Bauer Media closes Men’s Style magazine

Sad to see another great publication fall to the demise of print. I have a hunch it’s not that Aussies’ interest in magazines has waned, but rather we simply don’t have the time and / or money to invest anymore.

Merry Christmas Bauer. You shouldn’t have. Pffft pfft.

+1

“The worst year” – what has this been measured by?
Bauer is a multi-platform publisher, their properties span far beyond print. Why waste your money on something that isn’t working for you if you could save it and invest in areas where the business is thriving?
Sad days, but in order to grow you must adapt. The media landscape is changing. Publishers need to stay on the pulse.

That is a sad closure. But as John Alexander once said: “no brand can be guaranteed eternity”… Men’s style was an enigma, initially an odd fit in the stable of blokey ACP titles, and it lived longer than most of those other men’s magazines. It continued to be an odd fit for Bauer, who never quite grasped its power as an upmarket ad model – or environmental sell. MS also kept GQ honest in its relationships with advertisers, proving again and again that competition was healthy. A Big shout out to editor Michael Pickering, an enormous but unsung hero of content creation. I look forward to seeing who will snap up this talented operator and his unrivalled work ethic.

To be fair, it was a poor mans GQ….

Nope. People still love magazines and all of my surveys year after year find they would prefer to have a print publication as against a web / PDF based one.
The problem is simply advertising; when advertisers stop thinking that a full page ad, to justify its existence, must make sales. This is clearly a nonsense and always has been.
But they’ll blindly place web ad after web ad in the belief this will give immediate sales, despite the almost universal hatred of them and the proof they simply don’t work.
But huge resources in terms of $$ are poured into PR companies who are tasked to create “storytelling” and then get that out to publishers who are expected to print it for free on the grounds it is “meaningful content”.
If those $$ went to advertising thus allowing publishers to put together and print real paper magazines, their stories could still be told, in a medium the public actually likes – and as a bonus, journalists, feature writers, reviewers, layout folk, editors, printers AND publishers would still all have jobs, the public would be happy and all would be good.
But no doubt the PR people would not be I imagine.

@david hague writing as a lover of print I appreciate your passion, but also as someone who earns their crust in digital I’ve a few questions:

– What is the sample size you’re surveying?
– What are their demographics?
– What is the subject matter of your publication

Here in AU then goodship print has well as truly sailed unless you’re:

– A cookery title
– One which resonates with creatives/craft centric females
– A B2B title
– A premium insert such as AFR magazine

Tried to transition the business too late into digital with no resources/money to do it well. Harmmoraging money not enough to keep a good product and market to trade = falls off radar to agencies employing 20 yos who only buy what they consume themselves.
Run by out of touch accountants, editors and poor advertising sales leaders, no wonder the rats are swimming away..

poor Danny Ricciardo, he looks like a sweet potato dressed as a private detective in this pic.

Yeah, absolutely. I can’t go five minutes without someone mentioning some great story they read on the To Love network. Bauer killing it.

Hi there,
I am very sad that Yours magazine has ceased publication. It is the best magazine of all time. I have looked forward every fortnight to receiving this Magazine.

Fingerprints, agree strongly on Michael Pickering, a great editor who transformed Men’s Style, got the bikinis off the cover, made the magazine a great read, bumped up circulation and probably bought it three more years of life beyond what it might otherwise have had.