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EXCLUSIVE: In my opinion, this is a necessary step if the financially beleaguered trades are going to survive the current economic downturn. Even if advertising does pick up for other media outlets. Because the contraction in the entertainment industry, and the change to a no-frills attitude regarding lavish awards advertising, 
has permanently hurt the trades which in turn have tried to staunch the bleeding by massive layoffs. (On a personal note, no matter how hard I compete with Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, I'd hate to see either trade disappear from the showbiz landscape. Too many people work there, and too many people need the niche content.) That said, I've known that Variety spent 6 months intensely studying all its options. Now toppers Neil Stiles and Brian Gott have decided to go to a paid strategy right after the first of the year. 
That means the website will no longer be free. So online and print content will both be subscriber-based. Exactly which combination of content and services will be offered has yet to be determined. But this is being done in recognition of the sad fact that, ever since Variety pulled back that paywall in 2006 (back when all that mattered was traffic numbers at the expense of subscription dollars), the trade has lost a ton of money. Meanwhile, sources tell me that The Hollywood Reporter is about to dump its daily print version. The date considered was October 16th, but now that's been moved back. So this means THR will pursue a paid web-only strategy for its content. (Though I've heard certain special issues will be published from time to time, including awards coverage.) If THR scraps its print edition as planned, then Variety might see its print subscriptions pick up.
has permanently hurt the trades which in turn have tried to staunch the bleeding by massive layoffs. (On a personal note, no matter how hard I compete with Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, I'd hate to see either trade disappear from the showbiz landscape. Too many people work there, and too many people need the niche content.) That said, I've known that Variety spent 6 months intensely studying all its options. Now toppers Neil Stiles and Brian Gott have decided to go to a paid strategy right after the first of the year. That means the website will no longer be free. So online and print content will both be subscriber-based. Exactly which combination of content and services will be offered has yet to be determined. But this is being done in recognition of the sad fact that, ever since Variety pulled back that paywall in 2006 (back when all that mattered was traffic numbers at the expense of subscription dollars), the trade has lost a ton of money. Meanwhile, sources tell me that The Hollywood Reporter is about to dump its daily print version. The date considered was October 16th, but now that's been moved back. So this means THR will pursue a paid web-only strategy for its content. (Though I've heard certain special issues will be published from time to time, including awards coverage.) If THR scraps its print edition as planned, then Variety might see its print subscriptions pick up.
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Hollywood Reporter R.I.P.
Ugh. As someone who isn’t actually in the entertainment business, but loves TV and movies this really, really sucks. I check those websites every single day, but obviously I’m not gonna be paying for them since I’m in no way their their target audience.
Well there’s always IMDb for all your movie and TV info
All the more readers for you, Nikki.
“pay walls don’t work.”
You never heard of the Wall Street Journal? One of the only newspapers that isn’t floating in a sea of red ink. A Variety subscription makes a nice write off for industry folk.
That’s because the WSJ subs are paid for by businesses and are biz expenses. No way the LAT and normal newspapers get away with it. THR and Variety might though since they fall into thy same biz expense category.
Sorry man, but you and your company is being foolish. You think people are going to pay money when they can get the same information that people can’t get elsewhere for free? No one really cares about your name, if other sites get the info wrong and you don’t they’ll find out once you post and someone bothers to read what you’ve wrote. Pay Walls don’t work if the only thing people care about is the info contained, not the name behind it.
pay walls don’t work.
THR has been dead since it became THR. The folks at Nielsen have NO CLUE how to run a newspaper, manage people, fit into the LA / movie culture or…well you get the idea. Sad to see.
Couldn’t agree more. THR has been lost since Bob Dowling was unjustly forced out. This just further demonstrates how Eric Mika has destroyed a once great brand. I imagine Eric’s days at THR are numbered just like the print edition. I think he can hear the footsteps. Who takes a vacation during the most crucial selling season (Academy)? I will tell you, someone who is in over his head and does not have a clue as to how to do his job. He should do all the hard working people at THR a favor and resign. He has no relationships and will find it hard getting a gig in the entertainment industry again.
Amen
Former THRer … why hide behind your comments with an anonymous post? If it is what you believe in, then have the courage to post your name. And if you don’t have the courage to say the same thing to Erik Mika’s face, you should not post it here.
Anita, come on, everyone knows this is spot on true about Mika and the downfall of THR after Bob and Lynne left. And I really don’t expect this person to put his/her name since they’re probably still working in the industry. Like you never use anonymous sources for stories. And if Mika was ever in the office, then maybe someone could tell it to his face! (Actually G. Byrne should get just as much blame here too…he’s kept Mika around and somehow pulled the wool over the eyes of NBM managment…amazing!
