Bauer closes eight titles including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Instyle

No one believed even for a second that these titles were going to recommence.
Everyone affected, and everyone in the industry, always knew the strategy was to force staff out so that Bauer wouldn’t have to pay redundancies when the titles were eventually folded.

This is rubbish. The fashion and health brands were given revenue targets to hit in order to be brought back and they didn’t just hit them but exceeded them by July 1. The way the teams have been treated is appalling.

Can’t help but think that at least some of these individual brands could be viable if sold individually and run as niche online media properties. In much the same way as, say, Women’s Weekly, would potentially have more value as a discrete media brand rather than being diluted into whichever “to love” platform it sits on. The monolithic old mag publishing model may be dead, but the internet is full of profitable niche media brands.

There’s enough highly experiened smart operators (currently out of work) that could refine and turn the fortunes around for many of these titles. All that’s needed is additional investment from Mercury capital to sustain until things for these brands are back on the up. Instead it’s clear the accountant is straight into it!

“exciting highs”?? What on earth is he talking about.

I’m so devastated by this news and heart is breaking for all that talent disappearing.

Delighted and thrilled = utter horseshit.

There’s going to be no business for the new owners (Mercury Capital) to run at this rate…..

Another very sad day for Australian Media and media workers.

So now Vogue Australia has no local competitor? Wow.

I didn’t think that MC targeted the luxury market as much but could be wrong.

I wish Jacqui & Scott (and their teams) all the best… Their drive, talent, and innovative approach to creating relevant health content for consumers is exceptional. Bauer’s loss, our gain… that is – once they have dusted off and no doubt come back fighting somewhere better ??

Here’s an Idea – the staff let go should be allowed to buy some of the “closed” titles for $1. They can then get their fellow retrenched teams together and look to re-launch a selected title (s) without the meddling of corporate pirates….. and I tip – done correctly, would be successful… (when Covid disappears)

The problem today, of course, is that there is so much free stuff to read and view on the world wide web, why should people pay for anything?

When Unions were made optional back in the day in NZ it destroyed the high wage rates, employers thought they would save thousands in wages. People left big business and went independant and mall shops popped up everywhere. The result was that large printing companies started crumbling because they were being undercut by small business. Advanced technology stepped in and pushed it further. Now anyone can hop online and create eZines, web blogs and ePub books. Wix and Squarespace have seen a massive increase in online advertising and exposure and at a reduced cost to print and also negating the need for highly trained web designers who would charge $10-15k for a coded site. The bonus is instant updates in fashion, news, events, etc. and with everyone now buried face first into their iPhones and Tablets there is no surprise that it is going to plunge further down the digit rabbit hole in the next 5 years. The next big crunch will be game developers and VR. Instant gratification and entertainment is now exponentially expanding online with second life scenarios where you can be whoever you want – just google AI Angelica on Omegle as a 2020 example of where technology for the millennials is heading. I think anyone in the print trade had better start buying lotto tickets.

The problem with Bauer is that they’ve never had the right leadership to transform the business to be able to thrive in the digital age. All the talent has only ever been from within the industry.

They’ve had sprinkles of individual talent come in, but haven’t been effective due to the leadership that surrounds them i.e. blockers.

Until they address that problem, then all they’re doing is recycling ideas from within themselves.

Having new investors investing in the same types of people with the same types of thinking will ultimately yield the same types of results.

Good luck to the talented staff that have been affected by this.

The problem today, of course, is that there is so much free stuff to read and view on the world wide web, why should people pay for anything?

Agreed, many talented people losing their jobs and even less choice for readers and advertisers. (Another) really sad day.

Can I forward everyone’s attention to all of the comments under the news.com.au article? https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/bauer-axes-8-magazines-including-harpers-bazaar-elle-womens-health/news-story/110425767b2df96107e9a57dd3b60571

These are the real opinions of the public, outside of our media bubble. Nearly every comment is either surprised it took so long or surprised they still exist.

This actually happened in 2013 with Rolling Stone Australia, although sadly it closed a few years later.
I believe that all but one of these titles are locally published editions of a global brand, so would pay hefty royalties to the overseas brand owner, on top of all the other challenges to profitability.
Feeling for the staff, many of whom will be trying to work out what their future is in the industry, whilst dealing with everything else.

Spot on!

Given the bulk of these titles are produced by Bauer under licence, it’s no great leap of the imagination to see a future for these magazines reappearing at a custom, niche or custom publisher with the cream of the redundant teams picking up where they left off before Bauer came along and screwed everything up and everyone over.

Those comments conflate a couple of issues: negativity about the quality/integrity of the content, and print media as outdated. But our industry should be able to figure out a future for readymade digital media brands, surely. It’s not like there’s no demand for content, or interest from brands in placing advertising against that content. Feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, at least in the case of some of these brands. But then, the Bauer story is primarily a massive failure to adapt to a new media landscape. And the final chapter seems inevitable.

