Hollywood trade paper Variety put up for sale

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Daily Variety, the venerable show business "trade" magazine and Hollywood fixture for over 70 years, was put up for sale on Thursday as part of a cost-cutting plan by its parent company, Reed-Elsevier.

The Anglo-Dutch company said it would spin off Variety as part of a planned sale of its Reed Business Information publishing unit, which also includes such titles as Publishers Weekly, Broadcasting and Cable and Multichannel News.

While Variety is by far the best known brand in Reed's business publishing division, company executives indicated they would prefer to sell the unit as a whole, though they did not rule out a separate bid for Variety.

"There is strong interest in the Reed information business," Reed Elsevier Chief Executive Crispin Davis told reporters at a briefing in London. "We will explore all options for an outright sale and we will see where we come out."

The divestment, which analysts said could raise more than $2.15 billion (1.1 billion pounds), is aimed at reducing Reed's exposure to the volatile advertising market, the company said.

News of the planned sale comes at an especially awkward time for Variety, which has been preoccupied with coverage of the recently settled screenwriters strike and is now in the throes of covering the run-up to the Oscars.

It also follows by several weeks an announcement that Variety's president and publisher, Charlie Koones, would step down in March to pursue other unspecified opportunities in the media business.

Variety was founded in 1905 in New York as a weekly publication covering the vaudeville circuit and was launched in 1933 as Daily Variety in Hollywood, where it has grown into the entertainment industry's leading paper of record.