I agree. Since Dowling and Lynn Siegal left, THR has been in a downward spiral. And ever since Nielsen took over, that place has been a sad, sad place.
P.S. Pay walls don’t work.
so it begins…
So in the ultimate display of irony, we are going to have to pay to read the news we already broke on our sites. That’s about right.
Call that “Pray Wall”.
OK, the funny thing is you reported this before Variety did. Congrats.
Goodbye, Variety. The dinosaur is going to die.
This HR report doesn’t make sense. It’s the cusp of Awards Season. There is a pot of money sitting there to be had if they just keep the print edition going. Not as much as there used to be, but a pot nonetheless. Unless they’re hearing the studios are ONLY going to advertise in Variety this time around, I wouldn’t expect them to make this move between October and mid-February.
If they’re willing to walk away from that pot of cash on October 16, just when it would begin to land in their bank accounts, things must be a lot worse than we think.
In an age where consumers have become accustomed to getting their entertainment news (and ALL news) for free, starting to then charge for that same information spells certain doom for Variety….the print version is already on it’s last legs and will most certainly go the way of THR……..and I don’t think enough paid subscribers of the online version will emerge to keep the enterprise going. It’s the same dilemma facing all the major newspapers, magazines, etc. It’ll be interesting to see who will be left standing………..
Who would a studio rather give their exclusives to: a site locked up behind a pay wall or a free site like Ain’t It Cool who’ll not only run the story, but dance like a puppet to promote your film if you send them a box of toys and DVDs?
I was wondering why these outlets didn’t go this way several years ago.
I think they waited for Murdoch (or another baron) to announce that they were pulling back their content.
The dominoes begin to fall.
What are these blog sites going to do once EVERY outlet they steal their content from go behind the pay wall? Create their own content? Highly unlikely. Many will perish but the worthy will survive.
Retreating behind a pay-wall is not going to work.
Once consumers have become used to getting content for free (especially for something as ephemeral as entertainment “news”) they’re not going to pay a buck a day for it.
THR is a goner. DV? If they’re the only one left standing and with an enhanced print version they *might* make it.
It’s the end of the print era as the industry has known it. What will replace it in terms of a viable business model? If I knew that I’d get rich awfully fast.
I’m surprised that the “movers and shakers” in the entertainment industry aren’t getting customized online editions of The Hollywood Reporter or Daily Variety for either Internet access or “smart” cellphone access. Why wait for once-a-business day delivery when you can get the news delivered around the clock online?
If this is true and comes to pass, this is a piss-poor decision from both publications. Big Mistake.
Pay-walled content always leaks.
In order to succeed behind a paid wall in 2010 Variety will need to increase the value of their web content to the level of a Studio System or even Imdbpro because lousy journalism is not worth paying for.
Both Variety and THR are subcription based trade papers. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of giving away the information that for years, subscribers paid for. So now there will be a little pain in getting folks used to paying again. While some of the information they report on is available to any blogger or interested party willing to do the research, both trades have always filtered thier reporting and features in such a way as to appeal to the entertainment industry’s movers and shakers. Someone once said [’you get what you pay for”. The Entertainment Industry movers and shakers will pay for this information–they have the resources and are smart enough to know that the information that THR and Variety supply is power. Most serious news organizations are finally waking up to the fact that they have to charge readers for information. As long as the quality content is there, smart readers will pay for it. Just as many of us are willing to pay for HBO and Showtime because free TV just doesn’t quite get it for us. Let us hope that both Nielsen, ( THR’s parent company) and Reed ( Variety’s parent company) have the backbone and sticktoittiveness to make this happen. As for free industry info, yes-lots of folks will provide it but it will not have the same editorial credibility that Variety and THR will provide.
What will eventually happen is that newspapers and magazines will pool together and make contracts with online publication distribution outlets, i.e., your DISH or DIRECTV models. You will get access to tiers of publications online depending on what you want to pay for, but you only pay one distributor. Some niche publications may be add-ons to these distributors or go it alone. But the only way they will survive is through a pay wall, in the end.
When this happens, then you may get more sophisticated looking web versions, similar to what some digital magazines are already doing. Or maybe the option for online look or hardcopy look – but both online. The mobile versions will also become better. Depending on where you live, you could also end up getting local “stations”/papers in your area as part of the online service. Not sure what this means for a paper copy — paper copy is still desirable in many situations.
