The Australian vows to reel in AFR audience with launch of new business section
The Australian has unveiled the long-rumoured expansion of its business section with the newspaper’s chief executive Nicholas Gray vowing to topple Fairfax’s Australian Financial Review and “become the clear number one” read for leaders of industry.
The Australian Business Review debuted in today’s edition with 12 pages, and now features a new gossip column, Margin Call, while a revamped section on its website will include a live blog, Business Now.
The launch will be supported by a $1 million marketing campaign – which includes in-house channels – with TV ads airing from today and backed by out of home, press and digital advertising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GseHZENKc8&feature=youtu.be
Great idea. The AFR’s content has dropped significantly in recent times and appears to be just rehashed press releases written by juniors.
The expansion should be good for the newspaper industry. However The Australian has tried to build its Business section before and never got it right. Maybe this time. It will be interesting to see if Fairfax has the capasity to take on the challenge.
Publishers need to learn that a re-design is not a launch. The pages look the same. The content is the same, gossip column or not. (And anyone who thinks the C-suite buy the AFR for Aston needs their head read.)
Yet another piece of paving on the newspaper industry’s road to doom. And I say that more in sadness. Speaking of the AFR: what were they thinking in that pathetic beat up of the ANU?
Meanwhile they still doth make a profit and have a fraction of the eyeballs
Meanwhile they still don’t make a profit and have a fraction of the eyeballs of the SMH. This is despite the millions in subsidies News Corp shareholders continue to pour in to keep the paper propped up.
The launch issue has one ad in it……What a joke !.
Im calling it …time of death – 2:12 ……Tag it and bag it.
I read it this morning and said to the guys in the office (we’re fund managers) that today’s paper was probably bigger than all of the AFR
We didn’t know this was part of a bigger push so I don’t know how well the million bucks was spent.
It will be hard to maintain no doubt, but it looked good
One more comment- I read the business section as normal, then went to the back and read the sport, and then found 2 more pages of business I hadn’t seen.
Good luck
Note to The Australian
If you pitch your new content at funds managers – you’re kicking the can of extinction down the road.