The Hollywood Reporter

• 1. Introduction

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  The Hollywood Reporter hit newsstands for the first time on the 3rd of September 1930, and from that opening edition it was already courting trouble. Founder William R. "Billy" Wilkerson planted his "Tradeviews" column on the front page, and studio bosses in New York noticed quickly. Some studio lots tried to ban the paper outright. That a daily trade newspaper could provoke that kind of hostility within its first years of existence tells you something about what Wilkerson was building. What kind of institution starts a trade paper and immediately draws the ire of the most powerful people in the industry it covers? And how does a daily broadsheet born in 1930 survive long enough to reinvent itself as a glossy weekly magazine nearly eighty years later? The answers run through blacklists, bitter ownership battles, multimillion-dollar lawsuits, and at least one priest.

• 2. Billy Wilkerson's Paper

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  Wilkerson founded The Hollywood Reporter as Hollywood's first daily entertainment trade newspaper, and he ran it by instinct rather than by journalistic convention. He used caustic articles and gossip to generate publicity, which attracted readers and enemies in equal measure. His friendship with Howard Hughes was typical of the way he operated: the paper wrote favorable stories about Hughes and his film plans, and in return Hughes provided financial assistance to the paper when it was needed, on top of advertising revenue.

  Screenwriter Jack Moffitt, who had written scripts for dozens of films during Hollywood's Golden Age, joined the paper after Wilkerson hired him in 1955. Moffitt was also a fervent anti-Communist, which fit the political tenor Wilkerson had already established at the publication. When Wilkerson died in September 1962, his final "Tradeviews" column had already run some 18 months earlier. His wife, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, stepped in as publisher and editor-in-chief, and she would hold that role until selling the paper to BPI Communications on the 11th of April 1988.

• 3. The Blacklist and Billy's List

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  From the late 1930s, Wilkerson used his "Tradeviews" column as a weapon against what he described as communist infiltration of Hollywood. His particular target was the Screen Writers Guild, which he labeled the "Red Beachhead." When the Guild considered forming an American Authors' Authority in 1946 to hold copyright on behalf of writers rather than studios, Wilkerson published a column on the 29th of July 1946, under the headline "A Vote for Joe Stalin." Before it ran, he went to confession, aware of the damage it would cause; his priest, by all accounts, encouraged him to publish.

  That column contained the first industry names on what became known as the Hollywood blacklist, carrying the informal title "Billy's list." Dalton Trumbo and Howard Koch were among those named. Eight of the eleven people Wilkerson identified ended up among the "Hollywood Ten," the group blacklisted following House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. The paper's own obituary for Wilkerson in 1962 noted approvingly that he had "named names, pseudonyms and card numbers and was widely credited with being chiefly responsible for preventing communists from becoming entrenched in Hollywood production."

  For decades the paper's role was not addressed publicly. A reporter named David Robb wrote a story about the newspaper's involvement in 1997, but editor Robert J. Dowling refused to run it. It was not until the blacklist's 65th anniversary in 2012 that The Hollywood Reporter published a lengthy investigative piece by reporters Gary Baum and Daniel Miller. The same issue carried a formal apology from Wilkerson's son, W. R. Wilkerson III, who wrote that his father had been driven by revenge for his failed ambition to own a studio.

• 4. Sales, Layoffs, and Rival Wars

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  Tichi Wilkerson Kassel sold the paper in 1988 to BPI Communications for $26.7 million. Robert J. Dowling became president that year and rose to editor-in-chief and publisher by 1991. He hired Alex Ben Block as editor in 1990, and Block worked with Teri Ritzer to strip away much of the sensationalism and cronyism that had defined the Wilkerson era. BPI itself was sold in 1994 to a Dutch company, Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen, for $220 million.

  A private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR acquired the publication in March 2006 as part of a broader deal. This brought The Hollywood Reporter together with AdWeek and A.C. Nielsen under the umbrella of The Nielsen Company. The new ownership presided over significant editorial turnover: Cynthia Littleton, regarded as widely respected throughout the industry, departed in March 2007 for Variety. Web editor Glenn Abel left after 16 years. By December 2006, Matthew King, Howard Burns, and Peter Pryor had all been let go in layoffs.

  In March 2007, despite the disruption, The Hollywood Reporter surpassed Daily Variety to claim the largest total distribution of any entertainment daily. The rivalry between the two papers had deep roots: back in 1932, Variety had sued The Hollywood Reporter, alleging that THR was wiring information from Variety's New York edition back to Hollywood to beat the print edition to the newsstand by three days. Variety responded the following year by launching Daily Variety, its own Hollywood-based daily, to close that gap.

• 5. Janice Min's Reinvention

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  Richard Beckman, who came to The Hollywood Reporter from Conde Nast after being appointed CEO by the new Prometheus Global Media ownership in December 2009, recruited Janice Min in 2010 for a specific purpose. Min, who had been editor-in-chief of Us Weekly, was brought on to "eviscerate" the existing daily trade paper and rebuild it as a glossy, large-format weekly magazine. The daily format was abandoned. The website was relaunched to break news. The physical product shifted to large photos, lush paper stock, and a design sensibility aimed at what The New York Times described as a "rarefied demographic."

