More Layoffs At Variety

Advertising is down at Variety, still, and that can only mean one thing, more layoffs. Two months after their first round of layoffs&#151that took 30 employees including notables such as Mike Jones, Jeff Sneider and Anne Thompson&#151the industry paper has decided to take out another seven percent of its staff.

This round of layoffs includes such surprises as TV reporter Dan Frankel, New York bureau chief Dade Hayes and executive editor Michael Speier. Despite all of this, “Variety is an extremely profitable franchise,” President and publisher Neil Stiles, told The Wrap.

This is The Wrap‘s take on the situation:

Clearly there has been a housecleaning at the top. Speier was executive editor, and Hayes was assistant managing editor. There was no word on how &#151 or whether &#151 either would be replaced. Stiles said features executive editor Steven Gaydos and managing editor Kirstin Wilder will be staying on.

Stiles said his plan to sustain Variety would not include charging for news content on its website Variety.com but charging for “things to actually help you do your job.” He declined to give a specific example.

So the tides are changing at Variety. Let’s see if Tim Gray can turn the paper around the way his predecessor did in the ’90s.

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