The Hollywood Reporter
Encyclopedia
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience. Indie Wire noted in July 2011 that the magazine is "the right combo of sizzling entertainment and hard breaking news." The multi-platform brand currently consists of an oversized weekly magazine, seasonal special reports, glossies, a high-traffic website, a digital daily, iPad app and events.
Its current mission statement reads as follows:
During the last century, it was one of the two major publications focused on Hollywood—the other being Variety
. Today, both publications cover what is more broadly called the entertainment industry.
published the first issue of The Hollywood Reporter on September 3, 1930. This daily magazine reported on movies, studios and personalities in an outrageously candid style. Through its outspoken pages, Wilkerson became one of the town's most colorful and controversial figures. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews", which exposed corrupt studio practices. "Tradeviews" went on to become one of the most widely read daily columns in the industry. The upstart publisher also employed hard-ball tactics to solicit advertising. Studios were literally blackmailed into giving their support. If they refused, he ordered a complete editorial blackout on all their material—from press releases to film reviews. The corporate moguls eventually banded together to deal with The Reporter. They refused Wilkerson all advertising support and deprived him of news from their studios. They even hired extra employees to burn The Hollywood Reporter when it was delivered every morning at their front gates. At the height of the battle, his reporters were barred from every lot in town. Wilkerson told them to climb over the studio walls and sift through executives' garbage. These tactics produced a flood of incriminating news, which Wilkerson cheerfully printed. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
had the paper airmailed daily to his desk at the White House
. By 1936, The Hollywood Reporter had become something even the most prescient studio heads never anticipated—a power that rivaled their own.
' s film reviews.
On Monday, July 29, 1946, Wilkerson published his TradeView entitled "A Vote For Joe Stalin". It contained the first industry names on what later became the infamous Hollywood Blacklist
—Dalton Trumbo
, Maurice Rapf, Lester Cole
, Howard Koch
, Harold Buchman, John Wexley, Ring Lardner Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss and John Howard Lawson
.
Wilkerson soon went after Cole, who was the first Vice President of the Screen Writers Guild. Here, Wilkerson would be the first to ask the two questions that would ring throughout the nation for the next decade: "Are you a member of the Writers Guild?" and "Are you a member of the Communist Party of the United States?" On Monday, August 19, 1946, Wilkerson wrote:
In an editorial entitled "RED BEACH-HEAD!" on Tuesday, August 20, 1946, Wilkerson took aim at Hollywood writer John Howard Lawson. On Wednesday, August 21, 1946, in an editorial entitled "Hywd's Red Commissars!", Wilkerson skewered John Leech
, Emmet Lavery, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Harold Buchman, Maurice Rapf, and William Pomerance
. On September 12, 1946, Wilkerson printed "the list" of names that would be plucked by The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) for their 1947 hearings. Wilkerson used two different colors to identify two different levels of participation in Communism. "Red" indicated that the individual was a card-carrying communist. "Pink" meant that an individual simply had communist sympathies.
The list included:
Known in the beginning as "Billy's List", it quickly became "Billy's Blacklist", referring to the color of the publisher’s magazine ink. Wilkerson's list would eventually evolve into the infamous "Blacklist" that became the backbone of the May 8, October 20 and October 27 hearings. These hearings led to citations for contempt being issued by the United States
on November 24, 1947.
Wilkerson would do what no other publisher in America had dared to do prior to August 1946—publish the identities of card-carrying communists, their party member numbers and pseudonyms on his front page.
, took over as publisher and editor-in-chief. She sold the paper on April 11, 1988 to trade publishers BPI for $26.7 million. Teri Ritzer was the last editor under Wilkerson. She began the paper's modernization by bringing newspaper editors into what was essentially a Hollywood wannabe newsroom.
BPI's publisher, Robert J. Dowling, brought in Alex Ben Block in 1990 and editorial quality of both news and specials was steadily improved. Ritzer and Block dampened much of the rah-rah coverage and cronyism
that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Ben Block left, former film editor at Variety
, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety. Dowling helmed the paper until he was forced to retire during corporate changes in late 2005. Tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. The Reporter was acquired, along with the rest of the assets of VNU
, in spring 2006 by a private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR, both with ties to the conservative movement in the United States
. Uphoff was replaced in October 2006 by John Kilcullen, who was the publisher of Billboard. Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboard's infamous "dildo" lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment. VNU settled the suit on the courthouse steps. Kilcullen "exited" Nielsen in February 2008 "to pursue his passion as an entrepreneur."
