AOL Cuts Deal With Katalyst Films

Posted on February 14, 2006

Katalyst Films Inc., MTV's Punk'd creators, will be developing short programming for AOL.com and AOL's AIM service according to an article from Reuters.

The deal with Katalyst Films Inc., co-owned by "That '70s Show" actor Ashton Kutcher and producer Jason Goldberg, calls for the creation of five programs with at least 20 episodes per program.

In a phone interview, Goldberg was cagey about the shows' details, saying only that it would be comedy-based. The shows will debut later this year and feature largely unknown actors.

"The programming is going to have a severe attitude behind it," Goldberg said. "There might be hurt feelings."

The move is part of the online division of Time Warner Inc.'s focus to add more free programming to its site to boost online advertising revenue. Some 43 million users send and receive messages on the AIM service, the company said.

The press release for the AOL and Katalyst deal can be found here. Time Warner is focusing more and more on online content. In addition to the Katalyst deal there is the upcoming Office Pirates launch. Time Warner also bought the Weblogs Inc. blog network last year and sold the Time Warner Book Group this year.

---

---