American weekly entertainment trade magazine
Variety
is an American magazine owned by
Penske Media Corporation
. It was founded by
Sime Silverman
in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and
vaudeville
. In 1933,
Daily Variety
was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the
motion-picture industry
.
Variety
's
website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar.
History
[
edit
]
Founding
[
edit
]
Variety
has been published since December 16, 1905,
[1]
[2]
when it was launched by
Sime Silverman
as a weekly periodical covering theater and
vaudeville
, with its headquarters in
New York City
. Silverman had been fired by
The Morning Telegraph
in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50.
[3]
He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising."
[4]
With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched
Variety
as publisher and editor.
[5]
In addition to
The Morning Telegraph
, other major competitors at the time of the company's launch were
The New York Clipper
and the
New York Dramatic Mirror
.
[5]
The original cover design, which is very similar to the current design, was sketched by Edgar M. Miller, a scenic painter, who refused payment.
[6]
The front cover contained pictures of the original editorial staff: Alfred Greason, Epes W. Sargeant (Chicot or Chic), Joshua Lowe, and Silverman.
[7]
The first issue contained a review by Silverman's son
Sidne
, also known as Skigie (based on the childish lisping of his name) who was claimed to be the youngest critic in the world at seven years old.
[8]
20th century
[
edit
]
In 1922, Silverman acquired
The New York Clipper
which had been reporting on the stage and other entertainment since 1853, in an attempt to attract advertising revenue away from
Billboard
, following a dispute with William Donaldson, the owner of
Billboard
.
[9]
Silverman folded it two years later after spending $100,000, merging some of its features into
Variety
.
[10]
[9]
The same year, he launched the
Times Square Daily
, which he referred to as "the world's worst daily" and soon scrapped.
[5]
During that period,
Variety
staffers worked on all three papers.
After the launch of
The Hollywood Reporter
in 1930,
[11]
Silverman launched the Hollywood-based
Daily Variety
in 1933 with Arthur Ungar as the editor. It replaced the
Variety Bulletin
issued in Hollywood on Fridays as a four-page wraparound to the
Weekly
.
[9]
Daily Variety
was initially published every day other than Sunday but mostly on Monday to Friday.
[12]
The
Daily
and the
Weekly
were initially run as virtually independent newspapers, with the
Daily
concentrating mostly on Hollywood news and the
Weekly
on U.S. and international coverage.
Silverman passed on the editorship of the
Weekly Variety
to
Abel Green
as his replacement in 1933. He remained as publisher until his death later that year, soon after launching
Daily Variety
. Silverman's son Sidne succeeded him as publisher of both publications but upon contracting
tuberculosis
in 1936 he could no longer take a day-to-day role at the paper.
[13]
Green, the editor, and Harold Erichs, the treasurer and chief financial officer, ran the paper during his illness.
[13]
Following Sidne's death in 1950, his only son
Syd Silverman
, was the sole heir to what was then Variety Inc. Young Syd's
legal guardian
Erichs, who had started at
Variety
as an office boy, assumed the presidency.
[13]
[9]
Ungar remained editor of
Daily Variety
until his death in 1950.
[14]
He was followed by Joe Schoenfeld.
[15]
In 1953,
Army Archerd
took over the "Just for Variety" column on page two of
Daily Variety
and swiftly became popular in Hollywood. Archerd broke countless exclusive stories, reporting from film sets, announcing pending deals, and giving news of star-related hospitalizations, marriages, and births. The column appeared daily for 52 years until September 1, 2005.
[16]
Erichs continued to oversee
Variety
until 1956.
[13]
[9]
After that date, Syd Silverman managed the company as publisher of both the
Weekly Variety
in New York and the
Daily Variety
in Hollywood.
Thomas M. Pryor, former Hollywood bureau chief of
The New York Times
, became editor of
Daily Variety
in 1959. Under Pryor,
Daily Variety
expanded from 8 pages to 32 pages and also saw circulation increase from 8,000 to 22,000.
