The Hot Blog: What Tim Gray - And More So, His Bosses

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March 08, 2010

What Tim Gray - And More So, His Bosses - Don't Get

I don't want to beat up Tim Gray, a good and talented man, or beat Variety to death... they can do that themselves. But with the release - and I always have mixed feelings about internal memos going public - of the internal memo about the changes, I feel compelled to break it down a bit...

Today's changes won't be noticed by readers.

Wrong. People who read Variety tend to really know the landscape of Variety. When a little-used critic reviews a big movie, we all notice the byline. They underestimate the intelligence and knowledge of a crowd of insiders.

We are not changing our review policy.

You are just making it harder for even one critic who works for the self-proclaimed largest producer of reviews in the industry to pay for their health insurance and other benefits. You are just assuming - and this is not that new - that the Variety name attached to a review makes it more important. You are wrong. Todd McCarthy was never the only Variety critic that mattered, but a reader's relationship with criticism is a relationship with how a critic thinks. Instead, Variety's policy is now, "best person we can find who is available, hopefully near the festival, and will write a review for $100 - $200."

Variety restructuring: Last year, Neil Stiles and Brian Gott went to Amsterdam and met with other Reed Elsevier executives. Most said ONLY 10-20% OF THEIR PUBLICATIONS' INCOME CAME FROM SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ADS. It's a new world in the media, and it's a new world at Variety. Our content will remain basically the same, but the financial structure will change. We've already started making money from the paywall, events and conferences, licensing, etc etc. While these are new areas, the primary concern is this: What can we give Variety readers that they need, and what can we do better than anyone else? Believe me, these new areas are not done lightly or arbitrarily. (caps added)

In other words, the bosses hope to mine 80% or more of Variety's revenues from something other than content. When 20% or less of your income comes from the most prominently perceived thing you do, I think that's called a loss leader.

For the readers and advertisers who matter, we are still "the gold standard," as one reader put it.

Typo? Did he mean "The Old Standard?"

Kidding aside, Variety's position has been, in all things, from being first. First to publish development, casting, production, and distribution news, as well as reviews. There was virtually no competition, aside from The Hollywood Reporter, until the last couple of years... so let's not delude ourselves into thinking that decades of virtually no competition equals being the most competitive.

Let's break this next paragraph down...

Reasons for optimism: The economy will bounce back.

Yes.

Ignore the bloggers (who obviously are trying in vain to steal our readers and our advertisers)...

I can't speak for Sharon Waxman, but my sales and pricing have never been affected by the success or failure of Variety's ad sales. And I don't believe that the break-down of Variety or The Hollywood Reporter creates more ad dollars for me or other website owners. I believe that The Trades have one huge advantage over websites... they print a newspaper that gets delivered and if any of the websites can ramp that up - including delivering to the right people - only then will stealing advertisers be an option.

Variety is like the movie business as of late... plenty of revenue in any context other than the cost of production. And on some level, I must plead guilty for being able to create a lot of content for a lot less than Variety having never paid the kind of benefits that Reed pays. But this move suggests that the application of revenues is being moved to places other than wages for content creation. Just admit it... please.

And as far as readers... already stolen, thanks. You are a trade paper with a reader base of under 75,000 people. That mountain can be - and has been - climbed without tearing you down, thanks.

...ignore the obits for Old Media, ignore the negatives and the craziness that this economy has created...

Apples and oranges. Old Media is dying under the weight of its inability to change quickly, not for a lack of readers or interest. And there was plenty of money out there in this Oscar ad season... it was just spreading itself out while Variety was busy trying to raise rates while studios were cutting back for massively overpriced cover ads. Mirror time.

... The people in the Depression bounced back, and so will all of us who are going through this crisis. I cannot repeat this often enough: Variety is in profit, which means we're here to stay.

So, you must have a moral obligation to support your staff, which means not abandoning your loyal staffers to save the cost of their benefits and perhaps a little more. When someone tells me they are in profit as they fire key staff for the second year in a row, I wonder where that profit is. And how can anyone not doubt the legitimacy of that claim... even people who are not "bloggers"?

Posted by dpoland at March 8, 2010 06:49 PM

Comments

Couldn't agree more. I loved Todd's writing and opinions and will search him out before I seek out a generic "Variety" critic. A critic is more than the title he/she is reviewing. It is the person who you read whom you get to know over a period of time. You get to know their biases, likes, dislikes etc. A good critic who is established will also take more chances than a critics who is a gun for hire and may be afraid of offending the new boss.

Also, as you say, Variety reviews are not for the casual reader. They are for people in the know. People who care about what is said and how it is said.

Variety reviews are also very hard to mimic on the fly. McCarthy was a great reviewer who could talk about the craft of a film while sizing up how it might perform at the BO.

This is a sad day for a Hollywood institution.

Posted by: Nicol D at March 8, 2010 09:54 PM

Tim Gray: Why should I want to read the new, cheaper, No-Name-O Variety reviews, again? I know who Todd McCarthy is, and his opinion and expertise matter. Just because some freelancer's work is printed under the "Variety" banner doesn't mean it has any significance or influence. Your brand is only as good as the writers and reporters who represent it. Without them, "Variety" is nothing.

Posted by: Jeeemerson at March 9, 2010 01:10 AM

And thus goes the last remaining objection to the firewall.

Posted by: Cadavra at March 9, 2010 10:48 AM