Get featured in Variety Australia
The screen trade, read locally
We help build the story and the wider press record around your screen project. For trade announcements themselves, a specialist screen publicist is often the better call, and we will say so.
- You approve every word
- Unlimited revisions
- Reply within 24 hours
How do I get featured in Variety Australia?
We develop your story, write the feature to editorial standard, and manage the placement. You approve every word before anything goes live.
About Variety Australia
Variety Australia is a licensed Australian edition of the entertainment trade, covering local production, commissioning, distribution, festivals and talent for people working in the industry.
Why a feature here matters
Trade coverage reaches commissioners, distributors, financiers and agents rather than general readers. That is a small audience, and for a screen business it is the one that decides things.
Best for: Production companies, distributors, festivals and screen talent.
How coverage happens at Variety Australia
The Australian edition covers the local screen industry with its own staff and priorities, so coverage here is not coverage in the American trade. Most of what it publishes is trade news: greenlights, acquisitions, deals, appointments, festival selections. Features and interviews are editorially chosen and usually tied to a release or a point in the calendar. Sponsored and branded content is paid and labelled, and is common around festivals and awards season. The pitching is normally done by a unit publicist or a specialist agency with existing trade relationships, which for a genuine screen project is often a better call than a generalist. Exclusivity carries real weight, because trades compete on being first, and offering the same exclusive to several outlets is a mistake you make once.
The kind of story that lands
Trade stories are built from verifiable specifics: who is attached, who is financing, who is distributing, when it shoots, where it premieres. An angle works when the underlying event affects the industry, so a project going into production with money behind it, a deal, a facility, or technology that changes how work gets made here. Something in development with no names attached is not news, whatever its merits. Proof is confirmation a trade editor can obtain from a second party, which is why vagueness kills these pitches faster than anything else. It sits in the news file, or in a feature timed to a festival or a release. For a company at the edge of the sector, the honest question is whether the story is about screen or merely near it.
How to Get Featured in Variety Australia
Variety Australia is a licensed Australian edition of Variety, covering the screen industry here. It carries a famous American name and is run by people making editorial decisions locally, and confusing the two is the most common mistake in this market.
What Variety Australia actually is
Variety is a trade publication. It exists for people who work in film and television rather than for general readers, and the Australian edition serves the local screen sector on the same terms.
That means production news, commissioning, distribution, deals, festivals, funding, talent moves and the business of getting things made. It is written for producers, distributors, executives and agents, and it reads like it.
How it differs from Variety US
Being covered by Variety Australia is not being covered by Variety in the United States. The editions are editorially separate, with their own staff and their own priorities.
A story can travel between them, but only if someone on the other side decides it should. Treat that as an occasional bonus rather than a plan, and be careful with anyone who implies the two are interchangeable.
When you describe the coverage afterwards, name the edition. People in this industry recognise the difference immediately, and overstating a placement costs more credibility than the placement earned.
Who gets covered
Production companies, streamers and broadcasters, distributors, festivals, funding bodies, and the writers, directors and performers attached to work that is actually happening.
The test is whether the story affects the industry. A film going into production affects it. A casting announcement on a project with financing behind it affects it. A concept with no money attached does not, however good the concept is.
Screen technology and services businesses sit at the edge of this. A post-production house, a studio build or a piece of production software can be trade news when it changes how work gets made here. The same company pitching a general business story will not be.
The routes in
- Trade news. Announcements with substance: greenlights, acquisitions, deals, appointments, festival selections. This is most of what a trade publishes.
- Features and interviews. Editorially chosen, and usually tied to a release or a moment in the calendar.
- Sponsored and branded content. Paid, labelled, and common around festivals and awards season.
- Publicist or agency pitching. A unit publicist or agency takes the announcement to the right editor with the right materials at the right time.
Screen publicity runs on timing and on relationships with a small number of editors. Anyone promising guaranteed editorial coverage in a trade is not describing how trades work.
What makes a story they will run
Verifiable specifics. Who is attached, who is financing, who is distributing, when it shoots, where it premieres. Trade editors publish facts they can confirm with a second party.
Vagueness kills these pitches faster than anything else. "In development" with no names attached is not news. A signed director, a confirmed broadcaster and a shoot date are.
Exclusivity carries real weight here too. Trades compete on being first, so a genuine exclusive offered honestly to one editor is often the difference between coverage and silence. Offering the same exclusive to several outlets is a mistake you make once.
What we do
Digital Networking Agency builds and places stories for founders and businesses, and we will say plainly when a screen trade is not our lane. If your work sits inside the Australian screen industry, a specialist entertainment publicist with existing trade relationships will often serve you better than a generalist agency, including us.
Where we do help is everything around the trade coverage: the business story, the founder profile, and the press record that makes you legible outside the industry.
How we get you in Variety Australia
Questions about Variety Australia
Is the Variety Australia coverage a real, published feature?
Yes. It is a genuine article published on the outlet, written about you and your work — not an ad you design yourself.
How long does it take?
Most placements take weeks rather than days. We give you a realistic timeline for Variety Australia before we start, and never promise a date we cannot control.
What if I am not happy with the draft?
You review and revise until it is right. Nothing publishes without your approval.
Is Variety Australia the same as Variety?
No. It is a licensed Australian edition with its own editorial team covering the local screen industry, and coverage there should be described as Variety Australia coverage.
Can a business be covered if it is not in film or television?
Rarely, and only where it genuinely touches the screen sector: investment, technology used in production, a studio facility. Otherwise it is the wrong publication for you.
Do I need a publicist?
For trade coverage it helps considerably. Trades run on trusted sources, confirmed detail and timing, which is exactly what an experienced screen publicist provides.