Matthew King, vice president for content and audience, editorial director Howard Burns, and executive editor Peter Pryor left the paper in a wave of layoffs in December 2006; editor Cynthia Littleton, widely respected throughout the industry, reported directly to Kilcullen. The Reporter absorbed another blow when Littleton left her position for an editorial job at Variety in March, 2007. Web editor Glenn Abel also left after 16 years with the paper.
In January 2007, VNU was purchased by a private equity consortium and renamed The Nielsen Company, whose properties include Billboard
, AdWeek and A.C. Nielsen. Under its new leadership, Nielsen is reported to have made a $
5 million investment in The Reporter.
In December 2009, Prometheus Global Media, a newly formed company formed by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners
and chaired by Jimmy Finkelstein, CEO of News Communications, parent of Congressional Journal the Hill, acquired The Hollywood Reporter from Nielsen Business Media. It pledged to invest in the brand and grow the company.
Richard Beckman, formerly of Condé Nast, was appointed the new company's CEO.
In June 2007, Rose Einstein, former Vice President, Advertising Sales for Netflix
and 25-year veteran of Reed Business Media, was named to the newly created role of Vice President, Associate Publisher to oversee all sales and business development for The Reporter. Mika left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.
In July 2007, The Reporter named Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. An 18-year veteran of Variety, where she served as Executive Editor, Guider assumed responsibility for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter’s daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and executive conferences. Guider left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.
In April 2010, Lori Burgess was named publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Burgess had been publisher of OK!
magazine since October 2008. Michaela Apruzzese was named associate publisher, entertainment, of The Hollywood Reporter in May 2010. Apruzzese served as the director of movie advertising for Los Angeles Times Media Group.
In May 2010, Janice Min
was named Editorial Director. Min previously served as the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly magazine from 2003 until 2009. Richard Beckman, CEO of Prometheus Global Media, owner of The Hollywood Reporter, said of her hire: "Janice dramatically transformed the landscape of entertainment journalism, and she is perfectly suited to lead The Hollywood Reporter's business-to-influencer coverage of the global entertainment industry."
" digital
edition in the late 1980s. It became the first daily entertainment trade paper to start a web site in 1995. Initially, the site offered free news briefs with complete coverage firewalled as a premium (paid) service. In later years, the web site became mostly free as it became more reliant on ad sales and less on subscribers. The web site had already gone through a redesign by the time competitor Daily Variety took to the web. In 2002, The Reporter’s web site won the Jesse H. Neal Award
for business journalism.
Later, other The Reporter electronic products include U.S. and European daily e-mail
editions, a daily East Coast digital edition, a business podcast
and a number of blogs, and a weekly Korean-language newsletter that reached nearly 4,000 subscribers in Korea each day. In June 2007, The Reporter introduced The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Edition, an online electronic replica of the daily magazine, available in 12 languages, that also features text-to-voice conversion into six languages. In October 2007, the publication launched THR Direct, a free application that provides subscribers with immediate delivery of customized news, alerts and video from The Hollywood Reporter to their desktop.
The Reporter itself was slow to modernize. The paper still used vintage IBM
-styled selectric typewriters in several departments into the early 1990s and was sluggish in upgrading operations by adding common business equipment such as computers, scanners
and color printers to all departments. Archival materials were routinely microfilmed as late as 1998 rather than digitized, even though the system to view it was in storage or broken. Many staff members did not have email several years after its use became relatively common in business.
In late summer 2010, thr.com was completely redesigned and re-launched under Janice Min
to become a cutting-edge, one-stop entertainment destination, covering movies, television, music, style, theatre, personal tech, and the business side of the entertainment industry (some content lives behind a pay wall). With breaking news and much more exclusive industry scoop, web traffic for the site has increased over 800% since late 2009. The site now features HD movie and television trailers, photo and video galleries, and much more social connectivity - with buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg and a comment section on nearly every posting.
