How Chris Janz’s Blue Team saved The Age and The SMH
The print editions of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald were months from closing when a team led by Chris Janz – who last night announced his departure as Nine’s chief publishing and digital officer – stepped in. In this exclusive extract from the book Media Unmade, we reveal for the first time how a team working in secret from a nondescript office in Surry Hills saved the newspapers.
Sydney office space offers some intriguing media echoes. In Pyrmont, Google took over what was once Fairfax Media’s Sydney headquarters. In Surry Hills, online youth publisher Junkee Media was run from the expensively decorated office space previously occupied by MySpace. And in Chippendale, Mumbrella’s office stood on the corner of Balfour Street and Queen Street, close to the spot where in 1960 the employees of the Packers and the Murdochs fought for control of Anglican Press printworks.
And then there was an office in Crown Street, Surry Hills, directly above trendy Bills cafe. Once it was home to MCM Entertainment, for a time one of the biggest players in Australian radio syndication and a promising innovator in video-streaming technology. And for five brief months it would house a team of nearly fifty people secretly working out a plan to save two of Australia’s most important newspapers.
Those who cared about newspapers were becoming resigned to the fact that Australia was about to lose The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The drumbeat that only the weekend editions would stay in print was getting louder. Yet there were no prominent examples for which a move by a newspaper to a digital product had been anything other than a last, failed throw of the dice. Beloved pets go to a farm, failing newspapers go digital only. Tackily, bookmakers William Hill issued a press release in May 2016 headed ‘The Newspaper Death Sentence’ offering odds on which Australian paper would close first. The Age was favourite at $2.60, while The Sydney Morning Herald wasn’t far behind on $3.20.
