Backstage (magazine)

Entertainment industry publication

Backstage, also previously written as Back Stage, is an American entertainment industry trade publication. Founded by Allen Zwerdling and Ira Eaker in 1960, it covers the film and performing arts industry from the perspective of performers, unions, and casting, with an emphasis on topics such as job opportunities and career advice. The brand encompasses the main Backstage magazine, and related publications such as its website, Call Sheet (formerly Ross Reports)—a bi monthly directory of talent agents, casting directors, and casting calls, and other casting resources. The publication was founded in, and originally focused primarily on New York City and the U. S. east coast. In the 1990s, Back Stage established the Los Angeles–based Back Stage West, which competed primarily with the longer established Drama Logue; in 1998, Drama Logue was acquired by Back Stage and merged into Back Stage West. In 2008, both versions were merged into a single national edition. From the 1990s through the early 2010s, Backstage was a sister to fellow entertainment publications Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, and later Adweek, via Billboard Publications and its corporate successors, such as Nielsen Business Media and Prometheus Global Media. In 2011, Back Stage was divested by Prometheus to a group led by John Amato, who relaunched the print and digital publications. After being briefly being re acquired by Prometheus, it was sold to RZ Capital in 2013.

Backstage (the company) was founded by Allen Zwerdling and Ira Eaker in New York City in December 1960 as a weekly tabloid sized newspaper called Back Stage. Zwerdling and Eaker had worked together for years as editor and advertising director, respectively, of the Show Business casting newspaper, which was founded by Leo Shull as Actor's Cues in 1941. After Zwerdling and Eaker left Show Business they looked into creating a casting section within The Village Voice newspaper; but, having been turned down, they decided to launch Backstage on their own. At the time of its founding, Backstage (the newsmagazine) was primarily a casting paper for New York actors intended to compete with Show Business Weekly. It gradually broadened its scope to include coverage of New York's television commercial production industry and a variety of performing arts, the former of which proved to be so lucrative advertising wise that the commercial production beat came to dominate the publication. Additionally, Backstage's reach began to slowly spread across the U. S., although the largest portion of its readership remained on the East Coast. In 1986, Backstage was bought by Billboard Publications Inc. (BPI), owner of such publications as Billboard (magazine). In 1988, BPI bought The Hollywood Reporter. Backstage and The Hollywood Reporter along with a few other related brands, were grouped together within BPI, becoming its film and performing arts division, a group designed to compete with Variety and other entertainment industry trade publications. Backstage would become involved in a number of other acquisitions, mergers, spin offs, and sales over the next few decades.

On July 6, 1990, the Backstage Shoot pull out section of Backstage magazine was spun off into a full, standalone publication, SHOOT. The concept was to have Backstage concentrate on actors, performing artists, and theatre, while SHOOT would continue to "serve the news and information needs of creative and production decision makers at ad agencies, and executives & artisans in the production industry" (according to their official press materials found on ShootOnline. com). To emphasize the change, the official Backstage tagline "The complete service weekly for the communications and entertainment industry" was switched to The Performing Arts Weekly.

In early 1994, Netherlands based company VNU bought Backstage owner BPI. VNU eventually came to own a variety of trade publications—including all of the BPI magazines as well as Mediaweek, Adweek, Film Journal International, The Hollywood Creative Directory, and many others—along with measurement company Nielsen Media Research, and events such as ShoWest and the Clio Awards.