[17]
[18]
[15]
Green remained editor of
Variety
until he died in 1973, with Syd taking over.
[19]
[20]
In 1987,
Variety
was sold to
Cahners Publishing
for $64 million.
[21]
In December 1987, Syd handed over editorship of
Variety
to Roger Watkins.
[20]
After 29 years as editor of
Daily Variety
, Tom Pryor handed over to his son Pete in June 1988.
[15]
On December 7, 1988, Watkins proposed and oversaw the transition to
four-color print
. Upon its launch, the new-look
Variety
measured one inch shorter with a washed-out color on the front. The old front-page box advertisement was replaced by a strip advertisement, 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.
[22]
For 20 years from 1989,
Variety
'
s editor-in-chief was
Peter Bart
, originally only of the weekly New York edition, with Michael Silverman (Syd's son) running the
Daily
in Hollywood. Bart had worked previously at
Paramount Pictures
and
The New York Times
.
Syd remained as publisher until 1990 when he was succeeded on
Weekly Variety
by Gerard A. Byrne and on
Daily Variety
by Sime Silverman's great-grandson, Michael Silverman. Syd became chairman of both publications.
[23]
21st century
[
edit
]
In April 2009, Bart moved to the position of "vice president and editorial director", characterized online as "Boffo No More: Bart Up and Out at Variety". From mid 2009 to 2013, Timothy M. Gray oversaw the publication as Editor-in-Chief,
[24]
after over 30 years of various reporter and editor positions in the newsroom.
[25]
Acquisition by Penske Media Corporation
[
edit
]
In October 2012,
Reed Business Information
, the periodical's owner, (formerly known as Reed-Elsevier, which had been parent to Cahner's Corp. in the United States) sold the publication to
Penske Media Corporation
(PMC).
[26]
[27]
PMC is the owner of
Deadline Hollywood
, which since the
2007?2008 Writers Guild of America strike
has been considered
Variety
's largest competitor in online showbiz news. In October 2012,
Jay Penske
, chairman and CEO of PMC, announced that the website's
paywall
would come down, the print publication would stay, and he would invest more into
Variety
'
s digital platform in a
townhall
.
[28]
In March 2013, owner Penske appointed three co-editors to oversee different parts of the publication's industry coverage; Claudia Eller as Editor, Film; Cynthia Littleton as Editor, TV; and Andrew Wallenstein as Editor, Digital. The decision was also made to stop printing
Daily Variety
with the last printed edition published on March 19, 2013, with the headline "Variety Ankles Daily Pub Hubbub".
[29]
[30]
In June 2014,
Variety
launched a high-end real-estate breaking news site,
Dirt
, under the direction of self-proclaimed "Real Estalker" Mark David, which later expanded to its own stand-alone site in 2019.
[31]
October 2014 Eller and Wallenstein were upped to Co-Editors in Chief, with Littleton continuing to oversee the trade's television coverage. In June 2014, Penske Media Corporation entered into an agreement with Reuters to syndicate news from
Variety
and
Variety
Latino-Powered by Univision to distribute leading entertainment news to the international news agency's global readership. This dissemination comes in the form of columns, news stories, images, video, and data-focused products. In July 2015,
Variety
was awarded a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award by the Television Academy in the Best Entertainment Program category for
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
, a series of one-hour specials that take viewers inside Hollywood films and television programs through conversations with acclaimed actors. A second Los Angeles Area Emmy Award was awarded in 2016.
In June 2019,
Variety
shut down its Gaming section.
[32]
A significant portion of the publication's advertising revenue comes during the film-award season leading up to the
Academy Awards
. During this "Awards Season", large numbers of colorful, full-page "
For Your Consideration
" advertisements inflate the size of
Variety
to double or triple its usual page count. These advertisements are the studios' attempt to reach other Hollywood professionals who will be voting on the many awards given out in the early part of the year, including the
Academy Awards
, the
Golden Globes
and various guild award honors.
