For much of its existence, Variety's writers and columnists have used a jargon called slanguage[43] or varietyese (a form of headlinese) that refers especially to the movie industry, and has largely been adopted and imitated by other writers in the industry. The language initially reflected that spoken by the actors of the early days during the newspaper.[8]
Such terms as "legit", "boffo", "sitcom", "sex appeal", "payola", and "striptease" are attributed to the magazine.[44] Its
As well as the large anniversary editions, Variety also published special editions containing much additional information, charts and data (and advertising) for the following film festivals:
Daily Variety also published an anniversary issue each October. This regularly contained a day-by-day review of the year in show business and in the 1970s started to contain republication of the film reviews published during the year.[40]
Older back issues of Variety are available on microfilm. In 2010, Variety.com allowed access to digitized versions of all issues of Variety and Daily Variety with a subscription.[41] Certain articles and reviews prior to 1998 have been republished on Variety.com. The Media History Digital Library has scans
Older back issues of Variety are available on microfilm. In 2010, Variety.com allowed access to digitized versions of all issues of Variety and Daily Variety with a subscription.[41] Certain articles and reviews prior to 1998 have been republished on Variety.com. The Media History Digital Library has scans of the archive of Variety from 1905–1961 available online.[42]
For much of its existence, Variety's writers and columnists have used a jargon called slanguage[43] or varietyese (a form of headlinese) that refers especially to the movie industry, and has largely been adopted and imitated by other writers in the industry. The language initially reflected that spoken by the actors of the early days during the newspaper.[8]
Such terms as "legit", "boffo", "sitcom", "sex appeal", "payola", and "striptease" are attributed to the magazine.[44] Its attempt to popularize "infobahn" as a synonym for "information superhighway" never caught on. Television series are referred to as "skeins", and heads of companies or corporate teams are called "toppers". In addition to a stylistic grammatical blip – very frequent omissions of the definite article the –, more-common English words and phrases are shortened; "audience members" becomes simply "auds", "performance" "perf", and "network" becomes "net", for example.
In 1934, founder Sime Silverman headed a list in [44] Its attempt to popularize "infobahn" as a synonym for "information superhighway" never caught on. Television series are referred to as "skeins", and heads of companies or corporate teams are called "toppers". In addition to a stylistic grammatical blip – very frequent omissions of the definite article the –, more-common English words and phrases are shortened; "audience members" becomes simply "auds", "performance" "perf", and "network" becomes "net", for example.
In 1934, founder Sime Silverman headed a list in Time magazine of the "ten modern Americans who have done most to keep American jargon alive".[45]
According to The Boston Globe, the Oxford English Dictionary cites Variety as the earliest source for about two dozen terms, including "show biz" (1945).[46] In 2005, Welcome Books published The Hollywood Dictionary by Timothy M. Gray and J. C. Suares, which defines nearly 200 of these terms.
One of its popular headlines was during the Wall Street Crash of 1929: "Wall St. Lays An Egg".[47] The most famous was "Sticks Nix Hick Pix"[48][49] (the movie-prop version renders it as "Stix nix hix pix!" in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Michael Curtiz's musical–biographical film about George M. Cohan starring James Cagney).
In 2012 Rizzoli Books published Variety: An Illustrated History of the World from the Most Important Magazine in Hollywood by Gray. The book covers Variety's coverage of hundreds of world events, from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, through Arab Spring in 2012, and argues that the entertainment industry needs to stay aware of changes in politics and tastes since those changes will affect their audiences. In a foreword to the book, Martin Scorsese calls Variety "the single most formidable trade publication ever" and says that the book's content "makes you feel not only like a witness to history, but part of it too."
In 2013 Variety staffers tallied more than 200 uses of weekly or Daily Variety in TV shows and films, ranging from I Love Lucy to Entourage.[citation needed]
In 2016 Variety endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States, marking the first time the publication endorsed a candidate for elected office in its 111-year history.[50]
Variety's first offices were in the Knickerbocker Theatre located at 1396 Broadway on 38th and Broadway in New York. Later it moved to 1536 Broadway at the 45th and Broadway corner until Loew's acquired the site to build the Loew's State Theatre.[4]
In 1920 Sime Silverman purchased an old brownstone building around the corner at 154 West 46th Street in New York, which became the Variety headquarters until 1987, when the publication was purchased.[51] Under the new management of
In 1920 Sime Silverman purchased an old brownstone building around the corner at 154 West 46th Street in New York, which became the Variety headquarters until 1987, when the publication was purchased.[51] Under the new management of Cahners Publishing, the New York headquarters of the Weekly Variety was relocated to the corner of 32nd Street and Park Avenue South.[51] Five years later, it was downgraded to a section of one floor in a building housing other Cahner's publications on West 18th Street, until the majority of operations were moved to Los Angeles.[citation needed]
When Daily Variety started in 1933, its offices were in various buildings near Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. In 1972, Syd Silverman purchased a building at 1400 North Cahuenga Blvd. which housed the Daily's offices until 1988, after which its new corporate owners and new publisher, Arthur Anderman, moved them to a building on the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard.
