The WGA tentative deal with AMPTP required studios to notify the WGA when licensing writers' material for AI training, secured a $321m studio contribution to resolve a $122m health fund shortfall, and increased streaming residuals — but did not require studios to pay writers for AI training use.Source: WGA/AMPTP deal announcement, 4 April 2026

Who owns Variety magazine?

Penske Media Corporation has owned Variety since 2012. In June 2026 PMC significantly expanded its portfolio by acquiring The Verge, Eater, SB Nation and other Vox Media titles into a new subsidiary, PMX.Source: Lowdown media-ai-pivot U#7

What is the Tilly Tax in SAG-AFTRA negotiations?

The 'Tilly Tax' is SAG-AFTRA's proposed royalty that studios would pay every time an AI-generated performer replaces a human actor, named after a campaign by actress Synecdoche, New York actress Jennifer Tilly.Source: ai-jobs-power-money coverage

Background

Variety was cited in Lowdown's ai-jobs-power-money coverage as one of the trade publication sources for the WGA tentative four-year deal with AMPTP agreed on 4 April 2026, which resolved a $122m health fund shortfall with a $321m studio contribution, increased streaming residuals, and required studios to notify the WGA before licensing writers' work for AI training, but stopped short of requiring payment for that use. Variety has also covered the ongoing SAG-AFTRA negotiations and the 'Tilly Tax' royalty proposal that emerged from the earlier 2026 AMPTP talks.

Variety is the oldest continuously published US entertainment trade publication, founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman as a weekly covering vaudeville and the emerging film industry. It has been based in Los Angeles since the mid-twentieth century and has operated daily online since 2011. Penske Media Corporation acquired Variety in 2012, and the publication now sits in the same corporate family as The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, and Billboard. Variety's weekly print edition remains a prestige artefact in the entertainment industry; its digital operation publishes continuously.

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are direct competitors covering the same beat, studio deals, awards, talent, and labour negotiations, under the same parent company. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA AI negotiations represent the most consequential Hollywood labour story since the 2007-08 writers' strike, and Variety's sourcing of deal terms makes it part of the evidential record for the ai-jobs-power-money story's entertainment industry thread.

Variety hired Corbin Bolies on 26 May 2026 as its first dedicated AI entertainment reporter, placing standing trade-press staff on the AI beat as a permanent assignment rather than a rotating brief. The hire reflects an editorial judgement that AI adoption in entertainment is now a full-time specialist desk, not a sidebar to the labour or technology rounds. Variety's Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP) division also functions as an analyst data service for the industry it covers, cited in media-AI briefings as a sourcing layer for streamer strategy.

On 18 June 2026, Variety's parent Penske Media Corporation significantly expanded its digital portfolio by acquiring The Verge, Eater, SB Nation, Popsugar, The Dodo and Thrillist from Vox Media, folding them into a new subsidiary called PMX, with Ryan Pauley named as PMX Global president. Variety and The Verge now share a corporate parent for the first time, placing the UK's leading entertainment trade alongside a leading technology publication under one roof. The acquisition makes Penske Media one of the largest digital publishing groups in the US by title count, spanning entertainment trade, music, technology and general-interest digital media.