While no surprises, it’s still a sad day for the Australian media industry. There will be less designer shoes in the halls of 54 Park Street…

I’d like to know how many redundancies have happened in the magazine publishing industry outside of Bauer? As the biggest (and the addition of PacMags makes them very much that) you would think they would be the most robust and therefore likely to navigate Covid. And yet all I see in the Media is Bauer management saying that more and more and more people have to go, not because of mismanagement and incompetence, but due solely to the pandemic. I’m guessing that all the other Aussie publishing houses no longer exist? Or am I missing something?

You’re seriously holding up a News Ltd comments section as representative of the community?

Very true

Mention the word digital in your job interview for Bauer and you automatically get blacklisted.

Bauer leadership is terrible.
I’m 29, an avid magazine purchaser both independent and mainstream titles – the problem is with content.
Magazines are feasible but not if they have no clear focus or made monthly/ bi-monthly. Baazar and Elle especially should of reduced to quarterly publications, with quality editorial and they would thrive. They already condensed the teams to work across both titles especially in fashion.
The independent magazine industry is thriving as they are less frequent and have more substance and quality. These are publications which are held on to and are more like coffee table books then traditional/mainstream magazines and actually cost way more to the consumer.
The problem is also with Bauers lack of foresight and future proofing these titles.
It is actually very sad that a long standing publication like Baazar just closes like that, similarly with the closure of Cosmopolitan.
There is no good quality digital presence either. Just gossip and content which doesn’t align with the magazines core.

As an ACP staffer from 1995-2000 it is a sad day, particularly for Harper’s, which is a quality publication and was produced under license, and will no doubt pop up again at some stage. The rest were due to go under, although interesting that they picked No Idea over NW to survive…
Some great comments above that I agree with and the reason that ACP is currently crumbling:
a) A 20+ year failure at digital precipitated by Daniel Petre and his crew at eCorp by mortgaging ACP’s future to ninemsn. There were Web sites at ACP before ninemsn arrived, but the waste of time and money has really come to roost (anyone remember their office in Paddo?).
b) The lack of focus on subscriptions – I know this sounds petty, but lots of high-end mags in the US and UK are surviving because they have a strong subs base (Vanity Fair, Economist, New Yorker), whereas Oz has always relied on the newsagent network, and so treated subs with content (did you know that if a print run was delayed, subs would go last for monthly mags?). Subs represent about 2% of Bauer’s sales.
c) Bauer’s disastrous takeover – paid too much, installed Euro managers who had no feel for the local market, and just had no idea how to manage high-end mags. A disaster from end-to-end
d) A succession of mediocre managers from John Alexander on (don’t start me…) – instead of promoting young, digital-savvy peeps with vision (and there have been plenty go through both Pac mags and Bauer), they either kept re-treading old faithfuls like Paul Dykzeul (lovely man, but not exactly inspiring in his leadership) or Nick Chan (run for the hills if you see him coming, as a sale is usually in the offing).
I see Mercury breaking it all up in 12 months time once Covid settles down
and remember ‘I get buckets’
thx
UD

That’s the market. You’re reading this online. They’re reading online.

*fewer

God bless!

Actually the news.com.au audience is representative of the community given it is the most visited news website in Australia.

The sentiment from the community is mostly that print media is a dying industry, especially magazines which don’t offer a lot of value given the amount of content available online.

It won’t be too long before magazines aren’t printed anymore full stop. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

This is really good news actually. Bauer deserves to suffer the way they have made their staff suffer, thanks to incredibly toxic inadequate management, sadly most of those managers are still there today. NW and OK! are no loss to this world. They print lies, make up stories and photoshop images to deceive their readers. Hopefully Woman’s Day and New Idea are next to be axed. That would ‘Make my Day’!

Bauer is a master at treating staff appallingly and appointing the wrong people to managerial roles. If you don’t invest in your people you don’t have a business.

Spot on observations.
No people investment = no business.

Yes!! Totally agree with this. They’d still be successful if run by smaller, dynamic teams with fewer overheads and less bureaucracy.

The death of New Idea and Woman’s Day won’t mean the end of celebrity tabloid journalism. It will simply mean the end of Australian staff being paid well (or, often, paid at all) to produce this content.
The market for tabloid content is huge and most of it will be fulfilled online, with content that has mostly been stolen from overseas publications, and will be written by interns in churn factories, and non professionals on blogs. This will be done either for free or for a pittance.
And BTW, New Idea and WD don’t just print what you perceive as trash. Both titles also produce a lot of very legitimate exclusives, which in my experience invariably then get immediately stolen by News Ltd, the Daily Mail and the radio networks, with no attribution or credit at all. When these mags go so do a huge volume of the local entertainment and celeb exclusives. I hope you enjoy reading Daily Mail summaries of reality stars’ Instagram posts, because this is now the future of Australian celeb journalism.

We don’t have any local celebrities. No loss here. Get your overseas celeb fix overseas.

Late to the party sorry, but in response to Uncle Drew, the reason no one can make a go of subscriptions here is because of the cost of postage. Virtually free in the US thanks to forward thinking legislation years ago about maintaining literacy levels, a bit more expensive but still affordable in the UK.

Even in the glory days of the industry two decades ago, Australia Post wanted to charge $1.50 per copy for a typical glossy when average cover prices were under $5. Once you’ve discounted the sub to get people to buy the sums just didn’t add up. Sad but true. Everybody loses.