Laying Less Cable

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Cable television viewership declined at the three largest cable networks, according to the Huffington Post, citing a report in Variety.

Fox News Channel remained the alpha dog among its competitors, but experienced a 13 percent drop in its prime time audience compared to a year ago, according to Variety. Likewise, MSNBC was off 29 percent and CNN 15 percent.  HLN actually showed a 21 percent gain over its 2012 audience.

With 2014 being an election year, polarized voters are likely to boost their favorite cable news network ratings.

Anyone Wanna Buy a Debt-Laden, Subscriber-Deprived, Digital-Only News Journal?

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Maybe three times will be the charm for beleaguered IAC-owned Newsweek.

Once boasting a circulation of three million, Newsweek has changed hands twice in the past three years. Acquired in 2010 from The Washington Post Co. for $1 plus assumption of its considerable debt by the late audio magnate Sidney Harman, Newsweek merged with the Daily Beast in 2012 and its present majority owner, Barry Diller's IAC, is looking to unload the forlorn digital-only publication, Variety reports.

Online traffic reportedly has reportedly shrunk by one million unique visitors over the past four months and its subscription base has plunged from 1.5 million to 470,000, according to the Variety article. The magazine renamed its digital version Newsweek Global, even though, unlike in the U.S., print editions of the newsweekly are still available around the world pursuant to royalty arrangements.

Newsweek debuted a revamped Web site this month, and Variety reported the publication has plans to unveil a paywall that will charge Web site visitors $2.99 a month to subscribe. Diller has been quoted in the press recently as saying he regrets purchasing the 80-year-old publication.

Daily Variety R.I.P.

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Unable to compete with the free-access Web sites of competitors The Hollywood Reporter and Dateline Hollywood, the last print edition of The Daily Variety--once deemed "Hollywood's Bible"--rolled out this week, ending a near 80-year run, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The "Dream Industry" hasn't seen the last of Variety, as a free-access, recently revamped Web site is available, and a spanking new version of the Weekly Variety, a 108-year-old weekly, premieres next week, according to the Times article.

Variety earned $6 million last year, compared to the more than $30 million it brought in in 2006. Auto parts magnate Jay Penske acquired the publication for $25 million from Reed Elsevier last year (see "TUOL" post 10/10/12). To borrow a phrase from the entertainment tabloid, advertising revenues and print circulation have hardly been "boffo" since.

Pensky Files Down Variety Staff

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A month after purchasing Variety from Reed Elsevier (see "TUOL" post 10/10/12), Penske Media Corp. ("PMC") has slashed 12 percent of the entertainment industry newspaper's 165-person workforce, the Los Angeles Times reports.

No reporters or editors are among the 20 employees being let go, the Times article notes. Media mogul Jay Penske purportedly has retained consultants to advise him about reducing the frequency of publication of the print edition of the Daily Variety. A weekly version of Variety is currently published as well.

According to the Times piece, Penske plans to tear down the online edition's paywall during the first quarter of 2013.

Penske Persistence Pays Off: Mogul Buys Variety

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Dutch media conglomerate Reed Elsevier has unloaded the 107-year-old weekly newspaper and "Bible" of the entertainment industry, Vareity, to Penske Media Corp. ("PMC") in an assets purchase deal whose terms were not disclosed, the Web site Deadline.com reports.

PMC CEO and Chair Jay Penske, a 31-year-old Internet media mogul and son of a famous racing family, is adding Variety to a stable that already includes the online MovieLine and HollywoodLife. His quest for Variety (see "TUOL" post 4/29/11) was backed by debt and equity financing from Third Point LLC affiliates, according to the Deadline.com post.

Reed Elsevier oversaw Variety for about a quarter century, following an 80-year stewardship of the trade newspaper by the Silverman family.

TV Guide Buyer Looking for Variety?

Variety (magazine) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New York Post reported today that Los Angeles-based private equity investor Open Gate Capital LLC, which paid $1 to purchase a distressed TV Guide in 2008 (see "TUOL" post 6/3/10), may now have Variety, the entertainment industry bible owned by Dutch media conglomerate Reed Elsevier, in its sights.