[
citation needed
]
Editions
[
edit
]
- Variety
(first edition published December 16, 1905) is a weekly entertainment publication with a broad coverage of movies, television, theater, music and technology, written for entertainment executives. It is the only remaining
Variety
print publication and is published weekly and delivered internationally.
- Daily Variety
(first edition published September 6, 1933
[33]
and last published March 19, 2013) was the Los Angeles?based Hollywood and
Broadway
daily edition. The
Daily Variety
brand was revived in 2019 as a Mon?Fri email newsletter presenting the top stories of the last 24 hours. Top stories are also posted on the
Daily Variety
page of
Variety.com
.
[34]
Daily Variety Gotham
, (started in 1998) was the name of the New York City?based edition which gave a priority focus to
East Coast
show-business
news and was produced earlier in the evening than the Los Angeles edition so it could be delivered to New York the following morning.
- Variety.com
(launched in 1998) is the
Internet
version of
Variety
. It was one of the first online newspapers to charge for access when it launched. In June 2010, all content on the website became paywalled.
[35]
The paywall was removed in April 2013, but access to additional content, such as the archives, requires subscription.
Variety
is also available as a mobile app as
Variety On-The-Go
.
[36]
- Variety Hitmakers
(first edition published in November 2017) is the publication's first music franchise.
[37]
The annual list recognizes the writers, producers, publishers, and other key personnel behind the scenes "who helped make―and break―the most consumed songs of the year as compiled by BuzzAngle Music".
[38]
[39]
[40]
Kendrick Lamar
,
DJ Khaled
, and
Scooter Braun
featured on three individual covers of the premiere print issues, with Lamar named Hitmaker of the Year.
[41]
He, along with Khaled and
Hailee Steinfeld
, was honored at the inaugural Hitmakers awards ceremony held later that same month?the event has continued annually since.
[42]
[43]
Other honorees have included
Dua Lipa
and
Bebe Rexha
as 2018's Breakthrough Artist and Songwriter of the Year respectively,
[44]
BTS
(2019 Group of the Year),
[38]
and
Harry Styles
(2020 Hitmaker of the Year).
[45]
On December 15, 1906,
Variety
published its first anniversary number that contained 64 pages, double the size of a regular edition.
[46]
It published regular bumper anniversary editions each year, most often at the beginning of January, normally with a review of the year and other charts and data, including, from 1938 onwards, lists of the top performing films of the year
[47]
and, from 1949, the annually updated all-time rental chart.
[48]
The editions also contained many advertisements from show business personalities and companies. The 100th anniversary edition was published in October 2005 listing
Variety
's
icons of the century.
[49]
Along with the large anniversary editions,
Variety
also published special editions containing lots of additional information, charts and data (and advertising) for three film festivals:
Cannes Film Festival
,
[50]
MIFED Film Market,
[51]
and
American Film Market
[52]
Daily Variety
also published an anniversary issue each October. This regularly contained a day-by-day review of the year in show business and in the 1970s started to contain republication of the film reviews published during the year.
[53]
Older back issues of
Variety
are available on
microfilm
. In 2010,
Variety.com
allowed access to digitized versions of all issues of
Variety
and
Daily Variety
with a subscription.
[54]
Certain articles and reviews prior to 1998 have been republished on
Variety.com
. The Media History Digital Library has scans of the archive of
Variety
from 1905 to 1963 available online.
[55]
Circulation
[
edit
]
The first issue of
Variety
sold 320 copies in 1905.
[6]
Paid circulation for the weekly
Variety
magazine in 2023 was 85,300 (Source: BPA Audit Statement, 2023). Each copy of each
Variety
issue is read by an average of three people, with an estimated total readership of 255,900 (Source: Ipsos Subscriber Study, 2013).
Variety.com
has 32 million unique monthly visitors (Source: Comscore, March 2023).
[56]
Culture
[
edit
]
For much of its existence,
Variety
's
writers and columnists have used a
jargon
called
slanguage
[57]
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. The language initially reflected that spoken by the actors during the early days of the newspaper.
