ever to have confidence," says Ms. von Furstenberg, creator of the body-hugging wrap dress so emblematic of 1970s fashion that it hangs in the Smithsonian Institution.

2. Insecurity About Anything Is For Absolute Suckers, Who Go Bankrupt:

"Everyone else is insecure. If you start to take a little bit of everyone else's insecurity - forget it." It takes chutzpah to say as much in a recession, when the nation's top department stores - Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom - are posting monthly sales declines. The fashion house of the couturier Christian Lacroix unraveled in May, filing for protection from creditors. Boutiques like Linda Dresner, Tracey Ross and Georgina are but memories.

3. Be Cool As Ice. And Down With The Youngs:

"It's absolutely wonderful to be considered cool," says Ms. von Furstenberg - her French-tinged drawl elongating the word "cool" - "by girls who are very often a lot younger than my children."

4. But Don't Make Clothing For Them. Children And Men Are For Lessah Fashion Designers.

"I am not interested in making children's clothes," she says. "I want little girls to want to grow up to wear the clothes. I do not want to do men's clothes. My mission in life, what I understand in life, is women. I wanted to be a certain kind of a woman. I became that kind of a woman."

5. Do It Yourself, Girlfriend.

"Independent," she says, taking her eyes off the rain. "Independent. Independent. Financially independent."

Unfortunately, rules six, seven, and eight don't make the article:

6. Make Sure To Know What The Kids Like. The Kids Like Comic Books. So Make Them.

7. Uh, Don't Throw Stones At Evil Rooftop Lairs Or Glass Houses? Because you'll end up living in one.

8. But Don't Be Too Independent To Not Have A Sugar Daddy Best Friend/Husband You're A Beard To: She's a pretty good beard for IAC chairman Barry Diller, her mogul husband who she was once with, then separated, then became best friends with, then married again, then one time invited home. He's got lots of money and probably shoveled some cash in to help her company get back on its feet. There's no proof of this, but, really: come on. I did see them fall out of Minetta Tavern recently, so it's nice to know they get dinner together every once in a while.

Tightening Belts? She's the Expert [NYT]

Kushner's assigned an Observer staffer to put out the newsletter, on top of her regular duties, for no extra pay. Insane! Which is why we don't blame said staffer for the mangled subject line on today's VSL — or for any of its other issues with the second VSL mailing of the Observer era.

We also noticed the newsletter is back to running ads for Design Observer, the blog we're told is run by VSL founder Kurt Andersen's friends and thus likely not forking over much, if any cash for VSL exposure. Presumably the Observer sales staff is hard at work finding new advertisers.

Finally: A plug for Two Lovers, a hidden gem of a movie that's barely been reviewed in all the major papers and features an up-and-coming young actor named Joaquin Phoenix. Welcome to the "smart set!"

Why the New York Observer itself! The high-brow culture newsletter has been, as was expected, renamed "The Observer's Very Short List," though the art at the top obscures that banner change.

Confirming our earlier reporting, IAC officially announced that the New York Observer will take over Very Short List. Despite its all-star founders, the email shopper reportedly sold cheap.

Observer owner Jared Kushner picked up VSL for somewhere under $1 million, a source tells the New York Post. In comparison, Daily Candy, which inspired VSL, sold last year for $125 million. The sales price must vex the VSL founding team Barry Diller (of IAC), Kurt Andersen (of Spy and New York) and Michael R. Jackson (the British television producer). On the other hand, at least they didn't have to shut the thing down.

The Post put Kushner's stake at 80 percent. Kushner told the Post he planned to shut down VSL's niche spinoff lists, like "VSL:Science," and concentrate on trying to make money off the core property, which will be renamed "The Observer's Very Short List." Kushner's not sweating that fact only one-fifth of subscribers are said to open their copies of VSL:

Kushner declined to comment on VSL's open rate, but said that it was above industry average and compared favorably to peer group newsletters like Daily Candy, Thrillist, and Flavorpill.

Of course, unlike the new VSL, those lists have the advantage of being published by more than half a staffer.

(Pic: Rubenstein)

The deal slinging Barry Diller's attempt at reaching for some of that Daily Candy scrilla, Very Short List, was officially finished around Thursday night, we hear. Brief history: Diller, pissed on missing out on some of that email-blast money that he thought would be a shoo-in for solid ad sales with Daily Candy, decided to form a literal, cultured, once-a-day mailer for high-minded consumers to read. Diller, ever fond of his media buddies, got Spy-founder Kurt Andersen to jump on board. And it was highly enjoyable!