Reed Elsevier in March offered the troubled Hollywood trade paper for sale. A year ago, Detroit Internet media mogul Jay Penske was rumored to be in line to acquire Variety (see "TUOL" post 4/29/11). The Post story reports Variety's price tag could range from $10 million to $30 million.

Open Gate Capital apparently has pulled out of the running to acquire the TV Guide cable channel from the Lionsgate movie studio and co-owner One Equity Partners. The Post article suggests Discovery Communications may have an interest in buying the TV Guide Channel.

Check your listings for updates on this story.

Will 'Variety' Be Added to the Penske File?

Image by shindoverse via FlickrDutch media mogul Reed Elsevier may be unloading Variety to 30-year-old Detroit Internet media conglomerate owner Jay Penske, according to TheDaily.com.

Penske, scion of a wealthy car-racing family, already has an online media stable that includes HollywoodLife, Movieline and showbiz Website, Deadline. Penske's online holdings are backed by a $35 million stake from private equity company, Quadrangle Partners, according to TheDaily.com post.  The Amsterdam-based Reed Elsevier held onto Variety, after offering it up for sale in 2008 at a time when it sold 61 trade journals as the magazine industry faltered with the economic slowdown.

Variety has denied TheDaily's claim. The magazine, which has been covering the entertainment industry since 1905, is owned by the Reed Business Information division of Reed Elsevier.

"TUOL" can see the Variety headline now if TheDaily item proves true: "Dragging Mag No Dutch Treat."

Judge Gives Filmmaker's 'Variety'Suit the Boot

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Iron Cross filmmaker Joshua Newton has another cross to bear--a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered Newton to pay the legal fees of Reed Elsevier-owned Variety after allowing the entertainment industry journal's SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) motion offered in defense against Newton's complaint.

Newton's lawsuit alleged Variety solicited advertising revenues from the film's producers in March 2009, and promised to bolster the Holocaust-themed revenge drama's distribution and enhance its chances for an Oscar nomination, but reneged on the agreement and savaged the film in a movie review by Variety critic Robert Koehler in December 2009.  The film, which starred the late Roy Scheider of  Jaws & Seven-Ups fame, wrote Koehler, was "simply mediocre stuff, choppy and uncertain, with hints of ambitious ideas that fail to gather steam."

Variety no doubt considers the judge nixing Newton's case a boffo outcome.

The court tossed the plaintiff's suit, finding the complaint "fatally defective," and citing Variety's First Amendment right to publish an unflattering film review. In defamation cases, the "fair comment" defense generally protects arts critics, whose reviews constitute opinions, which by their nature, do not satisfy the false statement element of a libel claim.  Plaintiff's counsel plans to appeal, hoping to shift the focus from freedom of the press to what plaintiff alleged were Variety's deceptive business practices.

 

'Variety' Nixes Crits

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Although Sunday's Oscar telecast was a ratings winner, and the Hollywood Reporter trade journal is on the upswing, expanding its staff, not all the news in the entertainment industry is positive.

Variety, once the powerhouse show biz trade journal, has, to quote its own famous headline, "laid an egg" by handing eight staffers pink slips this week, including its prominent movie and theater critics.  Todd McCarthy, Variety's principal film critic who joined the paper in 1979, and chief theater critic David Rooney, both were let go, along with movie critic Derek Elley. McCarthy was the journal's longest-tenured writer.

The beleaguered Variety, whose Web site languishes behind a paywall, has slashed its staff size by more than 30 percent dating back to November 2008.

Facebook:The Movie

According to "Variety," David Fincher, director of the Oscar-nominated "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008) and cult classic "Fight Club" (1999), is in serious talks with Columbia Pictures to direct a film about the social network, Facebook.

"The Social Network," scripted by "The West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin, chronicles the origins of Facebook in 2004 on the campus of Harvard by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to the present-day 200 million-member powerhouse.

Given the 166-minute running time of "Benjamin Button," there are concerns that Fincher might film a scene about each of the social media's subscribers. One envisions the movie poster: "The first rule of Facebook is you don't talk about MySpace." Columbia Pictures is owned by Sony, which could provide for built-in product links in the movie.

Production is slated to begin later this year. Start "poking" your friends now.