Variety began in 1905 as a weekly show business trade paper, covering vaudeville, stage, and film. It went on to feature news on television, aspects of new media, and to a lesser extent music. Daily Variety started much later in 1933 and focused on motion pictures more specifically. It ceased as a separate publication in March 2013. Since 2012, Variety has been owned by Penske Media Corporation, which also owns Deadline Hollywood. There have been a number of regional/international/special editions at different times.
Finding full searchable access to all of the historical contents in Variety can be challenging. This page is set up to explain different options for UCLA researchers.
Finding full text of Variety and Daily Variety depends on what years you need and where you are located. UCLA students, staff, and faculty have off-campus access options for subscription resources.
NOTE: Text mining of Factiva is strictly prohibited.
Data sets, primarily box office information, in trade publications like Variety can be challenging to search separately. Databases often just provide access to articles, so patrons may need to browse print or facsimile scanned issues (like those in Variety Archive or the Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive) to see the full contents of the magazine.
Variety Insight is a separate paid service from Variety that offers further data services, but is usually not available via academic libraries for educational use.
The UCLA Library does have physical holdings of Variety and Daily Variety, although many issues of weekly Variety are only available on microfilm. Daily Variety is not complete, and some print issues have missing pages and damage. There is no microfilm version of Daily Variety. Consult the catalog records below for more detailed information.
Older reviews and obituaries in Variety have been reprinted in large fascimile sets, available in UCLA Arts Library Reference.
"Indexing" a periodical means that the contents of individual articles are listed, often by subject/author/title. Indexing remains useful for older issues of magazines that may not be available full text online. There is no fully complete index of Variety.
The online AFI (American Film Institute) Catalog draws its content from printed volumes that document every American feature film from 1893 to 1974. Also includes some short films from the first era of filmmaking, 1893–1910. Provides detailed filmographic information, including music credits, release dates, plot descriptions, and bibliographies. See also the AFI web version of the catalog.