LOS ANGELES â€" Daily Variety is dead. Long live Variety
The failing entertainment trade publication on Tuesday said that it would become a weekly magazine starting March 26. Michelle Sobrino, its new publisher, also said Variety.com would drop its pay wall and announced a trio of new editors.
Variety, purchased for $25 million in October by Penske Media, which owns the competing Hollywood news site Deadline.com, was once a must-read, but has suffered mightily from mismanagement, vanishing advertisers and faster and more aggressive blog competitors.
This is how dire Variety’s situation has become: In January, high season for movie news because of the Oscars, Golden Globes and the Sundance Film Festival, Variety.com attracted just 472,000 unique visitors, a 28 percent drop from the same month a year earlier, according to comScore. Meanwhile, Deadline.com surged 32 percent, attracting2.3 million unique visitors.
Variety has operated a pay wall since 2009. It will drop March 1.
“We look forward to welcoming back longtime Variety readers,†Jay Penske, chairman and chief executive of Penske Media Corporation, said in the announcement, which appeared in Tuesday’s Variety.
Three journalists, all of whom have the title editor in chief, are charged with a turnaround. Claudia Eller will leave The Los Angeles Times to oversee film coverage. Cynthia Littleton, most recently Variety’s deputy editor, will lead television reporting, and Andrew Wallenstein, most recently a TV editor, will oversee digital content, according to Variety’s announcement.
Variety appears to be following the lead of its longtime rival, The Hollywood Reporter, in becoming a once-a-week magazine with a heavy Web presence. The Reporter, lead by Janice Min and Lynne Segall, has staged a remarkable turnaround since its 2010 redesign.
Underscoring how competitive the world of entertainment trade news has become, Deadline.com did not go easy on its corporate sibling. It’s headline covering Variety’s news: “Can This Failing Trade Be Savedâ€
