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The Hollywood Reporter was one of two major trade publications of the film industry in the United States during the last century — the other being Variety. Today both newspapers cover what is now more broadly called the entertainment industry.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Founder 1.2 Ownership changes 2 Presence on the web 3 Current status and legacy 3.1 Editors and reporters today 3.2 Competition with Variety 3.3 Public relations issues 4 External links

The Hollywood Reporter was the entertainment industry's first daily trade paper in Hollywood. It began as a daily film publication, then added television coverage in the 1950s and began in the late 1980s to cover all intellectual property industries.

In September 1930, former film salesman William R. "Billy" Wilkerson published the debut issue of The Hollywood Reporter. The banner headline read, "INDIE REVOLUTION." Studio chieftains were stunned to find themselves covered by an aggressive independent newspaper, with one famous company going so far as to make bonfires of the latest editions.

The dapper, smooth, but-tough-talking Wilkerson became a player in Hollywood, helping develop the Sunset Strip and launching famed celebrity watering holes and eateries, Cafe Trocadero and Ciro's. He was part of the early stages of development of the Flamingo Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, partnering at one point with gangster Bugsy Siegel, but was allegedly bought out before the hotel opened when he was 'made an offer he couldn't refuse.'

Wilkerson ran The Hollywood Reporter until his death in 1962, when his wife, Tichi Wilkerson, took over as publisher and editor-in-chief. She sold the paper in the late 1980s to trade publishers BPI. Teri Ritzer was the last editor under Wilkerson. She began the paper's modernization by bringing newspaper editors into what was essentially a Hollywood wannabe newsroom. BPI's publisher, Robert J. Dowling, brought in Alex Ben Block in 1990 and editorial quality of both news and specials was steadily improved. Ritzer and Block dampened much of the rah-rah coverage and cronyism that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Alex Ben Block left, former film editor at Variety, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety. Dowling helmed the paper until he was forced to retire during corporate changes in late 2005. Tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. The Reporter was acquired, along with the rest of the assets of VNU, in spring 2006 by a private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR, both with ties to the conservative movement in the United States. Uphoff was pushed out of the publication and was replaced by in October, 2006 by John Kilcullen, who was the publisher of Billboard. In 2004, Killcullen was sued by two former Billboard staffers for race discrimination and sexual harassment. Among other allegations, he was accused of sacrificing editorial integrity to appease advertisers. The company settled the lawsuit as it was about to go to trial. Matthew King, VP for content and audience, and editorial director Howard Burns left the paper in a wave of layoffs in December 2006; editor Cynthia Littleton, widely respected throughout the industry, reported directly to Kilcullen but for how long was a matter of industry speculation. Indeed, the Reporter absorbed another blow when Littleton left her position for an editorial job at arch nemesis, Variety in March, 2007. Web editor, Glenn Abel, also walked after 16 years with the paper. VNU has been renamed the Nielsen Company, whose properties include Billboard, Ad Week and A.C. Nielsen.

The Hollywood Reporter was the first daily entertainment trade to go online, in late 1995. Initially it was a premium service but competition forced it to become more reliant on ad sales and less on subscribers. The Reporter started archiving some news stories electronically in 1991 and published a primitive "satellite" digital edition in the late 1980s. The web site had already gone through several redesigns --(too many, according to many industry observers, and is reportedly attributed to 'make work' projects to save the jobs of THR web staff as the paper continues to cut personnel.) Rival trade Variety finally posted its own site after the Reporter and thrives as the first 'go-to' among industry users. In 2002, the Reporter's web site won the Jesse H. Neal Award for business journalism.

Other Reporter electronic products include U.S. and European daily email editions, a new digital-only publication for lawyers, a daily East Coast digital edition, a business podcast and a trio of blogs.

To the dismay of many young staffers, the Reporter was slow to modernize. The paper still used vintage IBM-styled selectric typewriters in several departments into the early 1990s and was sluggish in upgrading operations by adding common business equipment such as computers, scanners and color printers to all departments. Archival materials were routinely microfilmed as late as 1998 rather than digitized, even though the system to view it was in storage or broken. Interoffice email appeared only by the late 1990s as well. It was publisher Robert Dowling who was key in essentially dragging the paper into the 20th century just as it entered the 21st.