THR also has feeds on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to a respected series of blogs that live on thr.com.
In addition to hiring Eric Mika, Rose Eintstein and Elizabeth Guider, The Reporter hired the following staff in 2007:
However, staffing levels began to drop again in 2008. In April, Nielsen Business Media eliminated between 40 and 50 editorial staff positions at The Hollywood Reporter and its sister publications: Adweek, Brandweek, Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek. In December, another 12 editorial positions were cut at the trade paper. In addition, 2008 saw substantial turnover in the online department: THR.com Editor Melissa Grego left her position in July to become executive editor of Broadcasting & Cable
, and Managing Editor Scott McKim left to become a new media manager at Knox College. With the entertainment industry as a whole shrinking, "Hollywood studios have cut more than $20 million from the Motion Picture Association of America budget this year. The resulting staff and program reductions are expected to permanently shrink the scope and size of the six-studio trade and advocacy group." Staffing at THR in 2008 saw even further cutbacks with "names from today's tragic bloodletting of The Hollywood Reporters staff" adding up quickly in the hard economic times at the end of 2008. "The trade has not only been thin, but only publishing digital version 19 days this holiday season. Film writers Leslie Simmons, Carolyn Giardina, Gregg Goldstein, plus lead TV critic Barry Garron and TV reporter Kimberly Nordyke, also special issues editor Randee Dawn Cohen out of New York and managing editor Harley Lond and international department editor Hy Hollinger, plus Dan Evans, Lesley Goldberg, Michelle Belaski, James Gonzalez were among those chopped from the masthead."
When Janice Min
and Lori Burgess came on board in 2010, the editorial and sales staff have increased nearly 50%, respectively. Janice hired some of the most recognized journalists in the entertainment industry, most notably scooping up veteran Variety film critic Todd McCarthy after his firing from Variety in March 2010.
Beckman and Burgess created a dedicated sales staff in New York to sell non-endemic advertising into the post re-launch print weekly, and beefed up the LA-based staff to better cover the endemic business.
for more than a half century, although by the 1970s the aging offices had become a time capsule more akin to the 1950s and the paper had clearly outgrown them. Today, the offices are in L.A.'s Mid-Wilshire
district.
In November 2007, The Reporter launched its Premier Edition, a new day-and-date edition of the publication with daily morning delivery to subscribers in New York
and key cities across the East Coast. As a result of the move to regional printing, the Premier Edition is also available on newsstands throughout Manhattan
each morning from Monday through Friday.
The Hollywood Reporters conferences and award shows include the Key Art Awards
, which aim to recognize the best in movie marketing and advertising. Its annual Power Women in Entertainment issue and event is a somewhat controversial if not subjective ranking of female entertainment executives. Its annual "Next Gen" special issue and event honors 35 up-and-coming executives in entertainment that are 35 years or younger. Throughout the year, THR publishes a 'roundtable' series in conjunction with many of the tent-pole award shows, including the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmy's. The paper's influential celebrity marketability rating system, Star Power, has ceased publication.
Today, The Hollywood Reporter is working to become the leading entertainment news source. With an impressive suite of products - from a daily PDF edition, to its oversized weekly glossy magazine, an iPad app, and a slew of international newsletters and festival dailies – and a robust new editorial staff, they have set out to redefine the flailing trade industry.
to achieve the largest total distribution of any entertainment daily.
Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both are located on Wilshire Boulevard
along the well-trafficked "Miracle Mile". Staffers often migrate between the papers. There is a history of bad blood
between the rivals bordering on the obsessive, sometimes petty and occasionally myopic. Variety was long established as an entertainment trade paper in vaudeville
circles, Tin Pan Alley
and in the theatre district of New York City
, but it was The Hollywood Reporter that began covering the developing film business in Hollywood in 1930. Variety did not start its Hollywood edition until 1933.
The Hollywood Reporter maintains a business association with the home entertainment trade publication Home Media Magazine
, which is owned by Questex Media Group. The alliance includes an exchange of stories when the need arises, and gives The Reporter access into the home entertainment trade, which Variety enjoys with its sister publication, the Reed-owned Video Business.
