New boss at Variety, Peter Bart moves upstairs

Variety editor Tim Gray is now in charge of the news operation and Peter Bart gets a new position at the trade. "Bart has managed Variety's staff and news operations for twenty years and we have long had an agreement in place that, at the 20-year mark, he would move on to new responsibilities," Tad Smith, CEO of Reed Business, says in the Variety story. Variety blogger Anne Thompson says, "as vice president and editorial director of Variety, Bart will basically serve as editor emeritus and ambassador to the entertainment community as he blogs and delivers his weekly column."

The Wrap: "Bart may well have been regarded as being of the wrong generation to transform Variety for the digital age."

Nikki Finke: "He and the company are playing this like it's voluntary, but Peter has been pushed 'essentially up and out' of the newsroom, as one of my sources puts it."

Also in Hollywood: Fox fired longtime film columnist Roger Friedman for a post that was deemed too friendly toward film piracy. Finke, David Poland

Photo of Bart: Variety