Jack Matthews and Allan Browne to depart as Fairfax restructures
Fairfax Metro CEO Jack Matthews and Fairfax Regional Media’s CEO Allan Browne are to depart the company following a major restructure of Fairfax, which will see the company move all its newspaper assets into one division.
The restructure will see Fairfax reorganised into five corporate divisions, with the company to bring together its metro division, which publishes The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, with The Financial Review Group, Fairfax Regional Media and Fairfax’s agricultural and local newspapers into one single division called Australian Publishing Media.
The other divisions include: a separate arm for the print and digital assets of Domain, Digital Venture which will include Fairfax sites like RSVP and Stayz, while Fairfax Radio and Fairfax New Zealand remain unchanged from the previous structure.
Allen Williams, the current CEO of Fairfax New Zealand will take over in the newly created role of managing director of Australian Publishing Media.
Smart move by Fairfax I reckon.
Though, no mention of the other Marketplace businesses MyCareer or Drive. Both are performing horribly against their competitors and are a waste of resources and think space for management. I bet in a couple of months we will see both quietly shut down or downgraded into editorial only ventures.
While it’s supposed to be about reducing bureaucracy, it looks like it’s just a cost reduction exercise. People like Clegg lose their management team. But it will create a nightmare when the channel sales are let loose. Some of those rate cards are going into the toilet. I predict a clusterF***
Having worked with Jack Mathews back in the FD days, he was a great guy to work for and he brought a consistent vision to a business unit that was all over the shop. I hope that the Australian media industry can keep someone of his ability in country, but for some reason I doubt it…
Most people who worked with Jack appreciate his digital vision which is exactly what Fairfax Media needs. Lets hope Greg Hywood installs digital people in at a senior level.
Who is responsible for the autoplay vids on the Fairfax network and the link baiting?
Both are underhand, short term, ‘quick $’ related techniques, which alienate an audience.
I like Fairfax, I feel, out of the rest of the commercial media landscape, they give quite a balanced view (unlike the ACA / Today Tonight styled Murdoch press.) I just wish that the decision makers at Fairfax will stop being black hat and start focusing on the users experience. Will this now cease that Jack has departed, or was he against it himself?
I will spell it out for you Farifax: If you focus on building a long term positive experience for your users the money will come – I promise it will.
Quality over quantity
Stop autoplay
Stop link baiting
Hire great editorial staff and empower them.
Lead by example; innovate!
Become the leading online press platform for informed Australians…
(I do not work for Fairfax; I just worry that with their current tactics they are going to fade away, however I want them to challenge Murdoch.)
Who will be the new .com hero??
What will they do with Domain reas worth 3.5b ?
For all the harping on about autoplay, The Sydney Morning Herald website is the number one Current Events and Global News website in Australia (according to Nielson). So they are the leading online platform already. Farewell Jack, you’ll be missed.
Curious fingers the core problem. Fairfax has no product focus and no product strategy. This re-structure is a cost reduction cover that will cement the jumbled approach to product. Corbett and Hywood and strangling the company. You can bet that this is solely about bad profit results and nothing else.
Jack Matthews is a good guy and l hope like many,we can retain his passion in this industry. If we don’t those kwis will!
Curious – you make some good points. While there’s no doubt Fairfax still has some work to do, smh.com.au is already the leading news website in Australia. It has the highest readership of all the news sites and outstrips all News Limited online mastheads and portals.
He’ll be missed. A good guy who backed new ideas. He is someone who likes to grow things & bet you he just got sick of the cost cutting that Fairfax embodies these days. He build Metro Media. Farewell Jack O
@Steve.
I like Fairfax and their balanced journalism. I am worried that the balance and comprehension is going to fade away and we will be left with Murdoch style slop.
With regards to the stats, do views of e.g; Drive, add to SMH stats, if Drive is viewed in Sydney?
How many false impressions are also added to these stats from the link baiting; (user reads the headline, then click and after 3 seconds click back because the headline was misleading…)
I don’t mind the SMH site, if it wasn’t for the underhand tactics registered above. Without them it would might actually rock!
Link to what I mean here: re “smh.drive.com.au”
Which ‘portal’ records this traffic? SMH or Drive?
Can Nielsen confirm?
http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-.....2hccy.html