Yahoo reels in Rolling Stone-publisher Wenner to launch a “new breed of online editorial franchises”

Yahoo has announced a collaboration with Wenner Media to launch a new cross-platform entertainment hub focusing on original content.

While Yahoo may need little in the way of introduction, Wenner is the New York-headquartered publisher behind Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, and Men’s Journal magazines, which together attract 42 million readers each month in print, and 22 million monthly unique visitors to their respective websites.

The reciprocal content deal will see collaborations across Yahoo!’s omg!, Yahoo! Music, as well as Wenner’s three online magazines. This deal will generate new and exclusive entertainment and music news content, with editorial teams from both companies co-producing what it’s calling “a new breed of online editorial franchises”.

In addition, Us Weekly and Rolling Stone will each have permanent branded pages on omg! and Yahoo! Music, respectively, while omg! and Yahoo! Music will have branded pages on UsMagazine.com and RollingStone.com – as well as on-going placement in the Us Weekly and Rolling Stone print editions.

Here’s what the Us Weekly portal on Yahoo looks like:

“Rolling Stone and Us Weekly are iconic brands in music and celebrity news,” says David Kang, Wenner Media’s Chief Digital Officer. “As a leader in digital media, Yahoo! is the perfect partner to help these brands grow their digital footprint. Our brands coming together will create a rich and engaging entertainment experience to best serve our users and advertisers alike.”

All the branded pages are supposedly now live, though we’re getting error messages for some of these, so it’s safe to assume they’re currently being populated: Branded pages for Us Weekly and Rolling Stone on omg! and Yahoo! Music, and here’s the branded pages for omg! and Yahoo! Music on the digital editions of Us Weekly and Rolling Stone.

Yahoo, once known primarily as a search engine before Google usurped it, has been placing more focus on becoming a media company these past few years, and with Marissa Mayer joining from Google this summer, she guided the company to its first acquisition last week, snapping up mobile recommendations app Stamped.