This is like trying to put a positive spin on the Bubonic Plague.
from www.medialifemagazine.com – From the moment Richard Beckman shocked the media world by hiring Janice Min [pictured] as The Hollywood Reporter’s editorial director, people have been predicting the trade would move to a more consumer-oriented approach, and now it’s official.
The Hollywood Reporter is going from a daily trade to a weekly glossy more in the model of Us Weekly, Min’s former magazine, with the aim of drawing more mainstream beauty, fashion and consumer electronics advertising that will come along with such a change.
The signs of the coming change have been there since Min joined THR in May, from the more aggressive reporting (it was the first to report on alleged harassment complaints against former ABC head Steve McPherson) to the edgier story choices (a recent article looked at the porn industry).
And those changes have been widely noted in an industry that’s changed a lot in the past few years with the advent of popular blogs like Deadline.com and TheWrap.com, whose no-holds-barred approach made trades like THR and Variety, which depend on entertainment industry advertising for the bulk of their dollars, seem dusty and quaint.
Meanwhile, THR’s revenue has reportedly dropped by more than a third over the past four years, and it became clear to Beckman, the former Conde Nast executive who took over parent company e5 Global Media earlier this year, that he needed to reach out to new advertisers to keep the publication going.
“We’re not going to be a product that purely strokes the industry because the industry won’t respect that,” Beckman told the New York Times in an article published today.
Hollywood Reporter will transition to a weekly in October, with the web site focused on breaking news. The daily print edition will be discontinued, though a daily PDF will be available as an e-edition.
Beckman told the New York Times that it’s aiming for a circulation of 60,000 within the next few months, and hoping to triple that by 2013.