It’s hard to argue with the selection of Janice Min for this week’s LA Weekly issue celebrating “the most interesting people” in Los Angeles. The name-brand editorial director has completely re-invigorated a moribund Hollywood trade, showed Jay Penske the way with her weekly glossy print edition and essentially steered clear of Nikki Finke‘s core beat.

So much so that a New York Post story today about the contract renewal status of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter mentions Min as a logical successor. Here’s a taste from Gendy Alimurung‘s LA Weekly profile of the “tiny, friendly” 43-year-old:

The new Hollywood Reporter launched in November 2010, a scant four months after Min took charge. The compressed schedule forced her to think clearly, she believes. Sometimes too much time muddles your thinking. The proof is in the numbers: Online traffic is up 800 percent. More importantly, revenue is up 50 percent.

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When it comes to the Top 50 mobile content destinations in the U.S., a pair of killer “B’s” crown the latest Quantcast ratings (next to comScore, these are generally agreed to be the most accurate publicly available metrics). Coming in at #7 with 4,373,802 monthly visitors is BuzzFeed, while 3,919,244 measured Smartphone/tablet visitors places The Bleacher Report at #9.

A number of listed sites have chosen to keep their profile names “hidden.” For example, if our cross-referencing is correct, #41 is Gawker.

Looking at the rest of the Top 50 group, FishbowlLA is intrigued by the listing’s reminder of the ageless value of the “Hollywood” word-brand. PMC’s hollywoodlife.com ranks 32nd and Guggenheim Digital Media’s  hollywoodreporter.com comes in 48th.

“Hollywood Life’s audience of millennial women wants to get the latest news no matter where they are or what time it is,” Fuller tells FishbowlLA via email. “That’s why they are flocking to Hollywood Life’s well optimized mobile site in rapidly increasing numbers.”

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Film editor Gregg Kilday, senior editors Alex Ben Block and Borys Kit and the rest of The Hollywood Reporter film team have a new colleague starting today. He is Sean Phillips (pictured), making the jump after a long and illustrious stint with Yahoo.

From Janice Min‘s internal communiqué:

I’m very pleased to announce that Sean Phillips is joining us as executive producer of THR.com’s movies coverage. As such he’ll be responsible for expanding our digital coverage of movies with a particular focus on growing our already-expanding consumer audience.

Sean has significant experience in this area. While at Yahoo over the last nine years, he has focused on content programming and worked closely with the sales and marketing teams to help expand the Yahoo! Movies audience from about 5 million monthly unique users to more than 32 million monthly uniques, and helped drive the business from $6-7 million in sales to $38 million annually.

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We can relate. In an email to staff, Hollywood Reporter editorial director Janice Min explained that one of the reasons she was able to convince New Orleans native Sudie Redmond to relocate from New York to LA for the position of executive managing editor was Park La Brea.

The “largest apartment complex west of the Mississipi,” located a block north of the Reporter‘s Wilshire Blvd. offices, was home sweet home to this reporter for ten years. With The Grove on the other side, friendly guards at the gate and a spectacular pool next to the 6th Street and Curson entrance, it’s no wonder Redmond – formerly managing editor of Glamour magazine – saw visions of warm, idyllic winters.

It’s another impressive east coast hire for Min, who writes that Redmond has for several months been helping the Reporter “in all matters of our operation.” Prior to Glamour, Redmond was deputy and managing editor for Harpo’s O magazine as well as managing editor of George magazine.

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The word of the day is “etiolated.” Put to excellent use by Brooks Barnes in his New York Times snapshot of the resurgent Hollywood Reporter:

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.

Indeed, there was no Spago mojo coursing through that sickly, weakened staff. It was a gang that Snoop Dogg, the DJ at the February 4 event from which Barnes leads, might have deemed distinctly lacking in  ”shizzle.”