But then they didn't make any money off of it, and had to find an easy mark to unload it on. Enter New York Observer boy wonder Jared Kushner, stage left. Cut to: Thursday night. Six full-time VSL employees are given notice to pack their boxes, and get their shit out, as Friday would be their last day. After a messy, messy ordeal. A (now former) IAC employee writes in:

Timeline: We get a bunch of emails Thursday morning. At 10AM, the GM said he might have news (at 6PM, that news would finally be delivered). Someone else said that the deal had already gone through, and that it was finally over. And yet someone else said that we still had assignments for the next week, so it would stretch for another week. And then we heard that the person who was supposed to take over at the NYO had been fired the week before in their bloodbath. So nobody knew anything. Thursday night, the news came through. Our last day was Friday, after SIX WEEKS of being told we were going to be laid off. The worst part: some of us were on the phone with the NYO's people on Friday, trying to teach them how to do our jobs.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Very Short List recently won a Webby Award! :)

But now Observer staffers - who're probably a little overworked since a grip of their most able colleagues were fired - are going to be running Very Short List. :( So who knows what's actually going to happen to the mailer, or what the Observer plans on turning it into.

Most people familiar with the deal are pretty shocked by it, and by how easily Kushner was rolled on this one. The fact that the young mogul thinks he can make money off of VSL where Diller - with all of his resources - didn't is pretty incredible, and rather audacious. Lesser so is the fact that Kushner just fired a stable of some of the most able writers in New York, possibly capable of turning the Observer's web presence into a viable product. Right before acquiring VSL, something - again - actually proven not to make money.

Among other problems IAC had with Very Short List: the only people who have time to look at some bullshit emailer telling them what to read are broke writers like me, who don't have the money to spend on advertisers' products. Besides which, I already know what book I'm buying next week, because I have the time to figure it out. The high-minded, high-income consumers VSL originally set out to target are actually out there earning money, and are too busy to look at an email telling them how to spend it (besides which, they can typically suss that kind of thing out for themselves). So instead VSL had to depend on a niche audience, and at last count, that was only 200,000.

No telling how many people are going to hit that "unsubscribe" link over the next few mornings as VSL does (or doesn't) begin to hit their in boxes, quality control of the thing in check, or otherwise. For that matter, The Observer's daily mailer, too.

Update: Just found out that Sara Vilkomerson, a onetime VSL editor, will be working on the product at the Observer, where she already is. She'll be working on it there on top of her current responsibilities for no additional pay. And an email, sent to 30 or so VSL staffers, stringers, etc. that went out today:

Dear Team VSL:

Needless to say, this has been an intensely bittersweet week. Last Monday we picked up our Webby, which was the sweetest part, and testament to how inspired your work has been. Tomorrow, The New York Observer is taking over majority control and day-to-day management of VSL from IAC. Unfortunately, as part of the transition, they will not be taking any of VSL's existing staff. But as this extraordinary team disperses, we wanted to tell you how incredibly grateful we are for everyone's great work and dedication to this project. We are very proud of it, and aware of just how hard everyone has worked.

We're also pleased that Very Short List will endure — and sincerely hopeful that it can maintain the remarkable standard of excellence established by all of you, so that our 200,000 subscribers will continue being uniquely surprised and enlightened and entertained every weekday.

Thank you. And let's raise a glass together soon — date and place TBD.

Kurt Andersen, Gary Foodim, Michael Jackson, Emily Oberman and Bonny SIegler

Very Short List was, from the beginning, an act of hubris. In 2007, Diller failed to buy Daily Candy, losing out to former AOL executive Bob Pittman. So the IAC chairman decided to round up some buddies and start and shopping list of his own. If Dany Levy could make a mint, why couldn't they?

Besides, VSL would be highbrow where Daily Candy was mass market, targeting a "smart set" of billionaires looking for a shortcut to cultural literacy. Diller is said to have seeded the list with own rich friends, but the early results were unimpressive, at least from a media standpoint: The list reportedly had collected just 20,000 subscribers.

By last year it was up to 100,000 subscribers; now it's 200,000. No matter: It's widely believed a dud, with no real revenues to speak of. Diller needs to dispense with VSL. Which means he needs, as P.T. Barnum would put it, a sucker. Luckily, he may have found one.

A quick sketch of the characters in this shakedown:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Barry Diller - The wily old ringleader. A consummate dealmaker who got the better of his evil master John "Darth Vader" Malone in a court fight over IAC. VSL was once his favorite toy; he once told a reporter, ""Without Very Short List, I would be much diminished." But he's moved on. He's putting $18 million into the Daily Beast, his new favorite toy.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser. Michael Jackson, the legman. A highflying television executive in Britain, Jackson has been vexed by the failure of VSL.A sale would help Jackson save face. After all, he co-founded VSL and has overseen it at IAC.

