NYTimes
From Has-Been to Life of the Party
Brandon Clark/ABImages, via Associated Press
Janice Min.
By BROOKS BARNES
Published: February 15, 2013
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Janice Min, the editor of The Hollywood Reporter, looked a little dazed as she stood outside Spago the other night. And so what if she was? Facing a firing squad of 16 photographers and 7 TV cameras will do that to a person.
But Ms. Min, above, sparkling in a yellow jeweled shift dress by Miu
Miu, had also just pulled off a coup. A swarm of A-list stars, that most
finicky of Tinseltown species, had descended to walk the red carpet —
her red carpet.
Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Naomi Watts, Ben
Affleck, Amy Adams, Sally Field and a bevy of other Oscar nominees had
all shown up for the party, the latest in a string of Reporter-hosted
events here.
“I think this turnout says it all,” Ms. Min said, flashing a smile in
the direction of Jim Gianopulos, the big boss at 20th Century Fox, and
Donna Langley, co-chairman of Universal Pictures. “The whole town is
here.”
But where was Snoop Dogg, who had been hired to be the D.J.? “Going on any minute,” Ms. Min said brightly.
As recently as 2010, The Reporter would have had a hard time persuading
its own etiolated staff to gather for a party, much less marquee stars.
The trade newspaper, founded in 1930, was bleeding from layoffs,
vanishing advertisers and ferociously competitive entertainment industry
blogs. It had become what moviedom dreads most: a has-been.
Then Ms. Min, 43, arrived from New York, where she successfully ran Us
Weekly, and set about transforming The Reporter from a dull daily trade
publication into a glossy large-format magazine. With money from new
private-equity owners, the Reporter went on a hiring spree and started
to break news again. Ad sales rose by more than 50 percent, while Web
traffic increased by more than 800 percent.
Some people here now refer to the revamped Reporter, with its
social-scene pages and power-lunch tidbits mixed with exposés and frothy
celebrity features, as the “new” Vanity Fair. That’s certainly a
stretch when it comes to making money. But certain similarities between
the two magazines are starting to be striking and not just because they
tread similar editorial and advertising turf.
Ms. Min and The Reporter’s fiery publisher, Lynne Segall, also seem to
be taking a page out of Vanity Fair’s party playbook. Hosting Hollywood
parties, particularly around the Oscars, has long been a way for Vanity
Fair to woo advertisers and polish its brand while simultaneously
creating content for its pages. Its annual Oscar party will be held at
the Sunset Tower next Sunday after the Academy Awards.
The Reporter has been aggressively raising its profile with a similar
strategy. On Saturday, for instance, it will replace Variety as the
longtime media sponsor of the Night Before Party, a fund-raiser that can
draw more powerful Hollywood figures than the Oscar ceremony itself.
“There is also a whole social side to the entertainment industry that is
not well reported on, or it at least it wasn’t until we started,” Ms.
Min, sitting at her orchid-laden desk, said last week. She added that
parties also help her newly hired editors, 10 of whom have relocated
from New York, to cultivate entertainment industry sources. “The best
publications create an atmosphere you want to inhabit,” she said.
Before Ms. Min arrived, The Hollywood Reporter held two events a year:
one tied to its “next generation” issue — studio executives, writers,
directors and agents on the rise — and a dull breakfast marking the
publication of its list of the 100 most powerful women in entertainment.
It also sponsored the Key Art Awards, given for achievement in movie
marketing.
Last year, The Reporter sponsored or staged 13 events.
Various parties in Los Angeles have been tailored to stylists, managers
and lawyers. Ms. Min teamed with Google on an event in Washington the
night before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The
Reporter also was the host of an event in New York, attracting people
like Katie Couric and Barbara Walters.
“We want to be looked at as The Hollywood Reporter setting the agenda for entertainment,” Ms. Segall said.
By most accounts, The Reporter’s events used to be rather sad. Picture
potbellied agents with vodka-tonic breath pawing through a cashew bowl.
Raising the glamour factor has been a priority for Ms. Min, who said she
was very involved with planning the gatherings, right down to nixing
cilantro in hors d’oeuvres. (She doesn’t like its taste.)
“This is a town of know-it-alls,” she said. “You need to give people something to be a little surprised about.”
Hence the hiring of Snoop for the Spago party, which celebrated Oscar
nominees. The rapper, who has lately been going by Snoop Lion, arrived
in a Rastafarian hat and sunglasses and played songs like Cyndi Lauper’s
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content
officer, joined him behind the turntables at one point. Ms. Min deemed
her D.J. a hit, although she added, “I didn’t see Steven Spielberg
dancing.”
Ms. Segall declined to discuss the financial details of these splashy
affairs. But one Reporter executive noted that the Spago party — which
featured a sushi station, steak tartare appetizers, a full buffet and
tray-passed desserts — brought in about $500,000 in sponsorship revenue
from companies like Pandora, Samsung Galaxy and Audi. (Event planners
estimate that The Reporter’s costs for the night totaled $150,000 to
$200,000.)
There are whispers in Hollywood — namely from Ms. Min’s competitors —
that The Reporter, like an out-of-control starlet, will soon be forced
to cut back on its partying, or at least on its lavish photo shoots. The
magazine’s involvement in the Night Before benefit cost it a $400,000
donation. Will Ross Levinsohn, the new chief executive of Guggenheim
Digital Media, which owns The Reporter, cut spending?
“In one breath these people are trashing us and in the other they’re
trying to be us,” Mr. Levinson said with a laugh. “My feeling is that
The Reporter is edging its way toward Vanity Fair, and, if anything,
Janice just needs the resources to go bigger.” Insiders insist The
Reporter is profitable; Mr. Levinsohn declined to say.
There are some things about Los Angeles parties that Ms. Min, who lived in New York for 23 years, may never get used to.
“I’ve never seen so many interpretations of black tie in my life,” she
said. “Jeans and a flannel shirt is now black tie?”
She added, “It’s also completely acceptable here to smoke pot at
parties, which was a little surprising, to say the least.”
Well, she is the one who hired Snoop.
