It didn’t take long for the folks at Variety to react to LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein‘s article about the trade’s current on-the-block fortunes. Tweeted film editor Josh Dickey:

Goldstein says he spent a week working his network of Hollywood contacts to take the trade’s current temperature. Here is some of what he was told:

A surprising number of subscribers said they get the paper just to keep tabs on the awards-season ads.

As one studio marketer told me: “I only subscribe out of habit. I can’t remember the last time I read anything in the paper when I didn’t already know the information from somewhere else.”

An informal poll by Goldstein of a dozen of these individuals (including a pair of studio chiefs) revealed the following current pecking order:

1) Deadline
2) THR
3) TheWrap
4) Variety

Read Goldstein’s full account here.