Its current mission statement reads as follows:
During the last century, it was one of the two major publications focused on Hollywood—the other being Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, 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 Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
. Today, both publications cover what is more broadly called the entertainment industry.
History
The Hollywood Reporter was Hollywood's first daily entertainment industry trade paper. It began as a daily film publication, then added television coverage in the 1950s and began in the late 1980s to cover intellectual property industries.Founder
William R. WilkersonWilliam Wilkerson
William Richard Wilkerson was the founder of the Hollywood Reporter, Flamingo Hotel and owner of such nightclubs as Ciro's. He was also responsible for discovering actress Lana Turner across the street from Hollywood High School.-Early life:Born in Nashville, Tennessee on September 29, 1890...
published the first issue of The Hollywood Reporter on September 3, 1930. This daily magazine reported on movies, studios and personalities in an outrageously candid style. Through its outspoken pages, Wilkerson became one of the town's most colorful and controversial figures. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews", which exposed corrupt studio practices. "Tradeviews" went on to become one of the most widely read daily columns in the industry. The upstart publisher also employed hard-ball tactics to solicit advertising. Studios were literally blackmailed into giving their support. If they refused, he ordered a complete editorial blackout on all their material—from press releases to film reviews. The corporate moguls eventually banded together to deal with The Reporter. They refused Wilkerson all advertising support and deprived him of news from their studios. They even hired extra employees to burn The Hollywood Reporter when it was delivered every morning at their front gates. At the height of the battle, his reporters were barred from every lot in town. Wilkerson told them to climb over the studio walls and sift through executives' garbage. These tactics produced a flood of incriminating news, which Wilkerson cheerfully printed. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had the paper airmailed daily to his desk at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. By 1936, The Hollywood Reporter had become something even the most prescient studio heads never anticipated—a power that rivaled their own.
The Hollywood blacklist
Wilkerson believed that the Screen Writers Guild was one of the prime Communist strongholds in all of Hollywood. He used his TradeView column to publicize the "Communist Takeover" of the guild dating as early as 1938. Throughout the thirteen year Screen Writers Guild ban of its members advertising their services in trade papers, Wilkerson would not allow screenwriter credits in The ReporterOn Monday, July 29, 1946, Wilkerson published his TradeView entitled "A Vote For Joe Stalin". It contained the first industry names on what later became the infamous Hollywood Blacklist
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...
—Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
, Maurice Rapf, Lester Cole
Lester Cole
Lester Cole was an American screenwriter.Born in New York City, Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was "If I had a Million." In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America.In 1934, Cole...
, Howard Koch
Howard Koch
Howard Koch is the name of:* Howard Koch , American screenwriter* Howard W. Koch , American film and TV director, producer* Hawk Koch , American film producer...
, Harold Buchman, John Wexley, Ring Lardner Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss and John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson was an American writer. He was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the cell's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief...
.
Wilkerson soon went after Cole, who was the first Vice President of the Screen Writers Guild. Here, Wilkerson would be the first to ask the two questions that would ring throughout the nation for the next decade: "Are you a member of the Writers Guild?" and "Are you a member of the Communist Party of the United States?" On Monday, August 19, 1946, Wilkerson wrote:
FOR THE PURPOSE of trying to tag the activity of the Screen-Writers Guild generally, and particularly its action proposing to our State Department that the U.S.-French film agreement be renegotiated to give "greater benefit" to the French film writers, we would like to ask Mr. Lester Cole, who authored the motion for SWG passage:
- "Are you a Communist? Do you hold card number 46805 in what is known as the Northwest Section of the Communist party, a division of the party made up mostly of West Coast Commies?"
In an editorial entitled "RED BEACH-HEAD!" on Tuesday, August 20, 1946, Wilkerson took aim at Hollywood writer John Howard Lawson. On Wednesday, August 21, 1946, in an editorial entitled "Hywd's Red Commissars!", Wilkerson skewered John Leech
John Leech
John Leech was an English caricaturist and illustrator.-Early life:John Leech was born in London...
