{"id":644021,"date":"2013-02-26T18:14:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T23:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/?p=225191"},"modified":"2013-02-26T18:14:30","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T23:14:30","slug":"variety-doubles-down-on-digital-drops-paywall-in-what-it-calls-end-of-an-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/644021","title":{"rendered":"Variety doubles down on digital \u2014 drops paywall in what it calls \u201cend of an error\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay Penske, who bought the century-old Hollywood tabloid Variety in a fire sale<\/a> last year, has clearly gotten religion about the power of the web — which isn’t surprising, since his Deadline Hollywood site is likely one of the factors that helped bring about Variety’s demise. So it shouldn’t come as a shock that Penske is dismantling much of the existing magazine<\/a>, including its daily print edition, and is getting rid of the paywall in a move he described as “the end of an error.”<\/p>\n

Variety announced the moves early Tuesday, saying the tabloid will drop its daily print edition<\/a> as of March 1 and publish only a weekly version on paper. The paywall, which charged users $250 a year for access to Variety content, comes down at the same time — Penske called it “an interesting experiment that didn’t work” — and in a somewhat unusual decision, the paper’s editor has been replaced with three editors, each of whom will run different sections of the magazine.<\/p>\n

Penske, the son of famed race-car driver and NASCAR operator Roger Penske, isn’t a newcomer to the power of digital: he was a co-founder of Mail.com, which he sold to a German internet company in 2010<\/a>, and before that helped start a mobile company aimed at children called Firefly.<\/p>\n

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We're all going to miss Daily Variety in print but now we'll be faster and more nimble. It's a good move.<\/p>\n

—
David S. Cohen (@Variety_DSCohen) February 26, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The new owner bought Variety in October<\/a> from owner Reed Elsevier for $25 million, after the European publishing conglomerate reportedly cut the price it was asking for the magazine — once reportedly valued at more than $200 million — by 25 percent<\/a>. Penske added it to a stable of online properties that includes the Deadline site and MovieLine.com, as well as the well-regarded technology blog Boy Genius Report and HollywoodLife.com, a site run by former the former editor of Cosmopolitan, Bonnie Fuller.<\/p>\n

If Penske was hoping that his moves would be applauded by his other sites, he doesn’t know veteran Hollywood gossip writer Nikke Finke, who runs Deadline Hollywood: in a scathing post about the dropping of the paywall and the decline of what she called “the beleaguered trade,”<\/a> Finke said editorial morale at the entertainment trade magazine “is at its lowest ebb and anxiety is running sky high,” and described advertising as “non-existent” and readers as “few and far between.”<\/p>\n

Sharon Waxman, who runs a competitor called The Wrap, also warned that Variety<\/a> could have a lot of work on its hands, since — like many newspapers and magazines — print advertising in the daily edition likely made up a large proportion of its revenues.<\/p>\n

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Shutterstock \/ wavebreakmedia<\/a> and Flickr user Pew Center<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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