[10]
Such terms as "boffo", "payola", and "striptease" are attributed to the magazine.
[58]
In 1934, founder Sime Silverman headed a list in
Time
magazine
of the "ten modern Americans who have done most to keep American jargon alive".
[59]
According to
The Boston Globe
, the
Oxford English Dictionary
cites
Variety
as the earliest source for about two dozen terms, including "show biz" (1945).
[60]
In 2005, Welcome Books published
The Hollywood Dictionary
by Timothy M. Gray and J. C. Suares, which defines nearly 200 of these terms.
One of its popular headlines was during the
Wall Street Crash of 1929
: "
Wall St. Lays An Egg
".
[61]
The most famous was "
Sticks Nix Hick Pix
"
[62]
[63]
(the
movie-prop
version renders it as "Stix nix hix pix!" in
Yankee Doodle Dandy
(1942),
Michael Curtiz
's
musical
?
biographical film
about
George M. Cohan
starring
James Cagney
).
In 2012, Rizzoli Books published
Variety: An Illustrated History of the World from the Most Important Magazine in Hollywood
by Gray. The book covers
Variety
'
s coverage of hundreds of world events, from the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
, through
Arab Spring
in 2012, and argues that the entertainment industry needs to stay aware of changes in politics and tastes since those changes will affect their audiences. In a foreword to the book,
Martin Scorsese
calls
Variety
"the single most formidable trade publication ever" and says that the book's content "makes you feel not only like a witness to history, but part of it too."
In 2013,
Variety
staffers tallied more than 200 uses of weekly or Daily
Variety
in TV shows and films, ranging from
I Love Lucy
to
Entourage
.
[
citation needed
]
In 2016,
Variety
endorsed
Hillary Clinton
for
President of the United States
, marking the first time the publication endorsed a candidate for elected office in its 111-year history.
[64]
Office locations
[
edit
]
Variety
's
first offices were in the
Knickerbocker Theatre
located at 1396 Broadway on 38th and Broadway in New York. Later it moved to 1536 Broadway at the 45th and Broadway corner until
Loew's
acquired the site to build the
Loew's State Theatre
.
[5]
In 1909,
Variety
set up its first overseas office in London.
[65]
In 1920, Sime Silverman purchased an old brownstone building around the corner at 154 West 46th Street in New York, which became the
Variety
headquarters until 1987, when the publication was purchased.
[66]
Under the new management of Cahners Publishing, the New York headquarters of the
Weekly Variety
was relocated to the corner of 32nd Street and Park Avenue South.
[66]
Five years later, it was downgraded to a section of one floor in a building housing other Cahner's publications on West 18th Street, until the majority of operations were moved to
Los Angeles
.
[
citation needed
]
When
Daily Variety
started in 1933, its offices were in various buildings near Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. In 1972, Syd Silverman purchased a building at 1400 North Cahuenga Blvd. which housed the Daily's offices until 1988, after which its new corporate owners and new publisher, Arthur Anderman, moved them to a building on the
Miracle Mile
on
Wilshire Boulevard
.
In late 2008,
Variety
moved its Los Angeles offices to
5900 Wilshire
, a 31-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile area.
[67]
[68]
The building was dubbed the Variety Building because a red, illuminated "Variety" sign graced the top of the building.
[67]
In 2013, PMC, the parent company of
Variety
, announced plans to move
Variety's
offices to their new corporate headquarters at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd. in Westwood.
[67]
There,
Variety
shares the 9-story building with parent company PMC, Variety Intelligence Platform, and PMC's other media brands, including
Deadline.com
,
Rolling Stone
,
Vibe
,
Billboard
,
Robb Report
and the West Coast offices of
WWD
and
Footwear News
.
[69]
Content
[
edit
]
Film reviews
[
edit
]
On January 19, 1907,
Variety
published what is considered the first
film review
in history. Two reviews written by Sime Silverman were published:
Pathe
's comedy short
An Exciting Honeymoon
and
Edison Studios
' western short
The Life of a Cowboy
directed by
Edwin S. Porter
.