, Emmet Lavery, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Harold Buchman, Maurice Rapf, and William Pomerance
William Pomerance
Mortimer William Pomerance was an animator who worked for Walt Disney Studios. He worked first as a business manager of cartoonists, and then was a business agent for the Screen Actors Guild...
. On September 12, 1946, Wilkerson printed "the list" of names that would be plucked by The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) for their 1947 hearings. Wilkerson used two different colors to identify two different levels of participation in Communism. "Red" indicated that the individual was a card-carrying communist. "Pink" meant that an individual simply had communist sympathies.
The list included:
- Edward DmytrykEdward DmytrykEdward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...
- John Howard Lawson
- Guy EndoreGuy EndoreSamuel Guy Endore , born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished...
- Lester Cole
- Dalton TrumboDalton TrumboJames Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
- Albert MaltzAlbert MaltzAlbert Maltz was an American author and screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten who were later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses....
- Henry Myers
- Marian Spitzer
- Ring Lardner Jr.
- Jay GorneyJay GorneyJay Gorney was an American theater and film song writer. He was born Abraham Jacob Gornetzsky in Białystok, Russia on December 12, 1894. In 1906, he witnessed the Bialystock pogrom which forced his family into hiding for nearly two weeks, after which they fled to the United States...
- E. Y. Harburg
- Boris Ingster
- Harold Buchman
- Gordon KahnGordon KahnGordon Kahn was an American author and screenwriter who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He is the father of broadcaster and author Tony Kahn.-Life:...
- Howard Koch
- Alvah BessieAlvah BessieAlvah Cecil Bessie was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter who was imprisoned for ten months and blacklisted by the movie studio bosses for being one of the group known as the Hollywood Ten.-Life and career:...
- John BrightJohn Bright (disambiguation)John Bright may refer to:*John Bright Parliamentarian soldier and MP*John Bright , British radical and liberal statesman*His son John Albert Bright , British Liberal Unionist politician...
- Howard Dimsdale
- Paul JarricoPaul JarricoPaul Jarrico was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.-Early years:...
- Francis E. Faragoh
- Frank TuttleFrank TuttleFrank Tuttle was a Hollywood film director and writer who directed films from 1922 to 1959 ....
- Alvin Wilder
- Martin Berkeley
Known in the beginning as "Billy's List", it quickly became "Billy's Blacklist", referring to the color of the publisher’s magazine ink. Wilkerson's list would eventually evolve into the infamous "Blacklist" that became the backbone of the May 8, October 20 and October 27 hearings. These hearings led to citations for contempt being issued by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on November 24, 1947.
Wilkerson would do what no other publisher in America had dared to do prior to August 1946—publish the identities of card-carrying communists, their party member numbers and pseudonyms on his front page.
Ownership changes
Wilkerson ran The Hollywood Reporter until his death in 1962, when his wife, Tichi WilkersonTichi Wilkerson Kassel
Tichi Wilkerson Kassel was an American film personality and the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. She established the "Women in Film" organization, the Key Art and Marketing Concepts awards, and several scholarships for film students.For her achievement in motion pictures, she has a star on the...
, took over as publisher and editor-in-chief. She sold the paper on April 11, 1988 to trade publishers BPI for $26.7 million. Teri Ritzer was the last editor under Wilkerson. She began the paper's modernization by bringing newspaper editors into what was essentially a Hollywood wannabe newsroom.
BPI's publisher, Robert J. Dowling, brought in Alex Ben Block in 1990 and editorial quality of both news and specials was steadily improved. Ritzer and Block dampened much of the rah-rah coverage and cronyism
Cronyism
Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy....
that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Ben Block left, former film editor at Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, 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 Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety. Dowling helmed the paper until he was forced to retire during corporate changes in late 2005. Tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. The Reporter was acquired, along with the rest of the assets of VNU
VNU
Nielsen is a global marketing and advertising research company headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Nielsen is active in over 100 countries, and employs some 32,000 people worldwide...
, in spring 2006 by a private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR, both with ties to the conservative movement in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Uphoff was replaced in October 2006 by John Kilcullen, who was the publisher of Billboard. Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboard's infamous "dildo" lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment. VNU settled the suit on the courthouse steps. Kilcullen "exited" Nielsen in February 2008 "to pursue his passion as an entrepreneur."
