Transition to entertainment
Levin covered legal issues for KNBC-TV in 1982. He subsequently joined KCBS-TV and spent a decade doing investigative reporting and legal analysis, most notably covering the O. J. Simpson murder case. In 1997, he was named co-executive producer and on-air legal anchor for The People's Court. Levin remained on the show until its cancellation in July 2023. He created Celebrity Justice, which ran from 2002 to 2005.
Levin produced Beyond Twisted, which aired in 2009 for one season before being canceled. He created Famous in 12 (2014), an experiment in exploiting a family for quick fame, but the show was canceled after less than one season, with only five of the scheduled twelve episodes having aired.
In 2005, AOL and Telepictures Productions launched TMZ with Levin as the founder and managing editor. The website quickly rose to prominence when it broke the story of Mel Gibson's DUI arrest and subsequent antisemitic rant. It continued to break a number of high-profile stories including the abuse of Rihanna by Chris Brown and the deaths of Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, and Kobe Bryant. The Los Angeles Times named TMZ's coverage of the Jackson death as the biggest story the website had covered to date.
Harvey Levin Productions has produced Levin's media projects since he joined The People's Court in 1983 as the show's legal consultant. In 1985, Levin wrote The People's Court: How to Tell It to the Judge, reviewing and providing commentary on several cases from the show. The Library Journal "recommended [the book] for public libraries."
