Slate.com in talks to start Slate TV

The online magazine Slate, edited by former Washington pundit and CNN Crossfire co-host Michael Kinsley, is in talks with media companies about forming a joint broadcast venture that will be called "Slate TV". Although no deal has yet been inked, the plans are serious enough to have moved Microsoft, which owns Slate, to quietly register the domain names SlateTV.com, SlateTV.org and SlateTV.net on August 16. Slate has been approached by various media companies with the intent of forming a joint broadcast venture that would become "Slate TV." Kinsley told MSNBC he would be a part of whatever Slate TV turns out to be. "We think a variety of Slate_s "meta-news" features - lively, intelligent synthesis of what_s going on in politics and culture - would adapt very well to TV," Kinsley said in an e-mail interview. Other online publications have attempted the jump to TV - and failed. Wired magazine tried three years ago to launch Wired TV in a joint venture with MSNBC Cable, without success. Plans to launch Slate TV seem to fly in the face of comments Kinsley himself made during an interview with Dan Kennedy, media critic for the Boston Phoenix, in June.