Variety Notches Best Year of Revenue in Its 117-Year History

Entertainment trade publisher Variety, part of Penske Media Corporation, has notched a year of record revenue and reach, partly thanks to capitalizing on heightened consumer interest in the rapidly transforming film and television industry. The publisher posted the highest-ever revenue of its 117-year history in 2022, according to its co-editors in chief Ramin Setoodeh and Cynthia Littleton, whose dual tenure began last August. Revenue grew 40% from 2020 to 2021, and this year Variety is forecasting to top its 2021 figures by 15%, according to chief operating and marketing officer Dea Lawrence. As a privately held company, it declined to share financial specifics. “Last year, 2021 was an earth-shattering year for Variety, the best in its history,” Lawrence said. “This year, we doubled down our strategy.” The title owes this feat, in part, to a windfall year for traffic, which it converts into revenue primarily through digital display advertising. Year over year, Variety has posted 20% to 30% gains in traffic every month this year, averaging roughly 24 million readers per month in 2022, according to Comscore. TV Insider Is Capitalizing on the Fractured Bedlam of Streaming Variety offered a number of explanations for the uptick in revenue and reach, including a more sophisticated social distribution strategy, consistent investment in its newsroom and a handful of marque editorial packages, such as its October interview with the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle. But the publisher has also benefited from an organic increase in general interest in the film and television business. “The convergence of technology, entertainment and media has definitely broadened interest in the space,” said Eunice Shin, a digital strategy partner at growth consultancy Prophet. “There has never been a more frenetic time in the industry than today.” The banner year makes Variety an anomaly in a media industry that has seen traffic shrink and revenues plummet, especially in the news and technology verticals. But the publisher, which has no digital paywall but does generate revenue through magazine subscriptions and a business-to-business subscription, Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP) product, relies heavily on advertising revenues. Additionally, new entrants into the space, particularly Puck and The Ankler, could pose a potential threat to the dominion Variety claims over its valuable audience of Hollywood executives and showrunners, according to Shin. Expanding the top of its funnel with data and celebrity Throughout its history, Variety has primarily served as a trade publication covering the business of entertainment, and it still prioritizes this industry-centric reporting, Littleton told Adweek. Recent stories, such as a trend piece exploring the rise of profit participation models, reflect this. But the publisher has also increased its coverage of consumer-oriented reporting, Setoodeh said. Variety saw its biggest-ever month of traffic in March, in part because of its minute-by-minute coverage following the aftermath of Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars. The trick will be seeing whether they can successfully balance being both a trade and consumer publication.FTI Consulting managing director Justin Eisenband Variety has also emphasized the importance of splashy celebrity covers in drawing traffic and breaking through the saturated news environment, scoring covers with Tom Brady, Olivia Wilde and the Black Panther cast. This increased focus on consumer content helps widen its audience funnel, and it has complemented the strategy by bringing more sophistication to its social distribution, Littleton said. These efforts have been aided by a rise in general interest toward the entertainment industry. The recent news of Disney chief executive Bob Iger returning to the company encapsulates the kind of trade story about a key personnel shift that, now, also captures the interest of ordinary television fans, Setoodeh said. The vulnerabilities of an ad-reliant business While Variety has enjoyed a banner year tied to record-breaking traffic, its strategy of relying primarily on search and social traffic risks leaving it vulnerable to the whims of third-party algorithms, FTI Consulting managing director Justin Eisenband said. The publisher has a roster of around 20 newsletters that it uses to capture traffic and convert it into consistent readership, and it also produces podcasts and video to hook fly-by readers. The Daily Beast Launches Obsessed, a Sub-Brand Covering Entertainment But without a consumer subscription product, affiliate commerce division or other reader revenue effort, Variety reduces the average revenue it can generate per user, effectively making its acquisition efforts—in this case, content production—less cost-effective, according to Eisenband. “Historically, entertainment content has not performed above average in terms of attracting high CPMs, so an uptick in revenue definitely seems like a win for the editorial team,” Eisenband said. “The trick will be seeing whether they can successfully balance being both a trade and consumer publication.”

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Variety Notches Best Year of Revenue in Its 117-Year History

The publisher has ridden a surge of interest in the entertainment business

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg