• L.A. Times, Friday, July 20, 2012 10:57 AM

Variety, the 107-year-old pub that once led the pack of Hollywood trades, is on a serious downward swoop, losing ad revenue as well as influence and readership among industry insiders. Valued "at close to $100 million as recently as 2008, [it] is now thought to be worth as little as $40 million," writes Patrick Goldstein. Now for sale, the pub is eclipsed by competitors Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and The Wrap.

Variety's "key misstep seems to have come in 2010 — a year after [Peter] Bart left the top editor's post — when it put up an online pay wall," according to Goldstein. "That took the paper out of the breaking news game, allowing Deadline, which was already beating the trade to innumerable scoops, to fill the void."

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