[70]
[71]
Variety
discontinued reviews of films between March 1911 until January 1913
[72]
as they were convinced by a film producer, believed to be
George Kleine
, that they were wasting space criticizing moving pictures and others had suggested that favorable reviews brought too strong a demand for certain pictures to the exclusion of others.
[73]
Despite the gap,
Variety
is still the longest unbroken source of film criticism in existence.
[72]
In 1930
Variety
also started publishing a summary of miniature reviews for the films reviewed that week
[74]
and in 1951 the editors decided to position the capsules on top of the reviews,
[75]
a tradition retained today.
Film reviewers
[
edit
]
Writing reviews was a side job for
Variety
staff, most of whom were hired to be reporters and not film or theatre critics. Many of the publication's reviewers identified their work with four-letter
pen names
("sigs") rather than with their full names. The practice stopped in August 1991.
[76]
Those abbreviated names include the following:
[7]
- Abel ?
Abel Green
, editor 1931?1973
[77]
- Anby ?
Vincent Canby
, 1951?1957, later chief film critic for
The New York Times
- Army ?
Army Archerd
- Beau - Lee Beaupre
- Bell ? Harry Ennis
[78]
- Besa ? Peter Besas
- Bige ? Joe Bigelow
- Bill - Bill Greeley
- Bing ?
Claude Binyon
- Bok - Bob Knight
- Byro -
Stuart Byron
- Cart ?
Todd McCarthy
, 1979?1989; film review editor 1991?2010.
[79]
[80]
- Chic ? Epes W Sargeant
- Con ? John White Conway (1888?1928)
[81]
- Daku - Dave Kaufman
- Drek ?
Derek Elley
[76]
- Edba ? Ed Barry
[78]
- Edwa - Bill Edwards
- Fob - Frank Beermann
- Fred ? Fred Schader
[7]
- Gene ? Gene Arneel
- Gilb - George Gilbert
- Har ?
James Harwood
[82]
- Hawk ? Robert Hawkins
[83]
- Hell - Jack Hellmann
- Herm ? Herman Schoenfeld
[84]
- Hobe - Hobe Morrison
- Holl and Hyho ?
Hy Hollinger
, 1953?1960, 1979?1992
[76]
- Jac - Harlan Jacobson
- Jolo ? Joshua Lowe
- Jose - Joe Cohen
- Kirb - Fred Kirby
- Lait ?
Jack Lait
- Land - Robert J. Landry
- Ley ?
Joe Leydon
[76]
- Madd - John Madden
- Mick - Larry Michie
- Mor - Morry Roth
- Mosk - Gene Moskowitz
- Murf ? Arthur D. Murphy, the principal film critic from December 1964 until October 1978.
[85]
- Pry ? Thomas M. Pryor, editor of
Daily Variety
from 1959 until his retirement in 1988.
[86]
- Rush ? Alfred Greason
- Sid or Skig ?
Sidne Silverman
,
Variety
publisher and Sime Silverman's son.
[76]
- Sime ?
Sime Silverman
, founder of
Variety
and the first to write a film review for the paper.
[70]
- Sisk ? Robert Sisk, formerly a writer of "news letters" for
The Sun
in Baltimore, Maryland.
[87]
- Strat ?
David Stratton
- Syd ?
Syd Silverman
, Sime Silverman's grandson
- The Skirt ? Hattie Silverman, Sime's wife
[76]
- Ung ? Arthur Ungar, first
Daily Variety
editor
- Whit ? Whitney Williams
[88]
Reprints of reviews
[
edit
]
Variety
is one of the three English-language periodicals with 10,000 or more film reviews reprinted in book form. These are contained in the 24-volume
Variety Film Reviews
(1907?1996). Film reviews continue to be published in
Variety
. The other two periodicals are
The New York Times
(as
The New York Times Film Reviews
(1913?2000) in 22 volumes) and
Harrison's Reports
(as
Harrison's Reports and Film Reviews
(1919?1962) in 15 volumes).
In 1992,
Variety
published the
Variety Movie Guide
containing a collection of 5,000 abridged reviews edited by
Derek Elley
.
[72]
The last edition was published in 2001 with 8,500 reviews.
[89]
Many of the abridged reviews for films prior to 1998 are published on
Variety.com
unless they have later posted the original review.
[90]
Obituaries
[
edit
]
The complete text of approximately 100,000 entertainment-related
obituaries
(1905?1986) was reprinted as
Variety Obituaries
, an 11-volume set, including alphabetical index. Four additional bi-annual reprints were published (for 1987?1994) before the reprint series was discontinued.
The annual anniversary edition published in January would often contain a
necrology
of the entertainment people who had died that year.
[91]
Charts and data
[
edit
]
Variety
started reporting
box office
grosses for films by theatre on March 3, 1922, to give exhibitors around the country information on a film's performance on Broadway, which was often where first run showings of a film were held. In addition to New York City, they also endeavored to include all of the key cities in the U.S. in the future and initially also reported results for ten other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.
[92]
They continued to report these grosses for films until 1989 when they put the data into a summarized weekly chart
[93]
and only published the data by theatre for New York and Los Angeles as well as other international cities such as London and Paris.
As
media
expanded over the years, charts and data for other media such as TV ratings and music charts were published, especially in the anniversary editions that were regularly published each January.
During the 1930s, charts of the top performing films of the year were published and this tradition has been maintained annually since.
[47]
In 1946, a weekly National Box Office survey was published on page 3 indicating the performance of the week's hits and flops based on the box office results of 25 key U.S. cities.
[94]
[95]
Later that year, a list of All-Time Top Grossers with a list of films that had achieved or gave promise of earning $4,000,000 or more in domestic (United States and Canada) rentals was published.
[96]
An updated chart was published annually for over 50 years, normally in the anniversary edition each January.
[97]
[98]
In the late 1960s,
Variety
started to use an
IBM 360
computer to collate the grosses from their weekly reports of 22 to 24 U.S. cities from January 1, 1968. The data came from up to 800 theatres which represented around 5% of the U.S. cinema population at the time but around one-third of the total U.S. box office grosses. In 1969, they started to publish the computerized box office compilation of the top 50 grossing films of the week based on this data.
[99]
"
The Love Bug
" was the number one in the first chart published for the week ending April 16, 1969.
[100]
The chart format was changed in 1989 to reduce the list to a top 40 and display a summary of the sample city theater grosses rather than publish the theater grosses separately.
[93]
The sample chart was discontinued in 1990.
[101]
Arthur D. Murphy, who joined
Variety
in 1964 and worked there until 1993, was one of the first to organize and chart domestic box office gross information that became more available during the 1980s and report it in a meaningful form setting a standard for how film box office information is reported today.
[85]
Murphy used the weekly sample reports to estimate the total US weekly box office compared with previous annual totals which was reported in
Variety's
US Box Office Report each week. The sample also allowed Murphy to estimate the Market Share percentage rankings of distributors.
[93]
In 1976, Variety Box Office Index (VBI) was launched where each month's actual key city box office tally, after seasonal adjustment, was simultaneously expressed as an index number, with 1970 as a whole being used as the base initially. The current month's VBI expressed the monthly box office performance as a percentage change from the base year.
[102]
The index was published until 1991 giving a history of comparable monthly and annual box office performance for the past 20 years.
During the 1980s,
Daily Variety
started to publish a weekly chart of the domestic box office grosses of films as compared to the Top 50 chart in
Variety
which was based on a sample of key markets.
Variety
started to publish this weekend box office report together with the sample top 50 chart (later top 40) until they discontinued the sample chart in February 1990 with the weekend box office report being their main source of box office reporting.
[101]
In 2009,
Variety
launched a chart showcasing the top performing film trailers ahead of theatrical release in partnership with media measurement firm Visible Measures.
[103]
Other
Variety
products
[
edit
]
In 1937,
Variety
compiled and published a Radio Directory compiling a record of events in radio such as program histories, ratings and popularity polls.
[104]
It published an annual edition for the next three years
[105]
which are available on the Media History Digital Library.
In 1981,
Variety International Showbusiness Reference
was published, which they claimed was the first book to contain a complete list of all winners and nominees for the
Academy Awards
,
Emmy Awards
,
Tony Awards
,
Grammy Awards
and
Pulitzer Prize
. The following year they published
Variety major U.S. showbusiness awards
containing just this award details and a revised edition, called
Variety presents the complete book of major U.S. show business awards
, was published in 1985.
[106]
In 1988, R.R. Bowker, a Reed Reference Publishing Company, part of Reed-Elsevier, PLC, a "sister" company to
Variety
, published
Variety's Video Directory Plus
, a CD-ROM subscription product, updated quarterly, containing metadata about 90,000 home video products and full-text film reviews from
Variety
.
Peter Cowie
joined
Variety
in 1989
[107]
and his
International Film Guide
, which had been published annually since 1964, became
Variety International Film Guide
with reports from countries on the year in cinema as well as information of film festivals. It continued to bear
Variety'
s name until 2006.
[108]
In 1990,
Variety
published a 15-volume set of its television reviews (including home video product) from 1923 to 1988. Additional supplements were published covering 1989?1990, 1991?1992 and 1993?1994.
[109]
In 1999, Cowie published
The Variety Insider
with detailed information on the year in entertainment as well as historical information. A second edition followed in 2000.
[110]
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
[
edit
]
In November 2014,
Variety
premiered
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
, a co-production with PBS SoCal that featured two actors discussing their craft and thoughts on Hollywood, which subsequently went on to win three Emmy awards, including a Daytime Creative Arts Award in May 2019.
In January 2017, they launched the Variety Content Studio, creating custom content for brands.
[111]
[112]
[113]
[114]
Variety Insight
[
edit
]
Variety
established its data and research division, Variety Insight, in 2011 when it acquired entertainment data company, TVtracker.com.
[115]
Its film database was announced in December 2011 as FlixTracker, but was later folded into Variety Insight.
Variety
positioned the subscription service as an alternative to crowd-sourced websites, such as the
IMDb
.
[116]
The database uses
Variety
'
s existing relationships with the studios to get information. The
New York Observer
identified the main competitor as
Baseline StudioSystems
.
[115]
In 2014, Variety Insight added Vscore, a measure of actors' cachet and bankability.
[117]
In 2015, it partnered with ScriptNoted, a social media website for film
scripts.
[118]
Variety Australia
[
edit
]
Variety Australia is a website owned by
Brag Media
, published under license from Variety Media, LLC. It covers film, TV and music around the world, but with a special focus on the Australian and New Zealand industries. The main writer is Vivienne Kelly.
[119]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
"Variety, First Year No. 1"
.
Variety
. December 16, 1905. p. 3 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
"Inside Variety" published in 2000 (Ars Millenii, Madrid) by Peter Besas
- ^
"How "Variety" Happened"
.
Variety
. December 30, 1925. p. 8 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
Cieply, Michael (March 14, 2010).
"Trade Papers Struggling in Hollywood"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on January 26, 2021
. Retrieved
January 3,
2021
.
Mr. Silverman started a paper of his own. Its first issue promised notices "that will not be influenced by advertising."
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Sime Silverman, founder of 'Variety,' Dies Suddenly in Hollywood at 60"
.
Variety
. September 26, 1933. p. 1 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
a
b
"The First Issue of Variety"
.
Variety
. December 24, 1915. p. 18.
- ^
a
b
c
"
'Variety's' Four-Letter Signatures, The Dog-Tags of its Critics"
.
Variety
. January 9, 1974. p. 26
. Retrieved
November 2,
2023
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
"
"Skigie," the Youngest Critic in the World"
.
Variety
. December 16, 1905. p. 5 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Gillette, Don Carle (January 14, 1981).
