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I'm told a 23-year sales vet at The Hollywood Reporter walked today. That leaves 6 sales people out of the trade's normal 17-person contingent on the job. How did the management react? 
With an end-of-day email asking the holdovers to work this weekend to find another $7,000 so the publisher can hit some target. Speaking of the publisher, an Emmy and Oscar honored Hollywood name had this recent email exchange with Eric Mika, publisher and VP of The Hollywood Reporter and the Nielsen Entertainment Group. It's very illuminating -- although I suspect Variety will squeal like a stuck pig when it reads the statistics Mika uses:
Dear Publisher,
I have subscribed to The Hollywood Reporter for over thirty (30) years, as it was always my favorite publication of the two trade papers here in LA.
But the end is at hand. I have several new subscription notices that have been sent to me by your company, but have decided not to renew.
Why? Well, only one word describes the reason. The new format is AWFUL. It is cold and boring. And, it looks like some Business Weekly magazine, reading just as dryly. The charm and individuality that once was its calling card, is GONE.
Over the last month, I have heard this remark (at major studios, industry gatherings, etc.) from 137 (I've kept a list) actors, producers, directors, below the line staff, even just ordinary people who don't have much to do with the business, who think the changes that have been made STINK. Not ONE person has remarked in favor of the changes.
I've also noticed that the issues are slimmer and slimmer, due to lack of advertising. Can't somebody see the writing on the wall.
Best of luck in the future, but you won't have me supporting you. Daily Variety is SO MUCH BETTER A READ!!!
---
Dear XXX,I'm very sorry to hear of your dislike of the new Hollywood Reporter. THR and other publications are faced with a ever changing business globally that is more complex then ever before.
Over the last year THR has invested in editorial growth throughout the world with offices now in Beijing and Hong Kong, as well as London launched a digital edition page turner and created events around the world. THR advertising revenue is spread through the pages to digital products.
What I view as a very important sign of success is our audience marketing information derived from ABC: Since the re-launch THR has experienced an increase of total distribution of 19% Monday through to Thursday and 22% increase on the International Weekend Edition. In addition we have 62% more readers in California, 54% more in New York, then Weekly Variety according the to the new ABC Statement and very similar numbers when we compare the Daily publications.
I am indeed sorry to lose a long time reader. I wish you the very best.
Respectfully,
Eric
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Billy Wilkerson’s chickens are finally coming home to roost long after he fled the henhouse. The best thing about the HR is the Hollywood Creative Directory product line. The rest of the rag has more strokes than a Florida rest home.
…other publications are faced with a ever changing business globally that is more complex then ever before.
Nice grammar. This is from someone in the publishing business…
if you’re wondering it should be: an ever changing…and …complex than ever before
So … the way to win back a longtime subscriber is to quote them statistics about how many other people reading their magazine? Basically saying “we’ve got all these new readers who like what we’re doing so we don’t need your money any more.” Now [i]that’s[/i] how you run a company. I could understand if this response had come from a underpaid and inexperienced customer service representative but for the publisher to respond this way is just inexcusable.
The right way to handle this would be to say “hey, we understand where you’re coming from and hope you reconsider. We believe the changes we’ve made are for the better and have some things coming in the near future that we think you might like. If interested we’ll give you one month of free service and if at the end of that time you still decide THR isn’t for you we’ll understand.”
But I guess the “we’ve got new money coming in and don’t need yours” was just easier than actually working to keep a subscriber.
Uh…Sorry, Eric.
First, knowing what a liar you are, I’d like to see those statistics you refer to and the context in which they were displayed.
Second, the complaint was about the QUALITY your paper, which really has just gone to crap since Bob Dowling left. Now THAT was a Publisher.
Third, you just let THR’s best homegrown talent walk across the street (and other places) and haven’t come anywhere near replacing them. I blame Liz for that. (Talent still reigns in certain areas of this town. Right, Nikki?)
I hear you and Liz have turned that place into a misery box. Your ex-subscriber was right. Any charm the paper once had has been mercilessly clubbed like a Harp Seal.
I suggest you re-read the letter, and start listening to your readers and staff (who know a hell of alot more than you do) instead of blurting out statistical paroxysms, to please your hedge fund masters.
I’m rooting for you guys, but you should really get your priorities straight. I read the trades because of the writing and information, not because of microscopic and mismatched fonts or ad page numbers.
THR used one of the greatest deceptions in publishing in their reply…
Note how Eric said “XX% more READERS”, not “XX% more SUBSCRIPTIONS”.
With their “expansion” overseas, they are counting on 11 readers per issue, which for years was an unverified and un-auditable pass-through “eyeball” number for periodicals. Domestic pass-through was always estimated at 6-7 readers per issue… all following the “waiting room read” theory for magazines. (It’s why Penthouse in the 80s could brag of “being read my millions” every month when they had a paid subscriber base of 475,000 and magazine rack sales of 525,000.)
So for every issue that is piled up here in the mailroom at my independent studio facility that goes unread (we pick it up once or twice a week, and facilities throws the rest out. DISCLOSURE: We pick up Variety three or four times a week), they are using a borrowed and unverifiable statistical multiplier of 11.
So they can GIVE copies away and claim their readership has increased 50%, and never have to substantiate that figure with actual paid subscriber numbers, which I have no doubt THR will not release.
Wow, and I thought any my experience as a media buyer would never pay off in the New Media frontier.
THR has been meaningless in my eyes ever since “Fight Club” was released. They gave it a bad review and forecast bad theatrical business (which was an entirely proper practice AND an accurate prediction of the movie), and the Fox administration punished them by withdrawing advertising for months and months, and THR responded with an apology and promise of milquetoast reviews, and Fox brought back the “handjob”/congratulatory advertising to THR.