The Wall Street Journal has been moving toward paid for everything for some time, but they cannot go it alone and still survive when people can get the same aggregated news elsewhere.
Earlier this year in Palm Springs there was a closed-room sit down among major newspaper players. One can only imagine they talked about the model I am speaking of in order to survive.
Even though our news is aggregated, ad nauseam, I personally like to read the same story on multiple outlets in one sitting to see what additional quotes or details were captured. I do think that is healthy, otherwise just make Reuters or AP a form of state media and turn ourselves into non-questioning idiots. So, I do think that whatever is done needs to avoid that trap.
Culturally, I don’t think it is acceptable — because we are all now so spoiled with access to info — to have every outlet charge their own fee and go it alone because it would probably be financially prohibitive for most people to subscribe to as many outlets as they currently read online now.
The free ride is coming to an end. News gathering operations cannot sustain themselves by giving it all away, and freebie blogs cannot provide the accurate, unbiased hard-news reporting that professional news organizations provide and that feeds the freebie beast. There will always be unpaid people who write for the ego trip — I liken them to scabs who fill in for striking union workers — and the most popular blogs will draw enough traffic to survive on ads. But it’s like the difference between buying a TV from someone selling it out of the trunk of their car and buying it from the store. You want reliability? Pay the subscription fee.
LOL!
I prefer the writing of people that do it out of love or passion and who are independent, as opposed to corporate whores like MC71.
And um… SimAlex is right, pay walls don’t work. WSJ is the only remaining paper implementing a pay wall. So one out of how many failures worked succesfully? I hardly call that a ringing endorsement of the business model.
Nikki, please be honest here. You know you don’t “compete” with Variety and THR when they publish an entire paper’s worth of articles, reviews and commentary every day and you blog a few “TOLDJA!”s here and there when you feel like it.
I’ll miss THR… its “special” reports and issues were terrific resource guides for many areas of the business. Sure, by being a press release printing machine it got a lot of news wrong but as archives of the industry, THR and Variety have/had a lasting value the Web does not.
Nikki, here’s a revenue generating idea for you… once a quarter, produce a print version of Deadline’s Hollywood news. Seriously, only after THR and Variety go away will people realize just how much they enjoyed and treasured seeing their name and Hollywood’s ups and downs memorialized in print. What’s old will be new (and this is coming from an interactive producer/ brand strategist).
Anybody who believe that scrapping the print editions of V and THR makes no economic sense has never paid a printing bill or had to pony up for the related shipping fees. Ditching these massive expenses will allow their Web-only incarnations to possibly become profitable. Saving print for special issues and awards coverage is smart. In regard to both outlets losing consumer-level eyeballs by going pay-only online, advertisers in the trades don’t give much of a shizz. They only want the professional-level readers anyways.
There’s no way THR would got to an all digital version right as Award Season is starting to ramp up. Come on, think! It might happen one day, but not until this Season finishes. Why print such rumors and act like it’s true.
What are you, a clueless low-level production artist at THR? You have no idea that that the Oscar planning has already started and the word is… BAD! Here’s couple more: SLASHED! CUT-BACK! RECESSION! Get your head out of your ass and look at the sales staff, we’re dying here! Forget all digital, think of THR’s very survival.
THR needs to do this, and keep print versions only for special awards issues to soak up the ad dollars. THR is a great brand internationally and has gained domestically because of the Reuters deal, which they got because Variety biz people were asleep at the wheel.
As for Variety, pay won’t work.
All you have to do, Nikki, is post a round-up of their stories each day in something called “In the Trades Today.” That, along with the pay wall, will erode their readership.
THR’s one leg up has been their international following, thanks – in part – to THR maintaining their overseas audience as Peter Bart laid waste to Variety’s international coverage.
There are ways to find success and brand building with other business models, but there is no vision.
THR would have been wise – and really needed – to do this YEARS ago. And Variety? They had one chance after another, but blew it each time.
Think of where Variety would be today had they employed an editor who cared more about brand-building the franchise than using the franchise to brand-build himself.
I do not want to see either trade fail. The reporters and editors at the trades (with the exception of Variety’s labor reporter) have built a strong rolodex and have established integrity and trust in the town. That is the true asset base … and there are so many ways to capitalize on that goodwill and expert knowledge.
But the trades have dinosaurs driving them into extinction. What a shame.