Matthew King, vice president for content and audience, editorial director Howard Burns, and executive editor Peter Pryor left the paper in a wave of layoffs in December 2006; editor Cynthia Littleton, widely respected throughout the industry, reported directly to Kilcullen. The Reporter absorbed another blow when Littleton left her position for an editorial job at Variety in March, 2007. Web editor Glenn Abel also left after 16 years with the paper.
In January 2007, VNU was purchased by a private equity consortium and renamed The Nielsen Company, whose properties include Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
, AdWeek and A.C. Nielsen. Under its new leadership, Nielsen is reported to have made a $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
5 million investment in The Reporter.
In December 2009, Prometheus Global Media, a newly formed company formed by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners
Guggenheim Partners
Guggenheim Partners, LLC is a privately held, diversified financial services firm that engages in investment banking, capital markets services, investment management, and investment advisory. The firm is headquartered in Chicago and New York with over 1,400 professionals located in 20 cities...
and chaired by Jimmy Finkelstein, CEO of News Communications, parent of Congressional Journal the Hill, acquired The Hollywood Reporter from Nielsen Business Media. It pledged to invest in the brand and grow the company.
Richard Beckman, formerly of Condé Nast, was appointed the new company's CEO.
Editors and publishers
In April 2007, industry veteran Eric Mika was named to the newly created role of Senior Vice President, Publishing Director of The Reporter. Having previously served as Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Nielsen Business Media's Film and Performing Arts Group and, before that, as Vice President and Managing Director for Variety, Mika assumed responsibility for the general management of sales, marketing and editorial for The Hollywood Reporter, as well as the brand's ancillary products, events, licensing business and partnerships.In June 2007, Rose Einstein, former Vice President, Advertising Sales for Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
and 25-year veteran of Reed Business Media, was named to the newly created role of Vice President, Associate Publisher to oversee all sales and business development for The Reporter. Mika left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.
In July 2007, The Reporter named Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. An 18-year veteran of Variety, where she served as Executive Editor, Guider assumed responsibility for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter’s daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and executive conferences. Guider left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.
In April 2010, Lori Burgess was named publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Burgess had been publisher of OK!
OK!
OK! is a British weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news. Originally launched as a monthly, its first issue was published in April 1993. In September 2004, OK! publishers Northern and Shell launched in Australia as a monthly title – the magazine went weekly in October 2006...
magazine since October 2008. Michaela Apruzzese was named associate publisher, entertainment, of The Hollywood Reporter in May 2010. Apruzzese served as the director of movie advertising for Los Angeles Times Media Group.
In May 2010, Janice Min
Janice Min
Janice Min is a Korean-American editor and writer who rose to prominence as the longtime editor of Us Weekly and .A graduate of Columbia College, and later Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Min began her career as a newspaper reporter in Westchester County, NY...
was named Editorial Director. Min previously served as the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly magazine from 2003 until 2009. Richard Beckman, CEO of Prometheus Global Media, owner of The Hollywood Reporter, said of her hire: "Janice dramatically transformed the landscape of entertainment journalism, and she is perfectly suited to lead The Hollywood Reporter's business-to-influencer coverage of the global entertainment industry."
Presence on the web
The Reporter published a primitive "satelliteSatellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
" digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
edition in the late 1980s. It became the first daily entertainment trade paper to start a web site in 1995. Initially, the site offered free news briefs with complete coverage firewalled as a premium (paid) service. In later years, the web site became mostly free as it became more reliant on ad sales and less on subscribers. The web site had already gone through a redesign by the time competitor Daily Variety took to the web. In 2002, The Reporter’s web site won the Jesse H. Neal Award
Jesse H. Neal Award
The Jesse H. Neal Award is a business journalism editorial award, presented annually in each of several categories. The awards editorial recognize excellence in business-to-business publications. They are presented by American Business Media and are named for that organization's first managing...
for business journalism.
