I’ve often wondered who the heck was reading V-LIFE. Now I know: nobody. Variety has announced that they are killing the two-year-old magazine in February, but the name will live on Fridays in a special section of Daily Variety. Rumor has it Colonial Fan Force will immediately mount a campaign demanding that V-LIFE be brought back in its original format with its original staff.
OK, I’ll cop to it. I read V-LIFE. It was so forthright about celebrating showbiz excess that I came to regard it as a guilty pleasure. And I’m sorry to see it go.
Ah. I feel much better now. Cleaner, even.
The problem with V-Life was that they tried to make it into a consumer magazine like Entertainment Weekly instead off an add-on to Variety. It was making money when it was a Business to Business publication centered in LA and NY. They had waaay too much competition when they went newsstand and lost money hand over fist.