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Hollywood Reporter’s 2012 Rule Breakers — Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and the year-end double issue

By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, December 2012

In mid-December 2012, The Hollywood Reporter shipped its year-end double issue with four different Rule Breakers covers — Oprah Winfrey, Quentin Tarantino, Psy, and one other featured subject. Winfrey’s cover-story interview tracked the OWN turnaround that had begun rescuing the network from its substantial 2011-2012 ratings struggle.

Then

The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) had been one of the most-publicly-discussed cable-television launches of the early 2010s. The network’s 2011 debut had been substantially weaker than projections. By late 2012, the network had begun to turn around — Tyler Perry’s signature programming partnership and substantial subsequent content acquisitions had been substantively reshaping the network’s audience trajectory.

The four-cover Rule Breakers double-issue format was characteristically Janice Min-era Hollywood Reporter editorial. Min had been editor of HR since 2010 and had substantively repositioned the trade toward a more consumer-press-style framework.

Quentin Tarantino’s Rule Breaker cover landed in connection with Django Unchained’s December 2012 release. Psy — the South Korean musician whose Gangnam Style had become one of the most-watched YouTube videos in history that year — represented the cover’s broader cultural-relevance positioning.

Now

OWN continued through substantial subsequent reorganizations. Winfrey herself stepped back from day-to-day OWN operations in stages across the 2010s; Discovery’s 2017 acquisition of a controlling interest in OWN and the subsequent 2022 Warner Bros. Discovery merger have substantially reorganized the network’s parent-company structure.

Tyler Perry has continued as one of the most-prolific American film-and-television producers across the post-2012 interval. His 2019 Tyler Perry Studios opening in Atlanta produced one of the largest film-production facilities in the United States.

Janice Min left The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 to launch Ankler Media’s The Ankler.

Quentin Tarantino has continued through subsequent films. Psy has continued in music work.

The 2012 piece reads now as a documented snapshot of the Janice Min-era Hollywood Reporter at substantively high operating capacity.

Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.

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