Eight years ago, I wrote a lengthy profile of Peter Bart, the long-standing and powerful editor of the entertainment trade paper Variety, for Los Angeles Magazine. In it, I quoted the movie producer and former studio chief Peter Guber saying something that bears repeating today, as Bart’s reign ends.

"Peter is riding in the general’s car—Variety is the general’s car. And you salute the general's car even when the general’s not in it," Guber said of his friend Bart. "I say to him, ‘Never let go of this job, because the wolves will attack. People are kept at bay by your power.'"

On Sunday, Variety's owners, Reed Business Information, quietly announced that Bart, 76, would no longer be riding in the general's car. Effective immediately, he is being replaced by his No. 2, Timothy M. Gray. But here's what occurred to me as I read that news: The end of Bart's tenure says more about the 104-year-old vehicle he piloted for two decades than it does about him.

Bart's influence was greatest in an age when print ruled. Now that ad revenues are faltering and bloggers are chipping away at Variety's readership, Bart's skills—reportedly he still types on a typewriter and reads emails on paper—are not suited to the digital age.

Variety changed. Bart stayed the same.

When I wrote about Bart—a piece that resulted in him being suspended without pay for three weeks from his job—he was at the top of his game. A former studio executive at Paramount Pictures, he knew everybody in Hollywood and had done business with many of the people Variety covered. My piece (which can be read here) showed him to be alternately charming and bullying, at once whip-smart and strangely blind to his own conflicts.

Bart's bosses never said exactly what in my piece made them suspend him. Many have assumed that Bart was being punished for making what the Los Angeles Times yesterday called "a series of inflammatory statements that were interpreted as racist, sexist and homophobic." But there was also the fact, revealed in the story, that Bart had shopped a script that he wrote to some of the very studio executives that Variety covered.

Bart returned to his job after an internal investigation by his bosses rapped him on the knuckles for creating "the appearance of a conflict of interest" with his script. But to many people in Hollywood, Bart's behavior had long raised eyebrows.

While at a movie premiere after-party in New York City about a month after my story was published, I spotted a studio chief I knew, who appeared to be making a beeline straight for me. "I have to tell you a story," the studio boss said, launching into a tale about a lunch with Bart the previous December. It wasn't the first lunch the two had shared, but this one was memorable.

According to this studio chief, before they'd even looked at their menus, Bart announced: "Your studio has not been advertising enough in Variety. That has affected my Christmas bonus." Bart said there would be repercussions, the studio chief told me: "For the next six months, you won't catch a break in Variety."

I asked if Bart made good on his threat. "Oh yes," the studio chief said, noting that even on the weekends the studio came in No. 1 at the box-office, the story in Variety would start off with a dig—something like, "Despite a string of flops…" So what did you do, I asked. The studio chief didn't hesitate: “We upped our ad buy.”

Before I had this conversation, I hadn't known how to answer the many people who asked why I thought Bart had been suspended, then reinstated. After this conversation, I felt I knew. Bart did his job: He made Reed Business Information boatloads of money.

Which is why it’s no surprise that he's being pushed aside now. Through no fault of Bart's, the money isn't flowing like it used to.