LOS ANGELES: The venerable Hollywood trade magazine Daily Variety published its last printed edition on Tuesday, ending an 80-year era by beckoning readers to a recently revamped website and announcing plans to launch a new weekly version of the publication.
The glossy magazine, under new ownership since last autumn, bid farewell to its daily paper-and-ink audience in a front-page inset headline. “This marks the last official print version of Daily Variety, which reported what happened yesterday,” the magazine said. “For news of what happened two minutes ago, keep going to Variety.com, which will be updated constantly.”
Long considered the bible of the entertainment industry, Variety said it would merge the editorial content and staff of Daily Variety and its weekly international sister publication, known simply as Variety, to form a new weekly printed edition that will debut on March 26 and publish every Tuesday. Variety said its new weekly publication and the website would continue the daily magazine’s insider emphasis on the business of entertainment, with expanded in-depth coverage.
The move reflects forces shaping much of American print-based journalism, as an increasing number of newspapers have either shifted all their content online or stopped publishing a physical edition on a daily basis. Variety’s website was relaunched on March 1 with a new format eliminating the subscription “pay wall” and providing free access to all its content. Variety was founded in 1905 in New York as a weekly publication covering the vaudeville circuit and in 1933 spawned Daily Variety in Hollywood, where it grew into the entertainment industry’s leading paper of record.
Reuters