Yes, VSL has 200,000 email addresses. But one source tells us only 40,000 of readers open a typical mailing. And Jackson would appear to have fallen out with Diller, losing his title as IAC's president of programming right around the time Tine Brown came on board for the Beast. We hear his remaining portfolio at IAC consists entirely of VSL.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Kurt Andersen, the pretty girl (a.k.a. the bait). Like Diller and Jackson, Andersen was also a founder and also wants to save face. But he has a unique asset: His experience as a founder and writer at places like Spy, New York, the New Yorker and Inside.com help make VSL — or at least a meeting with VSL — attractive to prospective rubesinvestors or buyers.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Jared Kushner, The Mark. The 28-year-old media mogul came into possession of the New York Observer just as the newspaper industry entered its death throes. He's rumored to be in talks with Diller about a joint venture.

While Kushner is likely impressed with VSL's 200,000 subscribers, he should ask IAC for specifics about the list's "open rate" — the number of subscribers who actually read it. Then, if he still wants to buy after learning only a fifth of readers do so, he should ask about those frequent ads from the blog Design Observer. Run, we hear, by Andersen's friends, the site is unlikely paying much, if anything, for the spots.

It might just be too late: Observer scuttlebutt has it that the "joint partnership" would amount to the newspapers' remaining staff writing the VSL. In that case, chalk another one up for Diller, an operator no more ruthless than his New York peers would expect him to be.

(Michael R. Jackson pic via Cityfile; top Diller pick by Esther Dyson on Flickr.)

The email publication appears to have been bulking up dramatically. When last we checked it had 20,000 subscribers, too few to get much attention from advertisers. A year ago, VSL contributor Kurt Andersen told Charlie Rose it was up to 100,000 subscribers.

We checked in today with VSM general manager Gary Foodim, who says the list is up to 200,000 subscribers.

Tenfold growth is a commendable achievement for a list that targets a "smart set" of well-to-do would-be sophisticates. The question is whether VSL still has any claim on that set or whether, as we hear, the list has been diluted with users from other IAC brands, resulting in an open ad rate surprisingly low for a database of upscale consumers. One anecdote making the rounds even says that Diller's friends have abandoned the service; of 25 buddies he used to seed the VSL list, all but one is said to have unsubscribed.

Apparently retaining at least some highbrow airs, VSL hasn't responded to our request for comment on that scuttlebutt.

But it's easy to imagine that Diller, who once said he would be "much diminished" without VSL, has moved on. Rumors that he wants to offload the site have been rife this year. Now VSL is said to be in talks with Jared Kushner's ailing New York Observer. And Diller would appear to have a new favorite toy, judging by the $18 million he's feeding into the bonfire that is Tina Brown's Daily Beast.

IAC lost $28.4 million this quarter on weak advertising. Perhaps pumping millions into the Daily Beast and not really worrying too much about selling ads to get money coming back to you, to make up for the money you spent, is not a profitable business strategy? It's much too early to tell.
[But kudos to Diller's PR person for getting that puffy interview placed in USA Today on earnings day! Good distraction work!]

And let's talk about Time Warner! Its overall profit was down 14% this quarter, so it's going to spin off AOL to get rid of that dead weight. But what about its other dead weight: Time Inc, the illustriouscrediblest magazine company in America??

Time Inc's ads are down 30% this quarter. That is just monstrous. To put that in perspective for you: that's as bad as newspaper companies did this quarter. When you're a magazine company losing ads as fast as newspaper companies, you are not doing well. Subscription revenues also fell 16%.

Maybe they'll make up that gap by selling their online content? No, they won't. Bad times.

The fear is palpable in Brown's Daily Beast column about Portfolio. If Condé Nast is giving up on a big project like Portfolio, she asks, how will it nurture visionary, money-losing editors like... well, like Tina Brown? Has Si Newhouse, steadfast chairman of the magazine group, and longtime Brown benefactor, lost his stamina — his manhood?

The fact that [Newhouse] elected to close [Portfolio]... suggests a worrying element of panic engulfing the steadfast publisher I worked for so comfortably for 17 years at Tatler, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker...

Until now, he was always the media emperor who could live and do as he chose... Let's hope this pitiless economy doesn't force him to cap his noble career by performing a lobotomy.

The closure no doubt has Brown fretting over the $18 million her upstart Web venture the Daily Beast will cost Barry Diller's IAC through fall 2011. No worries, Tina: Diller still has the sort swagger old Si threw off in the early days of Portfolio. Though for good measure, you might to whisper for him your line about a money-losing publication being a mogul's "sexiest calling card." You know how much he loves being fabulous and sexy.

The editors of the depressingly unfunny 23/6, whose idea of cleverness is a dancing Wolf Blitzer GIF, are being cast out on the street, a tipster tells us:

Just about everyone is gone. Maybe one or two will go over. All writers are gone.

