By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-21 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, 2010
The Hollywood Reporter’s 2010 reinvention was not only an editorial project. It was a business one — and that meant hiring on the sales side, too.
Then
In December 2010, FishbowlLA reported that Variety veteran Craig Hitchcock had signed on as The Hollywood Reporter’s new associate publisher. He was set to lead the entertainment sales team in Los Angeles beginning in early January, while his counterpart associate publisher, Shelly Rapoport, stayed in New York managing the trade’s consumer business.
It was a return engagement. Hitchcock had already served as a THR sales director from March 2008 to January 2009, and earlier had spent four years at Variety, from 2000 to 2004, rising to publishing director. Most recently he had been vice president and executive director of the Paley Center for Media.
Now
The hire is a small but telling marker of how seriously The Hollywood Reporter’s owners were taking the relaunch. Rebuilding the editorial staff under Janice Min drew the headlines, but a glossy weekly only works if the advertising operation can match the ambition — hence the parallel investment in senior sales leadership.
The wider arc is familiar by now. The trades poured money into print and people in the early 2010s, then spent the following years adjusting as advertising migrated online and ownership consolidated. The steady movement of publishers and sales chiefs between Variety and The Hollywood Reporter — Hitchcock crossed between them more than once — was its own quiet measure of an industry that never stopped reorganizing.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.