“Variety will be what people know and love and expect”

US industry bible Variety is launching Variety Australia today as a new entertainment digital offering, and will publish a print edition in December.

Further print editions will follow regularly along with Variety Australia Awards and the Variety Australia 100.

The Brag Media, which publishes The Music Network, Rolling Stone Australia/NZ and The Industry Observer has entered into a licensing agreement with Variety’s parent company, Penske Media Corporation.

It will be led by Jake Challenor (pictured below) Executive Editor, B2B, Poppy Reid (top left) as Editor in Chief, with journalists Lars Brandle and Vivienne Kelly.

“Variety will be what people know and love and expect from it. Screen is a huge part of it. There are some growing verticals like podcasts and documentaries. So the plan is to honour the brand. I mean, it’s been around for 116 years now,” Jake Challenor told TV Tonight.

“We’ll be doing a lot of original content, exclusive content, and we will have a syndication strategy as well,” said Poppy Reid.

“It will be a mix of them both with, a large focus on creating original content, definitely on the film and TV sector. Just looking at the sector itself and the value of the film or TV, it’s just such a great opportunity to invest in it.

“Film and TV production surged to 1.9 billion in the last financial year in Australia alone so it’s just become one of the world’s safest places to shoot during the pandemic. Studios are opening up across the country and obviously, some of the biggest film and TV shows have been shot here, which gives us a great opportunity to create a lot of original content on the ground… the kind of access that we’ll have with a lot of those studios, stars, and films being made here is really exciting.”

In addition to Screen, it will cover Music, Documentaries, Podcasts but Theatre is yet to be confirmed.

“The other big area for Variety, and one that we’re really excited about for Australia is the Award circuit,” says Challenor.

“Our plan is to sort of replicate that here, whether it’s the AACTAs, Logies, ARIAs. That’s a really important area for us to double down on in this market as well.

“But we are not entering the Celebrity, online journalistic world… it’s just not on-brand for Variety. We do cover a lot of that stuff on other platforms, including the brag.com. But Variety takes a very different approach.”

Reid adds, “Variety has been around for 116 years so we need to honour that legacy and really pay tribute to the tone that has been crafted over that time. Obviously, it’s changed quite a lot., so it does cover entertainment professionals. But also, consumers are also coming to Variety for their news as well. We’ve got diehard passionate film and TV fans who I think personally are hugely underestimated.”

Variety has previously published special Australian spotlight editions but Variety Australia is only the second international brand, to follow Variety China.