The site itself is being rescued by Huffington Post, a partner in the joint venture with IAC. Arianna Huffington is turning the site into the Huffington Post's comedy "vertical." (She should first try reviving its horizontal traffic.)

The Huffington Post had promoted 23/6 online, but IAC had fronted all of the site's cash, sources tell Portfolio.com's Jeff Bercovici. (Huffington has a reputation for parsimonious pay, so this move is unlikely to feel like much of a rescue to the few remaining staffers.)

Diller hinted at getting rid of 23/6 when he dissolved IAC's programming group, a division devoted to original online content. And yet, even as he unloads one site, he continues to fund the Daily Beast, an IAC-backed website edited by Tina Brown which is consuming an estimated $6 million a year. Diller hasn't even bothered to unveil a plan for the site to generate revenue.

The man is consistently inconsistent. Don't lay people off — but get rid of an entire division! Avoid profligate spending — unless Tina Brown sweet-talks you into it! We suspect his public lecture of his fellow billionaires last month was some kind of bizarre group therapy. It's called projection, Barry.

Sixteen years after Tina Brown first pushed the notion of mixing "high-low culture" at The New Yorker, then at Talk, she's still blathering on like it's a stunning discovery—and lazy media reporters keep buying it. Now that Barry Diller is her new Daddy Warbucks and Brown is running The Daily Beast, she let the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz drop by the offices to watch the obligatory editorial meeting and bring back a report on Brown's intriguing experiment. What did he find?

"I've always liked the high-low mixture, and it seemed to me that was missing from a lot of the sites," Brown says in her small, unadorned office, looking very New York in a leather jacket, black shirt, gray pants and black boots. "We like a hit of Britney but not much. I want to know far more about Mumbai and Larry Summers and what's happening at the Federal Reserve."

This is, of course, nearly identical to the way Brown described her Miramax and Hearst-backed Talk. From the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8, 1999:

"There is a sense now that the people who watch Regis and Kathie Lee aren't interested in books, but there's no reason why those two worlds can't be brought together," she said. "And that's what we aim to do with Talk—to admit that we all like to picnic, that we can take the time to read a serious article on one page, then turn the page and escape with a photo essay about a movie star. We want to convey this high-low culture."

But she started out using the trope when she took over The New Yorker in 1992 and everyone thought she was ruining (but, in fairness, turned out to be saving) the staid, boring magazine of yesteryear. From the Boston Globe, Feb. 28, 1994 :

"Look, there are two strands going on in the magazine," explains Brown. "One, the relevant and contemporary piece, and two, the timeless piece that could have run anywhere within the year. I think it's important to have both in any given issue, because we are a weekly, and we have to get people to pick us up and read us that week."

The problem with Brown's recycled schtick is the new medium to which she's taken it. The high-low dichotomy she has long struggled with is this: high expenses, low revenues. Barry Diller, the billionaire IAC CEO who's bankrolling Brown's latest venture, says he doesn't expect to make any money from the site for the next two or three years:

If you say, 'Can today's online economics support a venture like this,' the answer is no. But if you say we're at the beginning of developing new advertising methods online, then the answer is profoundly yes."

Not that that's Brown's concern! She's never worried about money (though she occasionally worries about appearances). Under Brown, the New Yorker ran famous deficits. Talk folded in 2002 after losing an estimated $50 million.

With only 12 employees, the Daily Beast won't lose anywhere near that much money. But it's paying writers $250 a post, at a time when rival blog muse Arianna Huffington gets name-brand contributors for free. And the Beast isn't even bothering to carry ads yet. Unless a new business model springs forth from Brown's ever-inventive brain, her latest venture will end up as just another example of her ability to cadge bucks from media barons who should know better.

Just this week IAC decided to "dissolve" its programming group:

[The] group has been responsible for IAC’s efforts to develop, acquire and distribute “content-based” sites including CollegeHumor.com; Very Short List (VSL); 236.com; RushmoreDrive.com and Tina Brown’s recently launched Daily Beast. The results have been uneven and some of the sites are among those likely to be sold.

That is the opposite of buying stuff! And is he keeping his costs tightly in check, like everybody else?

“It’s not like Christmas should be canceled altogether by economic events,” Mr. Diller told the Transom via email. “We’re going to have our holiday party, in our own space, for our employees and their families, and we’re going to thank everyone for their work during the year and wish them a safe and happy holiday and a productive new year.” ...

“Diller seems in denial of the current market condition so putting on a big show might be über important to him,” said the former staffer.

Well that bit about not laying people off was a nice thought, at least. Good luck in '09, Barry. [NYO]