Variety (magazine)

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Variety

Editor	Timothy M. Gray
Categories	Entertainment
Frequency	Weekly & Daily
Publisher	Brian Gott
First issue	1905 (New York); 1933 (Los Angeles)
Company	Reed Business
Country	United States
Website	www.variety.com

Variety is a weekly entertainment trade newspaper founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Hollywood, was founded by Silverman in 1933. Both have been in continual operation since.

The magazine is owned by Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, with three print editions and a Web site. For the last 20 years its editor-in-chief has been Peter Bart, who worked previously at Paramount Studios and The New York Times. Circulation hovers around 31,622 for the daily editions, and 30,800 for the weekly edition (Audit Bureau of Circulations, March 31, 2005). In April 2009 it was announced that Bart was moving to the position of "vice president and editorial director", characterised online as "Boffo No More: Bart Up and Out at Variety". The new editor-in-chief is Timothy M. Gray.^[1]

[edit] History

Variety has been published since 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering vaudeville, its headquarters in New York. In 1933, Silverman launched Daily Variety, based in Hollywood.

Silverman was the editor of the Variety publications until selecting Abel Green as his replacement in 1931; he remained as publisher until his death in 1933 soon after launching the daily. His son Sidne (1901-1950), known as "Skigie", succeeded him as publisher of both publications. Both Sidne and his wife, stage actress Marie Saxon (1905-1942), died of tuberculosis. Their only son Syd, born 1932, was the sole heir to what was then Variety Inc. Guardian Harold Erichs oversaw Variety until 1956. From then Syd took over and managed the company until 1987, when he sold it to Cahners Publishing (now Reed Elsevier) for US$64 million.

[edit] Editions

Variety is a tabloid glossy newspaper published weekly and is delivered internationally with a broad coverage of movies, television, theater, music, and technology, written for entertainment executives. Daily Variety is the name of the Los Angeles, California-based Hollywood and Broadway daily newspaper. Daily Variety Gotham, started in 1998, is the name of the New York City edition of the newspaper. This edition gives a priority focus to East Coast show business news and is produced earlier in the evening than the Los Angeles version so it can be delivered to New York offices the following morning. Variety.com is the Internet version of Variety, and it was one of the first online newspapers to charge for access when it launched in 1998.

[edit] Culture

For much of its existence, Variety's writers and columnists have used a jargon called slanguage or varietyese (a form of headlinese) that refers especially to the movie industry, and has largely been adopted and imitated by other writers in the industry. Such terms as "boffo box-office biz," "sitcom," "sex appeal," "payola," and even "striptease" are attributed to the influence of the magazine,^[2] though its attempt to popularize "infobahn" as a synonym for "information superhighway" never caught on. Its most famous headline was from October, 1929, when the stock market crashed: "Wall St. Lays An Egg." Another favorite, "Sticks nix hick pix",^[3][4] was made popular — although the movie prop renders it as "Stix nix hix flix!" — by Michael Curtiz's musical-biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy; translated, it means that rural audiences were not attending rural-themed films. Television series are referred to as "skeins," and heads of companies or corporate teams are called "toppers." In addition, more common English words and phrases are shortened; "audience members" becomes simply "auds," "performance" becomes "perf," and "network" becomes "net," for example.

Daily Variety's down-the-street competitor is The Hollywood Reporter. The papers have a long history of bad blood, but editorial talent migrates between them. Variety 's former editor-in-chief, Peter Bart, once said to a reporter, "They're not journalists at all,"^{[citation needed]} though Variety has a history of recruiting Hollywood Reporter writers once they have established bylines, and vice versa.

[edit] Facts and figures

• On January 19, 1907, Variety published what is considered as the first film review in history.
• On December 7, 1988, Peter Bart's predecessor, Roger Watkins, proposed and oversaw the transition to Four-Colour print. Upon its launch, the new look Variety measured an inch shorter with a washed-out colour on the front. The old front-page box ad was replaced by a strip ad, along with the first photos published in Variety since Sime gave up using them in the old format in 1920: they depicted Sime, Abel and Syd. (www.simesite.net/roger.asp, 7th paragraph).

A significant portion of Variety's revenue comes during the movie award season leading up to the Academy Awards. During this time, large numbers of colorful, full-page "For Your Consideration" ads inflate the size of Variety to double or triple its usual page count. These ads are Hollywood's attempt to reach other Hollywood professionals who will be voting in the many awards given out in the early part of the year.

[edit] Location

The Variety Building

In late 2008, Variety moved its Los Angeles offices to a high rise on Wilshire Blvd in the heart of the Miracle Mile area, and was dubbed the Variety Building. as a red, illuminated Variety sign graced the top, north and south sides of the building. The 31-story tower can be seen from any direction in Los Angeles, and has totally unobstructed, 360 degree views of the city. The city welcomed the new landmark with a lighting ceremony in December of 2008.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Variety.com website
• Variety's slanguage dictionary
• Variety's self-described history
• description by the Parisian Bibliothèque du film
• article from Le Monde about Variety's 100th anniversary