Later, other The Reporter electronic products include U.S. and European daily e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
editions, a daily East Coast digital edition, a business podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
and a number of blogs, and a weekly Korean-language newsletter that reached nearly 4,000 subscribers in Korea each day. In June 2007, The Reporter introduced The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Edition, an online electronic replica of the daily magazine, available in 12 languages, that also features text-to-voice conversion into six languages. In October 2007, the publication launched THR Direct, a free application that provides subscribers with immediate delivery of customized news, alerts and video from The Hollywood Reporter to their desktop.
The Reporter itself was slow to modernize. The paper still used vintage IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
-styled selectric typewriters in several departments into the early 1990s and was sluggish in upgrading operations by adding common business equipment such as computers, scanners
Scanners
Scanners is a 1981 science-fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan...
and color printers to all departments. Archival materials were routinely microfilmed as late as 1998 rather than digitized, even though the system to view it was in storage or broken. Many staff members did not have email several years after its use became relatively common in business.
In late summer 2010, thr.com was completely redesigned and re-launched under Janice Min
Janice Min
Janice Min is a Korean-American editor and writer who rose to prominence as the longtime editor of Us Weekly and .A graduate of Columbia College, and later Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Min began her career as a newspaper reporter in Westchester County, NY...
to become a cutting-edge, one-stop entertainment destination, covering movies, television, music, style, theatre, personal tech, and the business side of the entertainment industry (some content lives behind a pay wall). With breaking news and much more exclusive industry scoop, web traffic for the site has increased over 800% since late 2009. The site now features HD movie and television trailers, photo and video galleries, and much more social connectivity - with buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg and a comment section on nearly every posting.
THR also has feeds on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to a respected series of blogs that live on thr.com.
Editors and reporters today
The Hollywood Reporter has a staff of roughly 150. Today, editors and reporters number more than 65, with another 50 staffers scattered in key bureaus around the world. It is interesting to note that during the "golden age" of Hollywood film and television, The Reporter was seldom staffed with more than 20 people. It was chiefly in the media boom of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that the employee roster increased.In addition to hiring Eric Mika, Rose Eintstein and Elizabeth Guider, The Reporter hired the following staff in 2007:
- Todd Cunningham, former assistant managing editor of the LA Business Journal, as National Editor for The Hollywood Reporter: Premier Edition
- Steven Zeitchik as Senior Writer, based in New York, where he provide news analysis and features for the Premiere Edition
- Melissa Grego, former managing editor of TV WeekTV WeekTV Week is a weekly television magazine in Australia, first published as a Melbourne-only publication in December 1957 , and bearing a strong affiliation to television station GTV.The publication is still publishing weekly...
, as Editor of HollywoodReporter.com - Jonathan Landreth as the new Asian bureau chief, in addition to 13 new writers across Asia
However, staffing levels began to drop again in 2008. In April, Nielsen Business Media eliminated between 40 and 50 editorial staff positions at The Hollywood Reporter and its sister publications: Adweek, Brandweek, Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek. In December, another 12 editorial positions were cut at the trade paper. In addition, 2008 saw substantial turnover in the online department: THR.com Editor Melissa Grego left her position in July to become executive editor of Broadcasting & Cable
Broadcasting & Cable
Broadcasting & Cable magazine is a television industry trade magazine published by NewBay Media. Previous names included Broadcasting/Telecasting, Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising, and Broadcasting...
, and Managing Editor Scott McKim left to become a new media manager at Knox College. With the entertainment industry as a whole shrinking, "Hollywood studios have cut more than $20 million from the Motion Picture Association of America budget this year. The resulting staff and program reductions are expected to permanently shrink the scope and size of the six-studio trade and advocacy group." Staffing at THR in 2008 saw even further cutbacks with "names from today's tragic bloodletting of The Hollywood Reporters staff" adding up quickly in the hard economic times at the end of 2008. "The trade has not only been thin, but only publishing digital version 19 days this holiday season. Film writers Leslie Simmons, Carolyn Giardina, Gregg Goldstein, plus lead TV critic Barry Garron and TV reporter Kimberly Nordyke, also special issues editor Randee Dawn Cohen out of New York and managing editor Harley Lond and international department editor Hy Hollinger, plus Dan Evans, Lesley Goldberg, Michelle Belaski, James Gonzalez were among those chopped from the masthead."
