Variety (magazine)

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Daily Variety's logo

Daily Variety (often referred to simply as Variety) is a daily newspaper for the entertainment industry.

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

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

For much of its existence, Variety's writers and columnists have used a jargon called slanguage or varietyese (a form of headlinese) that refers especially to the movie industry, and has largely been adopted and imitated by other writers in the industry. Such terms as "boffo box-office biz," "sitcom," "sex appeal", "payola" and even "striptease" are attributed to the influence of the magazine^[1], though its attempt to popularize "infobahn" as a synonym for "information superhighway" never caught on. Its most famous headline was from October, 1929 when the stock market crashed, "Wall St. Lays An Egg" while another favorite, "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" [1][2] was made popular—although the movie prop renders it as "Stix nix hix flix!"—by Michael Curtiz' musical-biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy where James Cagney is explaining the headline to some kids. Translated, it means that rural audiences were not attending rural-themed films. Television series are referred to as "skeins," and heads of companies or corporate teams are called "toppers." In addition, more common English words and phrases are shortened; "audience members" becomes simply "auds," "performance" becomes "perf," and "network" becomes "net," for example.

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

The magazine is owned by Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier. Its editor-in-chief is Peter Bart, who worked previously at Paramount Studios and The New York Times. Circulation hovers around 31,622 for the daily editions, and 30,800 for the weekly edition (Audit Bureau of Circulations, March 31, 2005).

History

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

Silverman was the publisher and editor of the Variety publications until his death from a heart attack at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard soon after launching the daily. His son Sidne (1901-1950), known as "Skiggie", succeeded him as editor and publisher of both publications. Both Sidne and his wife, stage actress Marie Saxon (1905-1942), died of tuberculosis. Their only son Syd, born 1932, was the sole heir to what was then Variety Inc. Guardian Harold Erichs oversaw Variety until 1956. From then Syd, who graduated from Princeton, took over and managed the company until 1987, when he sold it to Cahners Publishing (now Reed Elsevier) for US$64 million.

Facts and figures

• The magazine coined the word "pix" (now commonly referred to as "pics"). Pix was first coined in 1932 as a Variety headline, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies; by 1938 pix was being used in reference to still pictures by photojournalists.
• On January 19, 1907, Variety published what is considered as the first film review in history.
• On December 7, 1988, Editor-In-Chief Peter Bart's predecessor, Roger Watkins, proposed and oversaw the transition to Four-Colour print. Upon its launch, the new look Variety measured an inch shorter with a washed-out colour on the front. The old front-page box ad was replaced by a strip ad, along with the first photos published in Variety since Sime gave up using them in the old format in 1920: they depicted Sime, Abel and Syd. (www.simesite.net/roger.asp, 7th paragraph).

In popular culture

• In an episode of I Love Lucy, Ethel Mertz tries to explain 'Variety Speak' to Lucy Ricardo.
• In an episode of Animaniacs, Wakko gets confused when he sees the headline 'Hix Makes Pix, But The Flick Needs Fix'. Yakko and Dot proceed to explain how 'Variety Speak' works in a cabaret song that takes place in front of the Hollywood sign, on various sets of different movies, and at an awards ceremony.
• Often seen read by Larry Sanders in The Larry Sanders Show.
• The paper is also featured on the HBO series Entourage.
• The paper also appeared on a MADtv episode.
• On the episode "When You Dish upon a Star" of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, the paper appeared as the Springfield Daily Variety.

References

In the original edition of the Trivial Pursuit board game, one of the questions was "What is the entertainment industry's only daily publication?" A: Variety

External links

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

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