Us in media circles were horrified at Fox and disappointed at THR… and since then Fox purchases the entities they cannot strongarm and THR has been relegated to the pile in the mailroom next to unsolicited sitcom scripts and headshots from actors who refuse to Missouri.
And for my two cents, the physical of THR really does suck, and their web page crashes my Macs with their use of malformed Flash coding.
Reminds me of Les Moonves when he was saying CBS radio would be profitable without Howard Stern. Eric is just another fascist loser that thinks being uncompromising gets him respect and losing money does anything else but get him fired.
As a twenty year veteran of the publishing business with five years in my new profession as film writer-producer I completely agree with the general consensus that the new Hollywood Reporter is drab, cold, and awful. When I saw the new design it reminded me of a trade publication for plumbers – not the entertainment industry with all of its wonderful character.
Also, SeeBoyRun is spot on with the statistical manipulation of READERS versus actual circulation (which is the buzz-word for actual copies sold or subscribed to within the magazine world). Usually, when a magazine attempts to pump up its real numbers, they’ll pull out the highly speculative “readers” number. And it will soon be apparent if the claim of 19% more distribution is accurate since the ABC (which stands for the Audit Bureau of Circulation – a mostly impartial service that is employed by publishers to audit their distribution claims) numbers that are referenced will be available soon.
As far as the web page, I have never had a problem with it crashing my computers and I actually find it to be the silver-lining in THR overhaul. Much cleaner and easier to navigate.
try communicating with Starbucks corporate/Southern CA about a lousy experience and you get the same laughable schpiel quoting how many new stores they’re opening daily around the world, etc, how they are the biggest, etc., which really only serves to underscore the cause of quality deterioration, not refute it.
I’m glad Eric is happy that THR sales are up in Bejing and Paris but he will have to deal with the fact that no one in Hollywood is reading his magazine.
As an ‘Industry’ professional of over 23 years I have a sobering (perhaps) thought: Being the well-read industry-folk that you posters and readers are, you’re surely aware of the financial crisis that most paper publications are in. ‘NYT’ has had cuts (right down to the paper size); the new ‘WSJ’ has yet to debut and buyouts are the norm; bureaus are closing for the mainstream titles and some magazines are being forced wholly online and even ‘US News & World Reports’ is downsizing to bi-weekly next year.
That said, regardless of where you stand on ‘THR’ or ‘Variety’: be glad they exist. They are trade magazines, not consumer magazines, and anyone who appears in either paper sees their fortunes rise overnight because that’s what trades do: they link like-minded entrepeneurs and the cross-pollination in this industry ensures that readership and desire to stay up-to-the-minute continues. Who else is going to report this? Perez Hilton’s readers don’t care about ’showrunners’. ‘US Weekly’ doesn’t care what you have in the pipeline. Spew derision all you like on the bigwigs but I guarantee that everyone still reads the trades to see their projects made manifest and nothing will compare to the thrill of holding it in your hand, font-size or whatever be damned.
Don’t like the trades? Stop humming to be in them! And if you do read the trades, which last I checked were good for a tax-deduction if you’re a legitemite outfit, then relax. At least the above publisher responded to the client and in this economy and in these times of obfuscation and pettiness that’s good business. I’ve worked for far too many people in this business who scour THR daily and the competition and it’s still a viable publication. Be glad it’s here and if there’s a problem, then address it like any American consumer can. I just don’t understand the snafu here. ‘Variety’ is moving to a new address and up for sale, so look at the bigger picture, that’s all. Sign me, Be Glad You’re In An Industry That You Love…..
Mika has always, and ostentatiously, been out for nothing other than no. 1. His response in the face of valid and thoughtful qualitative criticism is to site nonsense statistical business mumbo jumbo. This is because he is, IMHO, a book-cooker and a self-promoter. I know because I have participated in marketing the nonsense.
Unfortunately, his performance here proves that he is certainly not a publisher of any value. His inappropriate response, a commercial-for-improved-business-success, is as non-sequitorial as it is essentially dishonest.
He can’t claim an improved product because he has managed to degrade it beyond all recognition. He can’t speak to the loss of charm or individuality because he has singlehandedly denuded the paper of both of these qualities with his Agent Orange-like personality and managerial style.
My prognostication is that he won’t last the year as publisher. Indeed, I always got the sense that he only deigned to accepted his position at THR because he saw it as an opportunity for aggrandizement for himself and his Variety lackeys. A mere stepping stone to some imaginary future greatness. To him the paper is beneath respect and utterly disposable. His poor choices and actions have demonstrated as much as have the many derogatory comments I’ve heard from him and his lackeys in re. how inferior the THR is to Variety, blah, blah.
His response to the disapproving reader reads like practice for his next job interview and shows where his mind is. Clearly, he can’t argue for the improved quality of the paper, it’s standards or its personnel. Even he isn’t that big of a liar.
I served at THR in the 1970s and weent on to PR. There were continual upheavals, staff changes in those days under owner/publisher Tichi Wilkerson Miles and I survived every single one of them as an editorial staffer. The HR is a unique paper and it will surely survive and grow again. It is part of the fabric of this biz we are in. I do agree it has lost a lot of its “connection” to those in the biz and needs to recapture that. For immediate starters, the HR should bring back a real and true HOLLYWOOD COLUMNIST, one who is actually based in town…see if they can find the likes of other Armys and Hank Grants. For me, Ms Smith in VARIETY does not cut it.
70s HR Newsguy