In late 2008 Variety moved its Los Angeles offices to 5900 Wilshire, a 31-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile area.[52][53] The building was dubbed the Variety Building because a red, illuminated "Variety" sign graced the top of the building.[52]
In 2013 PMC, the parent company of Variety, announced plans to move Variety's offices to their new corporate headquarters at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd. in Westwood.[52] There, Variety shares the 9-story building with parent company PMC, Variety Insight, Variety 411, and PMC's other media brands, including Deadline.com, HollywoodLife.com, GoldDerby.com, Robb Report and the West Coast offices of WWD and Footwear News.[citation needed]
In 1909, Variety had set up its first overseas office in London.[54]
By the time of Sime Silverman's death in 1933, in addition to the New York and Los Angeles offices, there were offices in Chicago and London.[citation needed] Eventually Variety had fully staffed offices based in Sydney (opened 1976),[55] Paris (opened 1975),[56] Rome, Copenhagen, Madrid and Munich.[citation needed]
On January 19, 1907, Variety published what is considered the first film review in history. Two reviews written by Sime Silverman were published: Pathé's comedy short An Exciting Honeymoon and Edison Studios' western short The Life of a Cowboy, directed by Edwin S. Porter.[57][58]
Variety discontinued reviews of films between March 1911 until January 1913[59] as they were convinced by a film producer, believed to be G Variety discontinued reviews of films between March 1911 until January 1913[59] as they were convinced by a film producer, believed to be George Kleine, that they were wasting space criticising moving pictures and others had suggested that favourable reviews brought too strong a demand for certain pictures to the exclusion of others.[60] Despite the gap, Variety is still the longest unbroken source of film criticism in existence.[59]
In 1930 Variety also started publishing a summary of miniature reviews for the films reviewed that week[61] and in 1951 the editors decided to position the capsules on top of the reviews,[62] a tradition retained today.
Writing reviews was a side job for Variety staff, most of whom were hired to be reporters and not film or theatre critics. Many of the publication's reviewers identified their work with four-letter pen names rather than with their full names. Those abbreviated names include the following:[6]
In 1992 Variety published the Variety Movie Guide containing a collection of 5,000 abridged reviews edited by Derek Elley.[59] The last edition was published in 2001 with 8,500 reviews.[69] Many of the abridged reviews for films prior to 1998 are published on Variety.com unless they have later posted the original review.[70]
The complete text of approximately 100,000 entertainment-related obituaries (1905–1986) was reprinted as Variety Obituaries, an 11-volume set, including alphabetical index. Four additional bi-annual reprints were published (for 1987–1994) before the reprint series was discontinued.
The annual anniversary edition published in January would often contain a necrology of the entertainment people who had died that year.[71]
Variety started reporting box office grosses for films by theatre on March 3, 1922, to give exhibitors around the country information on a film's performance on Broadway, which was often where first run showings of a film were held. In addition to New York City, they also endeavored to include all of the key cities in the U.S. in the future and initially also reported results for ten other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.[72] They continued to report these grosses for films until 1989 when they put the data into a summarized weekly chartDerek Elley.[59] The last edition was published in 2001 with 8,500 reviews.[69] Many of the abridged reviews for films prior to 1998 are published on Variety.com unless they have later posted the original review.[70]
The complete text of approximately 100,000 entertainment-related obituaries (1905–1986) was reprinted as Variety Obituaries, an 11-volume set, including alphabetical index. Four additional bi-annual reprints were published (for 1987–1994) before the reprint series was discontinued.
The annual anniversary edition published in January would often contain a necrology of the entertainment people who had died that year.[71]
Variety started reporting box office grosses for films by theatre on March 3, 1922, to give exhibitors around the country information on a film's performance on Broadway, which was often where first run showings of a film were held. In addition to New York City, they also endeavored to include all of the key cities in the U.S. in the future and initially also reported results for ten other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.[72] They continued to report these grosses for films until 1989 when they put the data into a summarized weekly chart[73] and only published the data by theatre for New York and Los Angeles as well as other international cities such as London and Paris.
As media expanded over the years, charts and data for other media such as TV ratings and music charts were published, especially in the anniversary editions that were regularly published each January.
During the 1930s charts of the top performing films of the year were p
As media expanded over the years, charts and data for other media such as TV ratings and music charts were published, especially in the anniversary editions that were regularly published each January.
During the 1930s charts of the top performing films of the year were published and this tradition has been maintained annually since.[33]
In 1946 a weekly National Box Office survey was published on page 3 indicating the performance of the week's hits and flops based on the box office results of 25 key U.S. cities.[74][75]
Later in 1946 a list of All-Time Top Grossers with a list of films that had achieved or gave promise of earning $4,000,000 or more in domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals was published.[76] An updated chart was published annually for over 50 years, normally in the anniversary edition each January.[77][78]
In the late 1960s Variety started to use an IBM 360 computer to collate the grosses from their weekly reports of 22 to 24 U.S. cities from January 1, 1968. The data came from up to 800 theatres which represented around 5% of the U.S. cinema population at the time but around one-third of the total U.S. box office grosses. In 1969, they started to publish the computerized box office compilation of the top 50 grossing films of the week based on this data.[79] "The Love Bug" was the number one in the first chart published for the week ending April 16, 1969.[80] The chart format was changed in 1989 to reduce the list to a top 40 and display a summary of the sample city theater grosses rather than publish the theater grosses separately.[73] The sample chart was discontinued in 1990.[81]
Arthur D. Murphy, who joined Variety in 1964 and worked there until 1993, was one of the first to organize and chart domestic box office gross information that became more available during the 1980s and report it in a meaningful form setting a standard for how film box office information is reported today.[67] Murphy used the weekly sample reports to estimate the total US weekly box office compared with previous annual totals which was reported in Variety's US Boxoffice Report each week. The sample also allowed Murphy to estimate the Market Share percentage rankings of distributors.[73]
In 1976 the Variety Box Office Index (VBI) was launched where each month's actual key city box office tally, after seasonal adjustment, was simultaneously expressed as an index number, with 1970 as a whole being used as the base initially. The current month's VBI expressed the monthly box office performance as a percentage change from the base year.[82] The index was published until 1991 giving a history of comparable monthly and annual box office performance for the past 20 years.
During the 1980s, Daily Variety started to publish a weekly chart of the domestic box office grosses of films as compared to the Top 50 chart in Variety which was based on a sample of key markets. Variety started to publish this weekend box office report together with the sample Top 50 chart (later top 40) until they discontinued the sample chart in February 1990 with the weekend box office report being their main source of box office reporting.[81]
In 2009 Variety launched a chart showcasing the top performing film trailers ahead of theatrical release in partnership with media measurement firm Visible Measures.[83]
In 1937 Variety compiled and published a Radio Directory compiling a record of events in radio such as program histories, ratings and popularity polls.[84] It published an annual edition for the next three years[85] which are available on the Media History Digital Library.
In 1981, Variety International Showbusiness Reference was published, which they claimed was the first book to contain a complete list of all winners and nominees for the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Tony Awards, Grammy Awards and Pulitzer Prize. The following year they published Variety major U.S. showbusiness awards containing just this award details and a revised edition, called Variety presents the complete book of major U.S. show business awards, was published in 1985.[86]
In 1988, R.R. Bowker, a Reed Reference Publishing Company, part of Reed-Elsevier, PLC, a "sister" company to Variety, published Variety's Video Directory Plus, a CD-ROM subscription product, updated quarterly, containing metadata about 90,000 home video products and full-text film reviews from Variety.
Peter Cowie joined Variety in 1989[87] and his International Film Guide, which had been published annually since 1964, became Variety International Film Guide with reports from countries on the year in cinema as well as information of film festivals. It continued to bear Variety's name until 2006.[88]
In 1990 Variety published a 15-volume set of its television reviews (including home video product) from 1923 to 1988. Additional supplements were published covering 1989–1990, 1991-1992 and 1993–1994.[89]
In 1999 Cowie published The Variety Insider with detailed information on the year in entertainment as well as historical information. A second edition followed in 2000.[90]
In November 2014 Variety announced the premiere of Variety Studio: Actors on Actors, a production with PBS SoCal that featured two actors discussing their craft and thoughts on Hollywood, which subsequently went on to win three Emmy awards, including a Daytime Creative Arts Award in May 2019.
In January 2017 they launched the Variety Content Studio, creating custom content for brands.[91][92][93][94]
Variety established its data and research division, Variety Insight, in 2011 when it acquired entertainment data company, TVtracker.com.[95] Its film database was announced in December 2011 as FlixTracker, but was later folded into Variety Insight. Variety positioned the subscription service as an alternative to crowd-sourced websites, such as the IMDb.[96] The database uses Variety's existing relationships with the studios to get information. The New York Observer identified the main competitor as Baseline StudioSystems.[95] In 2014, Variety Insight added Vscore, a measure of actors' cachet and bankability.[97] In 2015 they partnered with ScriptNoted, a social media website for film scripts.[98]