If Variety goes back behind a pay wall, it better figure out what options it has to prevent free sites from poaching its stories and just rewriting them a few minutes after being published. Otherwise, Variety will be shouldering the costs of news gathering while other outlets reap the benefits. (Surely Variety has some legal rights to its content, not the news itself, but how it was written and the details etc. etc.)
Wow MC71… how’s that work exactly? Do we just all decide that crap writing is suddenly good because it costs actual money from actual pockets?
When the wall goes up, the game becomes faster and new talent blows away the dross.
What to watch out for: people smarter than you.
No one will pay for THR or Variety online, the articles are pure crap. Pay for IMDB PRO and get pilot news and script sales, other then that, Nikki Finke will rule the entertainment news Internet highway. Yeah Nikki.
If Nikki did have pilot updates, orders, and feature script sales, I would never even read the trades period.
I came to see how irrelevant and how “in-the-pocket” of studios Variety was during the WGA strike. I’m just glad there’s one less BS “industry rag” I won’t have to surf to on the Internet. DH has better coverage. See you, Variety…
and what about digital divide that already exists ? werent free online news third world countries citizens’ single option to know what is going on in this earth? those people who can hardly gain a reliable access to the internet currently have this sole chance to involve in this world. and This democratic world, what happened to the public sphere concepts of the and 18th century? paid online news is another greed act by media moguls .. its the next step after media concentration and gradual elimination of variety
I lost a lot of respect for the trades reading their ridiculously slanted coverage during the WGA strike. Before then, I regarded them seriously –almost the “Wall Street Journals” of showbiz. However, they exposed themselves to be nothing but mere PR machines for the studios, with no real journalistic credibility. They’re not worth my time.
They have outlived their usefulness.
I dance on their graves.
This creates a great opportunity for independent newsservices who offer their content for free. Without the billions of corporate overheads the established companies have to carry these services will be able to operate profitably as small advertising supported start ups.
Maybe completely new brands will evolve
Makes sense.
How are they supposed to pay their writers?
I hope it’s a trend that saves journalism.
I hope all the news organizations follow suit. Then, maybe websites like The Huffington Post will not get their info for free. Obviously, online ads do not cover the costs.
Next, Hollywood should clamp down and charge for broadcsts of their shows and films.
Information on blogs isn’t really free — it’s generally stolen from newspapers and magazines who pay journalists to go and find it. Journalists on paid publications do the work and bloggers steal it in the form of “comment”. If magazines an newspapers close down so will blogs — where will they steal their news information from?
The idea of information being free is really a chimera. Somewhere in the information chain, someone has had to shell out money to find that news.
Journalists need to get paid to find news like anyone doing any other job.
I think all unique web content should be paid for. It was a mistake to make it free. The media sector is in meltdown and this move is essential. I saw a blog site claim that journalism was dead and yet it takes all its material from other online sites including the trades and other movie blog sites. Ripping off other people’s content, adding ‘according to…’ credits (if you’re lucky you might even get a weblink) and adding a few lines of bland, glib comment is not journalism at all. Ir’s about time we brought back some standards and professionalism to the media industry. Making it a paid-for service can work – in the music world, iTunes managed to prosper in the wake of an era of illegal filesharing, meaning people will pay for guaranteed quality and professionalism.
All informational sites should go to a pay wall structure. Just like you have to pay to get good television channels, you should have to pay to get good Web sites, too. But it will only work if entire industries move to this model simultaneously.
This run-amuck journalism that has been created by the Web needs to be held in check. I agree, people will pay for trustworthy and professional reporting, whether it be NBC News or the Hollywood trades.
Everyone just needs to give up the ghost and realize that only a tiny minority will ever pay for anything if they can procure it for free. The internet has essentially ruined all industries that be consumed digitally. The only reason DVD sales are still anywhere near decent is merely because the majority of the population doesn’t know how to easily download, burn and play free copies of films on their own TVs. Unfortunately, even older, non-tech savvy people will be able to do all of that within 5 years. The only reason Adobe can profit from high-powered programs like Photoshop is because they know legit companies who need the software wouldn’t dare pirate it. That’s why they price it so astronomically because they know even if they charged $1 for it, every non-legit entity will still pirate it. Only government subsidies and philanthropists can save us from losing serious print or broadcast news outlets. With the diminished financial power and influence of serious, objective media, we’re quickly descending in a dark hole in which there will be almost no watch dogs to keep the corrupt forces of business and government from operating with total impunity.
Eventually paid, qualified content is the way forward.
The sheer amount of information demands trustworthy channels, we need to delegate information accrual, if only from a time management standpoint.