THR update: See this post at Daily Finance

As soon as I posted this I was alerted to Jeff Bercovici’s piece at Daily Finance. Go see here.   Is Nikki jumping the gun?  Perhaps no firm decisions yet.

 

The Digital Daily: THR ends print

 The only thing that surprised me about the announcement today that The Hollywood Reporter would discontinue its print edition was that it will happen so soon.  I must admit, I’ve been predicting this to friends and colleagues for a while, much to their denial and bewilderment, but I was saying, “in a year”…

 According to Nikki Finke’s post today in Deadline Hollywood Daily,  THR had wanted to go digital as early as next month.  It’s not clear if the online edition will still be free but the subscription print edition will be totally digital.

DHD also reports that Variety will start charging for both their online and digital edition. Good luck with that.  There will be a core group who will still subscribe to both trades for a while, but I see that audience shrinking over a short period of time as well. 

The success of the professional blogosphere is history at this point, and so is the tiny entertainment trade business linked to a small B2B audience that finds them relevant.  The next generation industry people who I know tell me that sure, they pay attention to the trades, but they read a lot of other online sources as well.  If the Hollywood trades still exist at all in a few years, I see them as narrowly focused and run by a skeletal staff.  But I’m not betting on it.

While Finke feels that “too many people need the niche content”,  the relationships between the trades and the industry may be changing as well.  Deadline Hollywood Daily only proves this point, as Ms. Finke broke the Variety story today before Variety.  Really.   It’s just that the trades had a hold on the industry–and their dwindling advertising dollars–when there was no competition, and no Internet publications to turn to. 

Now, not so much…

 

We Walked The Line

WGA Strike     Day 16     Hollywood Blvd. Rally

Who are these people, why are they on cell phones in the middle of the WGA strike rally in Hollywood, and why is JS smiling at Ray Romano?

Tuesday, Nov. 20, was day 16 of the WGA strike and thousands of WGA writers, producer/showrunners, and SAG actors showed up to march down Hollywood Blvd.  in support of the ongoing walkout.  Also there to lend some muscle was the Teamsters Union, who parked three enormous rigs on Hollywood Blvd. 
  It seems that lots of folk are jumping on the bandwagon (there was an actual band wagon, where Alicia Keys performed two songs) to support the striking writers. I even saw a small contingency of nurses, who arrived with their union signs and joined the march.  Lending culinary support were members of CAA who walked around with mountainous trays of scrumptious scones and provided hot cider.

So, who are my mystery people on phones and why was JS at the rally? I was invited to join entertainment professional Philippa Burgess, of Creative Convergence, pictured in the above left photo with the showrunner/executive producer of “Lost” Carlton Cuse.  Philippa and her partners were conducting a live teleconference with over 100 emerging writers around the country, letting them experience the strike first hand.  Philippa and I marched with the strikers and lent our support while we asked anyone we recognized within range to give the teleconference writers some words of advice and/or encouragement and answer the big question of the day “how can these writers who live far away support the strike?”  

 Besides Mr. Cuse, also joining the teleconference were Ray Romano (pictured above with yours truly) and, on the right, Jonathan Lisco, showrunner/executive producer of the new TV show “K-Ville“.  In addition, speaking to the cell conference was a showrunner from the Disney Channel and the very gracious and lovely Debra Messing.

Talk about a moveable feast! Or was that a moveable feat?  While marching with thousands of people shouting strike slogans, and the ever present choppers above, we could barely hear each other speak, yet somehow these notables managed to keep pace with the crowds and talk on the cell phone to the writers around the country. My hats off to them for a) being troupers and showing up for the strike with no fanfare or self-agrandizing and b) lending their impromptu support to strangers on a phone thousands of miles away.

The rally ended two hours later at Grauman’s Chinese Theater with some rousing speeches by the WGA and Teamsters reps and a heartfelt talk by Sandra Oh.  All left feeling well supported and pumped, and hoping for a happy Hollywood ending.  Soon.