• June 23, 2010

Movie community site Flixster and TV fan site BuddyTV have formed a partnership to sell each others' ad inventory and cross-promote their respective properties. The deal will allow advertisers to buy advertising across Flixster, which also encompasses movie ratings site RottenTomatoes.com, and BuddyTV.

The companies say the sites have a combined audience of more than 20 million a month, along with another 7 million users each month of Flixster's mobile apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android-powered devices, BlackBerry and Palm Pre. According to comScore, BuddyTV drew 9.6 million unique visitors in May, and Flixster, 2.2 million. The companies say audience demographics for the sites are similar, although RottenTomatoes skews more male, with two-thirds of its visitors men over 18.

Flixster recently hired James Smith, most recently chief revenue officer at The Huffington Post, to expand its ad sales force. He previously had executive sales roles at Ad.com, AOL and Sony Online Entertainment. Adverising across Flixster, RottenTomatoes and BuddyTV will be handled in the U.S. by Flixster's sales teams in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle. The partnership will also incorporate shared promotion, content and traffic-driving initiatives. --Mark Walsh