In the era of bloggers, cellphone cameras, 24/7 cable business news and the explosion of information outlets on the Internet, it is possible that one of the trades will take its daily publication completely on-line in the near future. Recently the Reporter quietly changed printing operations from the West Coast to a less expensive Florida-based printing firm. This suggests the possibility that the daily paper may well fold and go fully on-line 24/7/365, with the weekly printed in the East.

The Hollywood Reporter has been called an institution, (many who have worked there insist that it is) publishing out of the same offices on Sunset Boulevard for more than a half century, although by the 1970s the aging offices had become a time capsule more akin to the 1950s and the paper had clearly outgrown them. (Today, the offices are in L.A.'s Mid-Wilshire district.) Shirley MacLaine once paid a visit to the Sunset offices, marching up to a columnist and slapping him over an item he wrote^{[citation needed]}. In 1962 Bette Davis took out an exclusive classified ad looking for work which only appeared in the Reporter^{[citation needed]}. Game show host Bob Barker came in and personally placed ads in the paper^{[citation needed]}. Even Tony Snow reads it. Many famous, not-so-famous and infamous people peruse the Reporter^{[citation needed]}.

The Hollywood Reporter's conferences and award shows include the Key Art Awards, which aim to recognize the best in movie marketing and advertising. Its Women in Film issue is a somewhat controversial if not subjective ranking of female movie executives. Their 'Young Star Awards' showed great promise but fizzled. Curiously, the paper's influential celebrity marketability rating system, Star Power, has fallen out of use in recent years.

The Hollywood Reporter has a staff of roughly 200. Today, editors and reporters numbers more than 60, with another 50 staffers scattered in key locales around the globe, having downsized when VNU absorbed BPI Communications in 2000. Like Daily Variety, the paper publishes only on weekdays, although the Reporter has a weekly international edition and in the early 70's, briefly aired a TV show. It is interesting to note that during the golden age of Hollywood film and television, the Reporter was seldom staffed with more than 20 people. It was chiefly in the media boom of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that the employee roster ballooned.

Staffing at the Reporter continues to be in flux and has been spiralling down for several years in what many industry observers see as a death dive. In 2006, the drama peaked. Tony Uphoff replaced Robert Dowling as publisher. Uphoff then announced his departure from the paper in October, 2006 after just nine months. In that period, Associate Publisher Lynne Segall, a bombastic, forceful and occasionally boorish fixture at the Reporter for two decades, was passed over and forced out, too. Replacing Uphoff from New York was John Kilcullen, who continued to be Publisher of Billboard magazine during the transition. For years Kilcullen claimed he was the creator of the popular, quaint, if-not-silly ".......for Dummies" book series. But last year, an article in the New York Times Book Review section gave credit for the idea to Dan Gookin, who authored the first Dummies book. Now Kilcullen claims to be the co-creator, but even that claim is questionable. The Dummies brand was already under development by Carol So when he joined IDG. As publisher of Billboard, he was sued in 2004 by two Billboard staffers for race discrimination and sexual harassment. Among other allegations, the suit also said Kilcullen compromised editorial integrity to appease advertisers. The company settled the case in 2006 as it was about to go to trial for an undisclosed amount. The Billboard brand suffered another turn for the worse in 2007 when the Fox Network dropped the long-running Billboard Music Awards after the show posted the lowest number of viewers in its 15 year history. At THR, Kilcullen wasted no time making changes as revenues were in steady decline. Editorial director Howard Burns was replaced after nearly 20 years, corporate content vp Matthew King was forced out along with eight other editorial and operations staffers in December, 2006. And it is rumored to be just the start. Cynthia Littleton assumed many of Burns' editorial responsibilities, but for how long is no longer an industry parlor game. Indeed Littleton left for an editorial position with Variety in March, 2007. The paper is now searching for its fifth editor in eight years, which speaks volumes for the managerial turmoil and short term thinking at the 75-plus year old trade publication. Clearly the paper is adrift amidst a sea change in the media industry today. Still, staff turnovers continue to plague The Hollywood Reporter and have been a big problem for years. Morale is low and rides a rollercoaster at the Reporter. Indeed, employees have been heard to mutter in half-jest, "If it's news, it's news to us."

