For eight decades, Daily Variety has been a Hollywood must-read for everyone from studio heads to actors looking for a big break. But the days of assistants running out to grab the "trades" are over: This week, the Los Angeles institution published its last daily edition.
Daily Variety will continue online — or on the "info-pike," as the magazine would say in its distinctive "slanguage" — and a print magazine will still appear on a weekly basis. The shift away from a daily reflects the fact that, like many other publications, Daily Variety has been buffeted by changing reader habits as well as major shifts in the industry it covers.
Neil Gabler, a cultural historian at the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center, joins NPR's Renee Montagne to explain the importance of Variety, decode some of its slang and explain how the world of Hollywood news has transformed.