Even as her arch-rival’s site went dark this year, Sharon Waxman still faced a highly competitive, sharp-elbowed market for breaking show-business news.
Her response was to boost offerings from the Wrap, the online-only industry news source Waxman founded in 2009 after leaving the New York Times. First up were a weekly iPad magazine and a syndication service. The company has also grown its events business and has hired additional staff.
The expansion follows a spike in Web traffic at the Wrap as it has begun to post more-accessible entertainment content to expand its audience beyond the industry crowd.
“Last year we had a tremendous rise in the traffic,” said Waxman, chief executive at Wrap News Inc. “This year has been an effort to grow the business and monetize those readers. It’s the other parts of the company catching up to the website.”
It’s happening as competitor Nikki Finke, once a dominant force in Hollywood journalism, has suddenly become a nonplayer.
The reclusive trade reporter known for her aggressive style left Deadline Hollywood late last year after a falling out with the site’s owner, Penske Media Corp. She started a new site in June that operated for a couple of months before she took the site down as part of a settlement with Penske that bars her from covering show business online for anyone but Penske. Reached by email, Finke declined to comment.
With Finke out of the picture for now, the Wrap is trying to become a bigger part of the showbiz conversation. Still, the site is in fourth place behind competitors Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline, according to traffic metrics compiled by website tracking service Alexa.com.
As a result, the Wrap isn’t relying on driving traffic and selling ads alone. Waxman has recently set off to grow the company’s other lines of business. Along with the new ventures, the Wrap this year also expanded its conferences beyond Beverly Hills to include a second event in New York. Last week, Waxman was negotiating to expand the series into even more cities.
It’s all part of her plan to take the company, now five years old, into what she calls its grown-up phase.
Waxman said the Wrap is profitable, with most of its revenue generated through advertising and events.
Trade scoops
Waxman got the idea for the Wrap while she was on leave from the New York Times to work on a book about stolen antiquities.
She launched the site at the start of 2009 from her Santa Monica home with a reported $500,000 from Maveron, a Seattle venture capital firm formed by Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz, among other investors. Waxman said last week that she actually raised more money than that, but declined to say how much.
The idea was to compete with the print trades for scoops and get the news up quicker by posting online before they could go to press. But the trades managed to adapt quickly to the digital world with revamped websites and a focus on breaking news online, leading to a highly competitive cyberlandscape.
“Everyone was saying all these trades were going to go away, but they’ve all found a way to survive,” said a publicist who asked to not be named.
Each of the trades has dug into a niche. The Hollywood Reporter’s photo spreads cater to the egos of executives and stars. Deadline and Variety have largely stayed true to industry news, online and in print, respectively.
The Wrap, meanwhile, has taken a hybrid industry-and-consumer approach as a way to bring in more casual readers and generate clicks. A critic of the strategy pointed to posts about the star of a TLC special whose rare condition gave him a 132-pound scrotum as evidence the site will do anything for clicks. The site also posts more innocuous content such as movie trailers to bring in the wider audience.
“Any site has to be realistic about having a balance of content that is more on the serious business side and content that has a broader appeal that will drive traffic,” Waxman said.
Pro appeal
The Wrap last month launched its weekly iPad magazine, which sticks to industry stories, to court its core industry readers, Waxman said. The iPad magazine is free for now, but the plan is to begin transitioning it to a paid model as part of a “Pro” subscription service. That $199-a-year subscription will also include access to a film development database.
Her ambitions to continue growing are clear. Waxman said she’s in discussions with five major newspapers for a syndication service, which will provide wire reports similar to the Associated Press. In addition, there is a plan to distribute content to TV and radio outlets. (The Wrap had a syndication deal with Reuters, which ended earlier this year.)
The Wrap is currently using about 7,000 square feet in a building on Centinela Avenue in West Los Angeles. It is subleasing the adjacent 4,000 square feet to another company. The Wrap could grow into that space in a few years.
All the while, the trade press and the industry it covers are wondering if and when Finke will make her return, and to what effect. Finke posted a note on her website that she will make those plans clear before the end of the year.
Waxman declined to speak about her rivalry with Finke.