When Janice Min
Janice Min
Janice Min is a Korean-American editor and writer who rose to prominence as the longtime editor of Us Weekly and .A graduate of Columbia College, and later Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Min began her career as a newspaper reporter in Westchester County, NY...
and Lori Burgess came on board in 2010, the editorial and sales staff have increased nearly 50%, respectively. Janice hired some of the most recognized journalists in the entertainment industry, most notably scooping up veteran Variety film critic Todd McCarthy after his firing from Variety in March 2010.
Beckman and Burgess created a dedicated sales staff in New York to sell non-endemic advertising into the post re-launch print weekly, and beefed up the LA-based staff to better cover the endemic business.
Current status and legacy
The Hollywood Reporter has been called an institution, publishing out of the same offices on Sunset BoulevardSunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
for more than a half century, although by the 1970s the aging offices had become a time capsule more akin to the 1950s and the paper had clearly outgrown them. Today, the offices are in L.A.'s Mid-Wilshire
Mid-Wilshire
Mid-Wilshire is a district in the City of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Wilshire region.It mostly encompasses the area bounded by La Cienega Boulevard to the west, Melrose Avenue to the north, Hoover Street to the east and the Santa Monica Freeway to the south, although some...
district.
In November 2007, The Reporter launched its Premier Edition, a new day-and-date edition of the publication with daily morning delivery to subscribers in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and key cities across the East Coast. As a result of the move to regional printing, the Premier Edition is also available on newsstands throughout Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
each morning from Monday through Friday.
The Hollywood Reporters conferences and award shows include the Key Art Awards
Key Art Awards
The Key Art Awards are an annual collection of honors given for outstanding achievement in artwork and other promotional materials advertising movies...
, which aim to recognize the best in movie marketing and advertising. Its annual Power Women in Entertainment issue and event is a somewhat controversial if not subjective ranking of female entertainment executives. Its annual "Next Gen" special issue and event honors 35 up-and-coming executives in entertainment that are 35 years or younger. Throughout the year, THR publishes a 'roundtable' series in conjunction with many of the tent-pole award shows, including the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmy's. The paper's influential celebrity marketability rating system, Star Power, has ceased publication.
Today, The Hollywood Reporter is working to become the leading entertainment news source. With an impressive suite of products - from a daily PDF edition, to its oversized weekly glossy magazine, an iPad app, and a slew of international newsletters and festival dailies – and a robust new editorial staff, they have set out to redefine the flailing trade industry.
Competition with Variety
In March 2007, The Hollywood Reporter surpassed VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, 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 Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
to achieve the largest total distribution of any entertainment daily.
Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both are located on Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire , an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining. Henry Wilshire initiated what was to become Wilshire...
along the well-trafficked "Miracle Mile". Staffers often migrate between the papers. There is a history of bad blood
Bad Blood
Bad Blood is an English phrase referring to enmity between two people or groups.The phrase may also refer to:-In film and television:* Bad Blood , starring Jack Thompson, about mass murderer Stanley Graham...
between the rivals bordering on the obsessive, sometimes petty and occasionally myopic. Variety was long established as an entertainment trade paper in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
circles, Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
and in the theatre district of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, but it was The Hollywood Reporter that began covering the developing film business in Hollywood in 1930. Variety did not start its Hollywood edition until 1933.
The Hollywood Reporter maintains a business association with the home entertainment trade publication Home Media Magazine
Home Media Magazine
Home Media Magazine is a weekly trade publication that covers various aspects of the home entertainment industry, most notably DVD, Blu-ray Disc and digital distribution. Also covered is news relating to consumer electronics, video games, home video distributors, video-on-demand and Internet...
, which is owned by Questex Media Group. The alliance includes an exchange of stories when the need arises, and gives The Reporter access into the home entertainment trade, which Variety enjoys with its sister publication, the Reed-owned Video Business.
See also
- VarietyVariety (magazine)Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, 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 Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
- Nielsen Business Media
- TubefilterTubefilterTubefilter, Inc. is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, California that operates media properties focusing on the online entertainment industry. Tubefilter is best known for Tubefilter News, a blog targeted at the producers and distributors of web television content where the best in...