LOS ANGELES – On September 5th The Hollywood Reporter will reach its 70-year anniversary mark and kick off a year-long promotional campaign to celebrate its legendary status and rich and colorful history. As much a part of Hollywood as the sign on the hill, The Hollywood Reporter stakes its claim as the book of record to chronicle the evolution of the entertainment industry over the past seven decades.
In September 1930, William R. “Billy” Wilkerson published the debut issue of The Hollywood Reporter, the first daily show business trade paper to come off the press from the heart of the entertainment capitol — Hollywood. The banner headline read, “INDIE REVOLUTION.” Since those early days of the motion picture industry, The Hollywood Reporter has consistently delivered entertainment news, features and information — five days a week, every year – to professionals working in all areas of the business.
The Hollywood Reporter has covered every angle of the industry, then and now, including the Mergers: Fox-RKO in 1935 & AOL-Time Warner in 2000.
“What is significant about the entertainment industry is that you can almost reach back and touch its origins. The Hollywood Reporter was there at the forefront of this business,” said editor-in-chief and publisher, Robert J. Dowling, who took the helm in 1988. “Our 70th year is a place to pause, reflect and look forward to the future. At the start of a new century, The
Hollywood Reporter will again reinvent itself and continue to be the leader in entertainment publishing, technology and the delivery of accurate, timely news at the click of a button.”
Just as the business has changed, The Hollywood Reporter has changed with it. Not only the first daily trade paper, The Hollywood Reporter also became the industry’s first online delivery of entertainment news with the launch of its Web site in 1996, along with the first to create an e-mail edition to
deliver breaking news items directly to users’ computers around the world. In addition, The Reporter’s latest feature, “Convergence: Where Entertainment Meets Technology,” is the first in a trade paper, or any other publication or news source, to address a different entertainment-specific area of new media and technology on a daily basis.
Under Dowling’s leadership, The Hollywood Reporter prides itself on the frequency of its scoops and breaking news stories in both its hard copy and electronic editions. The Reporter also leads the way in foreign news coverage — it prints over 500 international news pages each year, more than any other trade paper. The paper publishes 150 special issues annually, including its original franchises: “The Next Generation,” “Women in Entertainment,” “The Film 500,” “The Influence of Hollywood,” “Philanthropy in Hollywood,” and “New Media” and “Crafts” series.
The Hollywood Reporter continues to build on its history and enhance the traditions that have been woven into the fabric of the industry. Readers still look for long-standing columnists such as George Christy’s “The Great Life,” Robert Osborne’s “Rambling Reporter” and Martin Grove, who now writes a
feature on the paper’s Web site titled, “Filmmaker Focus.” Dowling also brings insight on current topics to the industry in his “Tradeviews” column, a forum created by Wilkerson that started with the paper’s very first edition.
Once based in a single office on Sunset Boulevard, The Hollywood Reporter now maintains a publishing network and a staff of 300 with bureaus around the world. The Hollywood Reporter supports the entertainment community with its annual conferences and award shows, such as the 29th Annual Key Art Awards, which recognize the best in motion picture marketing and advertising and the 5th Annual YoungStar Awards, which honor talented young performers aged 6 – 18.
The Hollywood Reporter is published by Netherlands-based VNU, the world’s largest organization of entertainment-related publications and services.