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It feels a little bit this week like the inauguration of Janice Min’s second two-year term. Having re-branded and relaunched a struggling Hollywood trade publication as a consumer weekly magazine and website, Min is seemingly gearing up for the next big operational step forward towards (hopefully) break-even.

On Tuesday, THR announced the appointment of a VP of marketing, Anna Magzanyan. She was previously with Clear Channel, where she handled iHeartRadio, and the LA Times Media Group. Today, the first of several waves of editorial hires is being heralded.

The biggest and in some ways most surprising move is that news editor Matthew Belloni (pictured) has been promoted to the same post as Owen Phillips. The two will share the title of executive editor and work alongside a group that now includes deputy editorial director  Mark Miller. He reports directly to Min and comes over from the downsizing Daily Beast/Newsweek. Alison Brower, most recently the interim editor-in-chief of Seventeen, has been appointed THR special projects editor.

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Last May, AP launched Invision, a collective of celebrity-focused photographers based in New York, London and, mostly, Los Angeles. Manning the red carpet and party trenches here are Chris Pizzello, Casey Rodgers, Matt Sayles, John Shearer and Jordan Strauss.

This morning, Invision has announced that it will be the exclusive, credentialed photographer for The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a huge step forward in the entertainment space for AP, cemented by that fact that the agreement also allows the unit to license THR photos thereafter through AP Images:

“Invision’s world-class photographers, combined with AP’s long history of journalistic excellence, will make a perfect partner for The Hollywood Reporter as we continue to build upon our unprecedented access to entertainment industry events and provide a showcase for photography on many platforms,” said THR editorial director Janice Min.

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The Hollywood Reporter readers have a new redesigned iPad option to digest their industry news on a weekly basis.

The entertainment publication unveiled its new THR iPad edition and readers will have free access to the magazine through the Golden Globes preview issue on Jan. 9. Aside from the content you would normally find in the magazine, the app includes interactive features and unseen images from weekly features.

“The new THR iPad edition finally makes reading and experiencing The Hollywood Reporter a true 360-degree experience with incredible entertainment coverage tailored specifically to this format,” said THR editorial director Janice Min. “We’re thrilled that readers will have this rich expansion to THR content every week in their hands for holiday entertainment, awards coverage and beyond.”

Oprah Winfrey adorns one of four different covers for The Hollywood Reporter‘s special year-end double issue hitting newsstands today. She’s part of a compilation of 2012 “Rule Breakers,” the kind of framing and terminology that editorial director Janice Min is an expert at. The content seems just that much more compelling than if it were sitting under a “Top 11″ headline, which is the total number of profiled entities.

A year ago, media critics were writing Oprah Winfrey’s OWN obituary. But with Tyler Perry on the exclusive horizon and Rihanna in the rear-view mirror, the 58-year-old mogul’s conversation with reporters Lacey Rose and Stacey Wilson suggests this holiday season’s New Year’s resolutions will be a little less panicked:

“I’m not doing the hula yet… but compared to a year ago, it feels like a sigh of relief,” says Winfrey between sips of iced tea on her sprawling estate…

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When NBC LA anchorman and reporter Robert Kovacik recently reminded on his Facebook page that he would be interviewing actress Jane Fonda as part of the Los Angeles Press Club’s 5th Annual National Entertainment Journalism Awards, held last night at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the first comment he received came from a female resident of Malibu:

No offense to you Robert, but I feel very strongly that Jane Fonda is a lying b*tch who betrayed our nation. Ask her if she did indeed hand over to the VC the notes that the American POWs gave to her. They died a brutal death because of her traitorous actions. Shame on her.

Strong words, perhaps too strong. But Fonda is well aware of this specter. Last night during her Q&A with Kovacik, here’s how the worthy LAPC Visionary Award recipient answered when he asked about her biggest life regret:

“Sitting on that gun in North Vietnam. I’ll go to my grave with that one.”

The remark has been quickly pounced on this morning at Breitbart.com, The Daily Caller and elsewhere.

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