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One day after PMC’s acquisition of the venerable showbiz publication was formally announced, new owner Jay Penske visited Variety’s offices on Wilshire Blvd to talk about its future. The town hall started at 4:30 PM in front of about 80 staffers and took place on the building’s vacant 28th floor. Most of Penske’s presentation was about his company Penske Media Corp. He took no questions. According to those present, the gist of what Penske told the assembled group about Variety was that some things were going to stay the same and 
some things were going to change. His most important announcement was that Variety’s pay wall on the media outlet’s website will be coming down so that more than a small group of subscribers can consume its content. The PMC boss also said that Variety’s print publications are still going to come out for the foreseeable future. And he said he plans to invest more in Variety’s digital platform and expand its editorial reach. No more specifics were provided. The town hall ended around 5:10 PM. A Deadline reporter arriving to cover the Variety town hall wound up escorted from the building by security before it began.
Jay Penske Tells Variety Town Hall Today: Pay Wall Ends, Print Stays, Digital Expands
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So Penske now owns Deadline and Variety? Gonna be like the china around here.
My prediction: They’ll keep the print edition until at least the end of this year’s Oscar season, so they can get all of the “For Your Consideration” ad buys. Then they’ll really assess whether it’s worth continuing it…
They can cut Daily Variety down to a not-so-daily three times a week, or just axe it outright. And since Variety is a classic legacy brand, they can always do special print editions for awards season, Sundance, Toronto, etc. And as crass as it sounds, they can leverage Variety as a vector for direct mail advertising. In the year 2015 or 2020, if you want to reach showbiz people at the mailbox, call Variety.
Waste of $$$ Variety is dead.
Come on Variety isn’t DEAD… it just needs a better strategy and a serious facelift. Given what Penske did with Deadline, I think Variety can shine up like a new penny. (I said that in the Kathy Bates as Molly Brown tone when she says it to Jack in Titanic, obviously).
“A Deadline reporter trying to cover the Variety town hall wound up escorted from the building by security.”
Wait, what?
You’d think…nah, this is Hollywood, nothing surprises me anymore.
Hahahaha. That was my initial reaction. I was, like, wait a minute, doesn’t Penske own… then: This is like a moment with my own dysfunctional family… then I read the comments.
Ah, synergy!
Removing the paywall is an amazing idea. Funny how when they put it up, it instantly made Variety irrelevant.
Funny how the pay wall was the beginning of the fall from grace, and now it will disappear. My guess is too little too late. Haha.
The biggest joke about the “Pay Wall” was the morons who coded it didn’t do a good job. Only suckers actually paid for it. It was the easiest thing in the world to get around. All you had to when hitting a link was hit a fast control a then control c and you had their entire article before that dumbass “you have to pay for this screen” would kick in. Maybe Penske should start by firing the IT dept or whatever idiot told them to code it in that manner. Seriously, makes you wonder if the guy in IT still have an AOL dial-up for being that out-of-date.
It was actually even easier than that… you just had to wait for the page to load and hit the stop loading button before the paywall came up. The coding was atrocious.
Even easier, after you get your “three free pages views a month” or whatever it was, all you needed to do was clear your cookies and you were good.
Or hit the reader button on any Apple device.
Nikki, you buried the lead: “A Deadline reporter trying to cover the Variety town hall wound up escorted from the building by security.”
It sounded more dramatic on my first read. After further review, it looks like this was a town hall meeting *with Variety employees* and not a general press event.
The reason the Deadline reporter was escorted out of the building by security is because it wasn’t open to the public or reporters. Even if Deadline and Variety are now sister companies, it doesn’t mean that a Deadline employee can just stroll into Variety now. Bold of the reporter to try, though.
It wasn’t a press conference. It was a VARIETY staff meeting to meet the new owner. Coverage, even by a sibling, wasn’t appropriate.
Being able to link to an efficient presentation of current production charts would be a great asset to this blog.
Maybe Variety can be Commissioner Gordon to Nikki/DHD’s Batman — one to keep the studios/fat cats happy/safe the other to stir up the pot and call out the greedy and corrupt.
Penske made rare poor decision not making @NikkiFinke #Variety editor. I want @Variety to make it. One of few things that had staying power in an industry that is overflowing with the forgettable & disposable. Nikki was likely their last & only hope.
So is Hollywood.
What makes you think NF would even want to be the editor of V? She’s built her own credibility, outlet and brand from nothing.
Well, i did pay for the site so i never tried to work around the firewall. What about those of us with paid up subscriptions? Do we get our money back? I haven’t seen the answer to that anywhere.
Also, the entire site is horrible to load and read easily. i complained two years ago, i never want to open it as it’s one of the worst sites to use, load, read, go back to stories, etc. When i complained about the site years ago, the employee said they had heard that a lot… throw out your site host and start over.
Waxman is soooo bitter over in Santa Monica..for someone who strives (cough cough) for journalistic Excellence..She and her “instructed” crew seem to be obsessed with Nikki and the Variety deal and pens some pretty acid filled retorts!. Miss Thang thought STARBUCKS money was gonna get her VARIETY..OOPS! Waxman’s ALEXA is way down with a red arrow pointing south: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thewrap.com# and DEADLINE is way up with a green arrow pointing north http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/deadline.com# Bitter.. party of one..your table is ready on Barrington!
“A Deadline reporter arriving to cover the Variety town hall wound up escorted from the building by security before it began.”
WHAT!
Eliminating the Pay Wall is great news! I really do think that’s what knocked Variety out of the game and let DHD become the dominant news organization in the industry. It’s in the best interest of the industry for there to be multiple news outlets whether they’re online or in print. Nobody wins when a trade journal disappears.