Massive shake-up in NZ media: Why Trade Me took half of Stuff
Duncan Greive, founder of NZ creative agency Daylight and current affairs site The Spinoff, delves into why classifieds site Trade Me has just bought half of one NZ’s biggest media companies. This is a cross post from The Spinoff.
Yesterday was a landmark day in the history of New Zealand’s news media, with each of our largest news publishers undergoing major shakeups in ownership, governance or both. Stuff Digital, the most popular free-to-access news site in the country, has a new co-owner, with auction marketplace Trade Me taking a 50% stake in the business.
The timing of the announcement served to cast a lengthy shadow over a set piece which occurred a few hours later, at the headquarters of NZME, owners of the largest print newspaper and paywalled news audience, in the NZ Herald. The company’s annual shareholder meeting saw its chair resign, having adroitly dealt with an attempted coup and graciously fallen on her sword. She has been replaced by a former senior minister in the National party, Steven Joyce, after a lengthy campaign from Jim Grenon, a wealthy Canadian now resident in New Zealand. The latter is now a major shareholder, who decried the business’s performance, but also what he perceived as the quality and balance of its journalism.
Listen: Duncan Greive discusses the deal with former WBD exec Glen Kyne on The Fold (The Spinoff)
Stuff and Trade Me – star-crossed lovers and a tale of tech and news
It’s the deal between Stuff and Trade Me which has rightly attracted the most attention. Stuff has a tortured ownership history, resulting from the steady accumulation of dozens of newspaper titles, and the early and prescient launch of a unified national news brand under the name Stuff, more than 20 years ago. At the time, it was owned by Fairfax Media, later Nine, out of Australia. It has intimate history with Trade Me, having itself bought the auctions platform in 2006 for a reported $750m.
