Type of site
|
News Celebrity |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Website | www |
Alexa rank | 186,593 (April 2014[update]) |
Commercial | Yes |
Current status | News-in media |
Popbitch is a weekly UK-based celebrity and pop music newsletter and associated website dating from the early 2000s. Much of the material for the newsletter comes from the Popbitch message boards, frequented by music industry insiders, gossips and the casually interested. The board has at various times been credited for celebrity rumours (both false and true) appearing in the press, and the coining of many expressions that have gone on to enjoy wider usage.
The website was the first of many satirical and irreverent UK gossip sites that skirted the limits of defamation law. The uncompromising ethos of cruel humour gave it a feel somewhat similar to usenet gossip newsgroups.
Popbitch was founded, is owned and run by Neil Stevenson and Camilla Wright, both journalists. Wright is employed full-time to run Popbitch. Stevenson is still a director, but his active participation in the project has diminished. Originally published privately from a www.popbitch.demon.co.uk address, Popbitch has been published from popbitch.com since March 2000, and by Popdog Limited since 2001. Stevenson was employed by the British publishing house EMAP on various entertainment titles, including the celebrity magazine Heat and as editor of The Face.
The newsletter is aimed principally at a British audience and is published weekly, usually on a Thursday. It usually contains celebrity-based stories relating to music, film, television and sport, with quirky stories from other fields.
The newsletter usually contains, in order:
By 2003, Popbitch had moved from a niche-market publication to mainstream cultural knowledge, thanks in part to its role in assisting British tabloid newspapers with their entertainment coverage. It achieved frequent name-checks in newspaper "diary" columns, and from celebrities as diverse as Madonna and French and Saunders.