"The House That Sime Built"
.
Variety
. p. 13
. Retrieved
May 6,
2024
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
a
b
"Veteran 'Variety' Mugg Gives Some Inside Stuff on Sime's Starting 'V'
"
.
Variety
. September 26, 1933. p. 3 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
"
'Variety' Charges Hollywood Daily of Stealing Its News Each Week"
.
Variety
. January 5, 1932.
- ^
"Daily Variety on Coast"
.
Variety
. September 12, 1933. p. 5.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Silverman, Syd
(February 11, 1976). "Harold Erichs, 74, 'Variety' Treasurer, Financial Officer; Career Spanned 60 Years".
Variety
. p. 2.
- ^
"Arthur Ungar Dies"
.
The Brattleboro Reformer
. July 25, 1950.
Archived
from the original on July 4, 2021
. Retrieved
February 22,
2021
.
- ^
a
b
c
"A Boffo 29 Years With Tom Pryor".
Variety
. June 22, 1988. p. 3.
- ^
"
'Just for Variety' column to end after 52 years"
. August 3, 2005.
Archived
from the original on March 12, 2018
. Retrieved
March 12,
2018
.
- ^
"Obituary - Thomas M. Pryor; Editor, 89"
.
The New York Times
. March 22, 2001.
Archived
from the original on March 8, 2018
. Retrieved
March 8,
2018
.
- ^
"Tom ? Simesite"
.
simesite.net
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Archived
from the original on March 8, 2018
. Retrieved
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2018
.
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.
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Archived
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
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a
b
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- ^
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.
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.
ISSN
0458-3035
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2014
.
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, 7th paragraph.
Archived
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- ^
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.
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Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
Accessed July 30, 2009 (registration required).
- ^
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Editorial Staff
".
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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2009
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
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a
b
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2021
.
- ^
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"
.
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. Retrieved
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.
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"
.
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.
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.
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. September 15, 1906.
- ^
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b
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.
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. January 5, 1938. p. 3.
- ^
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.
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. January 5, 1949. p. 47.
- ^
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.
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. October 21, 2005.
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. Retrieved
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.
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. May 1989.
554 pages
- ^
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. October 1989.
392 pages
- ^
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356 pages
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. October 26, 1976.
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2018
.
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- ^
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.
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from the original on January 2, 2020
. Retrieved
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2018
.
- ^
BPA Worldwide, September 2011
- ^
"
Variety
's
"Slanguage Dictionary"
"
. February 20, 2013.
Archived
from the original on December 18, 2015
. Retrieved
January 28,
2018
.
Now that Variety is available online, we offer the following glossary of terms, most of which you're likely to see while scanning this site.
- ^
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
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- ^
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.
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on November 25, 2010
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.
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.
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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b
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b
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.
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b
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.
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.
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,
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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b
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.
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. March 22, 2001. p. A25.
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.
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.
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.
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b
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"
.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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b
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.
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. Archived from
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"
'Variety' To Publish Annual Book Of Reference on All Show Biz".
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.
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
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. Vol. 17. Taylor & Francis.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
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. Berkley.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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2016
.
- ^
"Variety Launches Vscore to Measure Actors' Value"
.
Variety
. August 6, 2014.
Archived
from the original on September 23, 2016
. Retrieved
September 21,
2016
.
- ^
"Variety Insight Partners With ScriptNoted"
.
Variety
. October 20, 2015.
Archived
from the original on September 23, 2016
. Retrieved
September 21,
2016
.
- ^
"Variety Australia"
.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2022
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Peter Besas,
Inside Variety
(Madrid: Ars Millenii, 2000) The 563-page book gives a detailed history of the newspaper (it was never called a "magazine" under the Silvermans) from its birth in 1905 to its sale in 1987.
- Sime's Site
- a web site run by Peter Besas, Ian Watkins, for ex-
Variety
employees from the pre-Cahners, pre-corporate, Silverman era.
External links
[
edit
]
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