Daily Variety reclaims tech coverage

Variety said Tuesday that it is reorganizing its monthly eV magazine, which focuses on entertainment-related technology news, into a section in its Daily Variety newspaper.

The magazine is published in print and online at a sub-site of Variety.com. Variety said that readers will now see eV inside the pages of Daily Variety once a month.

"The beauty of having a fairly large business is that you can reconfigure things in order to control your cost-base while still driving significant revenue," said Variety Publisher Charlie Koones. "And that?s really what we?ve chosen to do with eV...Once, and if, the marketplace turns back the right way, we?re prepared to pull it out again as a standalone."

The move comes amid the dot-com downturns in the online media industry. In January, Investor Broadcast Network pulled the plug on RadioWallStreet.com, a multimedia financial Web site. News Corp. has closed its Digital Media Division. NBC Internet has cut about 150 positions, or 30 percent of its staff, and The New York Times Co., CNN and Knight-Ridder have made reductions in their Internet businesses.

Launched in September, eV features news, analysis and information about the business of entertainment and the digital economy. Variety executives had said that the launch marked "an important milestone" for the newspaper and projected a circulation of 55,000 readers.

As a result of the market conditions, however, Variety said it decided to reconfigure its eV magazine.

"It doesn?t mean we?re leaving the market sector in any shape or form, either from an editorial standpoint or a sales standpoint," Koones said. "It just means the configuration of the book will be incorporated in what we do every day and every week."

Since 1905, Variety has provided news and analysis on the entertainment industry. In 1933, the magazine unveiled Daily Variety, a newspaper for the show business industry. Variety further extended its brand online in 1998 with the launch of its Web site, Variety.com, featuring daily headlines, opening reviews, classifieds, columns and weekly box office hits.