The Hollywood Reporter can pay very well or very poorly, depending on a talent or need for a given battle in the paper wars, although top management is rumored to be generously if not lavishly compensated. This may or may not be a norm at trade journals in general, yet it is curious for well-heeled Tinseltown, where image over substance is the rule and inside information is worth millions. 'High school with money' is a commonly voiced truism. Staff turnover during the Dowling years could be considered abnormally high by most corporate standards in publishing or other industries-- beyond what may be measured as normal attrition. It has been said that even today, both The Reporter and to some extent, Variety, may still be 'in transition' from the boutique days as small, independent, privately owned trade papers steeped in the back street shenanigans that made Hollywood work in an era long gone, although both trades were absorbed into large publishing firms many years ago run from the other coast.

Variety makes good use of its well-branded heritage as part of the Hollywood scene and culture, not just an observer reporting on it. The Reporter, on the other hand, is often considered by industry insiders as outside that circle looking in and continues to struggle with branding an image for itself, in spite of being established in Hollywood three years before Variety. For instance, Variety's 'brand' is secure in Hollywood history thanks to countless radio, film and TV usages. It has vintage and high profiled product positioning that continues to perpetuate awareness of their place in Hollywood culture in such old films as Singin' in the Rain, Yankee Doodle Dandy and timeless TV shows like I Love Lucy, Make Room For Daddy and others. The Reporter has tried to do the same in recent years, with recent placements in tv shows like "Entourage."

Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both are located on Wilshire Boulevard along the well-trafficked 'Miracle Mile.' Staffers often migrate between the papers. There is a history of bad blood between the rivals bordering on the obsessive, sometimes petty and occasionally myopic. Variety was long established as an entertainment trade paper in Vaudeville circles, Tin Pan Alley and in the theatre district of New York City, but it was The Hollywood Reporter that began covering the developing film business in Hollywood in 1930. Variety didn't start its Hollywood edition until 1933.

The Hollywood Reporter maintains a business association with the home entertainment trade publication Home Media Magazine, which is owned by Questex Media Group. The alliance includes an exchange of stories when the need arises, and gives the Reporter access into the home entertainment trade, which Variety enjoys with its sister publication, the Reed-owned Video Business.

Officially at least, the Reporter has taken the 'high road' in the paper wars. But it has had its own share of contoversies over ethics as recently as 2001, when Anita Busch, the Reporter's top editor, veteran industry reporter Dave Robb and another editor resigned in protest when their journalistic ethics and integrity were stiff-armed then stonewalled by established and questionable corporate policies swirling around the 'George Christy Affair.' Current publisher John Kilcullen hardly seems a paragon of editorial ethics. A lawsuit filed by two Billboard staffers said he compromised editorial integrity to curry favor with advertisers, and the New York Daily News reported that he killed an ad sponsored by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) at the request of Jennifer Lopez's manager.

In 1998 there was also controversy when mainstream news organizations worldwide attempted to locate White House intern Monica Lewinsky, who had fled Washington as the Clinton scandal broke that spring. Ms. Lewinsky's mother had implied in some jacket notes on a book she wrote that she had been -- or was then recently -- a journalist at the Reporter. However, she had done part-time editing or reporting work a decade earlier (the specifics remain cloudy due to poor record keeping from the era) and in fact she was not a recent full-time staff employee. Resourceful, professional and intrepid journalists, who uncovered this errant fact, besieged the Reporter by phone, fax and in person searching for Monica Lewinsky -- then rumored to be staying with her mother -- by following the lead from her mother's booknotes as the scandal unfolded. But neither person was found at or through the Reporter.

In the late 1940s and mid-1950s, many of Wilkerson's red-baiting headlines in the Reporter during the HUAC hearings may have helped fan the flames of Hollywood's 'Red Scare' when the industry blacklisting emerged. It was a dark but colorful era. Indeed, Wilkerson was reporting on communists in Hollywood as early as 1935. It was also a small news item placed in the Reporter about a studio press screening of a new RKO film called Citizen Kane that snowballed into the legendary industry showdown between the then rising talent, Orson Welles, and William Randolph Hearst, the powerful yellow journalist and publisher.

The trades' print circulation figures are about the same as Variety's -- low in number (generally fluctuating between 25,000 - 35,000) but reach a lucrative demographic group. However, both trades have an advertising base of chiefly film and television studios peppered with a few upscale goods and services. Diversification by the Reporter, for example, into other consumer and business products, routine for most newspapers, many business and general consumer publications, remains a challenge for sales professionals plagued by the pressure to produce short term results without time or incentive to cultivate effective long-term relationships based on disciplined marketing strategies.

• The Hollywood Reporter