The best publication about the entertainment business is free online again.
Variety keeps business in show business. Its gossip is more likely to focus on movie studio executives and whether they’ve green-lighted the latest Matt Damon flick than anyone named Kardashian or Octomom. It’s still the leading publication for Hollywood and it has finally admitted that charging for online views was a failed idea.
Three years ago my longtime subscription to Variety’s daily newsletter started taking me to a page requesting an annual fee. Like many folks who aren’t actually in the business of show, at least not in Hollywood, I simply stopped visiting rather than pay to read the stories. Oh it was frustrating! They often break entertainment news a full day before it gets out to the rest of the world but I simply learned to wait.
They still want you to subscribe but now they want you to buy the weekly publication. The daily print edition has been cancelled along with the paywall. Everything online is officially free as of tomorrow but I’ve already been viewing new articles online for free.
Variety has been around for more than a century and nobody does what it does as well as it does. I welcome it back to my inbox and my browser!