  The Times took note of the transformation eight months after its initial report on the relaunch. By early 2013, the paper was hosting a party for Academy Award nominees at Spago in Los Angeles, with top celebrities in the room and Hollywood insiders reportedly calling THR "the new Vanity Fair." Ad sales since Min's hiring were up more than 50%. Traffic to the website had grown by 800%.

  Min brought significant editorial talent with her. Todd McCarthy, Variety's longtime film critic who had been fired in March 2010, joined The Hollywood Reporter. So did Kim Masters of NPR, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Pamela McClintock and Eriq Gardner from Variety and American Lawyer respectively. The editorial and sales staffs each grew by nearly 50%. In January 2014, Min was promoted to President and Chief Creative Officer of the Entertainment Group of Guggenheim Media, giving her oversight of both The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. She stepped down from that role in February 2017, and longtime executive editor Matthew Belloni took over as editorial director.

• 6. Lawsuits, Ownership Shifts, and PMRC

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  The Hollywood Reporter's relaunch under Min came with legal trouble. In 2011, Deadline Hollywood, a property of Penske Media Corporation, sued The Hollywood Reporter for more than $5 million, alleging copyright infringement. Two years later, the parent company settled. A joint statement acknowledged that The Hollywood Reporter had copied source code from Penske Media's website TVLine.com, and included an apology. The suit was widely viewed in Hollywood, according to The Wall Street Journal, as a proxy for the competitive battle for readers and advertising revenue.

  Ownership continued to shift. Guggenheim Partners announced in December 2015 that it would sell the Prometheus media properties to executive Todd Boehly. The sale to Eldridge Industries closed in February 2017. In February 2018, Eldridge merged its media holdings with Media Rights Capital to form Valence Media, which was later rebranded MRC in 2020. That same year, in September 2020, Penske Media assumed day-to-day operations of both Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter through a joint venture with MRC known as PMRC. The combined entity also owned Variety, Rolling Stone, Vibe, and Music Business Worldwide, along with an investment in the SXSW festival franchise. Boehly pulled out of the joint venture on the 5th of August 2022, buying back the assets he had contributed, including The Hollywood Reporter.

• 7. Digital Expansion and Events

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  The Hollywood Reporter published a primitive digital edition in the late 1980s and became the first daily entertainment trade paper to launch a website in 1995. Early access was structured around paywalled premium coverage with free news briefs. The website went through a redesign well before competitor Variety reached the web in 1998. By 2002, the Reporter's website had won the Jesse H. Neal Award for business journalism. As of August 2013, Comscore measured 12 million unique visitors per month to the site. In November 2013, THR launched a style site called Pret-a-Reporter.

  Beyond publishing, The Hollywood Reporter built a significant presence in live events. In 2012 alone it hosted 13 major industry gatherings, among them the Women in Entertainment Breakfast, where it unveiled its annual Power 100 list of the industry's most powerful women; the Key Art Awards; the Power Lawyers Breakfast; and the Next Gen event honoring the industry's 50 fastest-rising stars and executives aged 35 and under.

  Since 2013, the publication has run an annual feature called "Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot," in which anonymous Academy members explain their voting choices for the Academy Awards. The Washington Post described it as "the best part of Oscar season." In April 2023, the Academy introduced a rule change aimed at curtailing the feature, barring members from discussing their voting preferences publicly or with the press anonymously. The Hollywood Reporter has continued to publish the ballot regardless.

• 8. International Editions

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  The Hollywood Reporter Japan launched in February 2023 as the publication's first international edition. Published by Hersey Shiga Global under license, it focuses on the Japanese film and television market, including the country's anime industry and talent agencies. Its chairman is Tsukasa Shiga.

  The Hollywood Reporter Roma, the first European edition, followed in April 2023, published by Brainstore Media under license. Concita De Gregorio served as its first chairman, stepping down in February 2024, when Boris Sollazzo took over. The Italian edition quickly ran into serious difficulty. From March 2024, the writing staff publicly denounced a financial crisis, with journalists, translators, and external contributors reportedly going unpaid for months. An inquiry by Il Post found a significant gap between Brainstore Media's declared budget and the financial plan the company had presented to PMRC during due diligence. On the 1st of July 2024, Sollazzo and the entire writing staff resigned. In October 2024, a composition agreement application was filed with the Civil Court of Rome against Brainstore Media. On the 3rd of April 2025, the court ordered the company into judicial liquidation. The newspaper ceased publishing news in June 2025, with online operations ending in July 2025.

  The Hollywood Reporter India launched in 2024 under a licensing agreement between Penske Media Corporation and RPSG Lifestyle Media, with Anupama Chopra named as editor. The Hollywood Reporter En Espanol launched in 2025 for Latin America and Spain. The German edition followed in October 2025, edited by Grace Maier, who had previously served as editor-in-chief of L'Officiel Liechtenstein from 2021 to 2025.