Tuesday 19th January: New Zealand's magazines bounce back

January 19, 2021

Good morning! Tuesday's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

2020 was bleak for much of the magazine market. The industry in New Zealand was hit particularly hard by the wholesale departure of Bauer Media. But, less than a year on, the Guardian is reporting that the magazines closed by Bauer have new owners and there are new titles being launched in the country.

  • Five former Bauer titles, including The Listener, were bought by private equity.

  • Independent investors took on Metro and North & South, preserving New Zealand’s tradition of long-form features journalism.

  • School Road Publishing has launched four new monthlies staffed by former Bauer editors and writers

The against-the-odds recovery in New Zealand was described as a new era of "start-up-style media" by Colin Peacock, host of Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch programme. He said the revival is being driven by “smart, motivated, passionate independent publishers taking on titles that big companies walked away from” and we're definitely here for that.

The UK’s largest newspaper publisher, Reach, has been having a look at the effectiveness of Facebook Instant Articles. Its leading regional title the Liverpool Echo turned Instant Articles off and then back on again to test how effective they were. The test proved articles using the mobile-friendly format were seen by almost a third more readers.

James Murdoch, the youngest son of billionaire media mogul Rupert, has ripped into the US media for the “toxic politics” threatening American democracy. Interviewed by the FT, James didn't specifically mention his Fox News founding father, but we're pretty sure he's now the white sheep of the Murdoch family.

Right-wing Twitter-alternative Parler was effectively switched off by Amazon Web Services last week after the violence at the US Capitol (although it may be staging a comeback). But not before user data and content was pulled, handing a potential goldmine to law enforcement officials investigating the attacks. In related news, Press Gazette has reported that Mail Online was 'one of the only mainstream titles present on the platform'.

This week's podcast:

Ian McAuliffe, founder and CEO of Think Publishing, talks about the evolving landscape of contract publishing. He tells us about the ideal employee or a contract publisher, the ideal client and how the pandemic has accelerated digital adoption amongst traditionally conservative clients, but still not killed off print.

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