Summer reissue: Todd Scott made millions as a sales genius, and bought New Zealand’s best-known business publication. Then he lost his house. Duncan Greive profiles the country’s most enigmatic owner, and hears some blunt criticisms from the old friend he bought the paper off, Barry Colman. First published June 2 2020 Independent journalism depends on … Read more
The pandemic put unbearable pressure on New Zealand’s media this year, but also saw it gain larger and more engaged audiences than ever before. Duncan Greive wraps his head around what it all means. Subscribe and listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or via your favourite podcast provider. For the final 2020 episode of my media podcast … Read more
Former Woman’s Day and NZ Woman’s Weekly editor Sido Kitchin joins The Fold’s Duncan Greive to talk about starting School Road Publishing and launching a whole new stable of magazines following the collapse of Bauer Media. Sido Kitchin loves telling New Zealand women’s stories. An important figure in the magazine industry, she edited Woman’s Day … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Simon Farrell-Green, founder of Here magazine. This podcast has always had a special interest in the ways people … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to the founders of new fashion website Ensemble. When Bauer Media announced the closure of its operations in April, … Read more
For too long, fashion magazines have been trading on a hyper-glossy, hyper-produced idea of aspiration – one that particularly jars in the current climate, writes Zoe Walker Ahwa for Ensemble. We need more glamour. A style mantra for some, and an apt conclusion in the eulogy of my career as the editor of New Zealand’s … Read more
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved. Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW) … Read more
Until the sudden closure of Bauer Media in April, Simon Farrell-Green was the editor of HOME, New Zealand’s oldest architecture magazine. Here he explains what comes next. Being the editor of a major architecture magazine was the best job I ever had. I got it in 2016, after a career spent between Metro and freelancing … Read more
The Herald reported this morning that MediaWorks was on the verge of selling its TV assets to US TV giant Discovery – but an internal email and senior source suggest the story may have been premature. A senior MediaWorks source has emphatically denied a report in the NZ Herald that a sale of Three to … Read more
Todd Scott made millions as a sales genius, and bought New Zealand’s best-known business publication. Then he lost his house. Duncan Greive profiles the country’s most enigmatic owner, and hears some blunt criticisms from the old friend he bought the paper off, Barry Colman. When Sinead Boucher bought Stuff for $1 last week, it brought … Read more
The big media companies just want to get married. Duncan Greive makes the case for dozens of divorces instead. For the last few years, all the talk in New Zealand’s media has been of a need for consolidation. That our big for-profit media companies – TVNZ, Sky, MediaWorks, NZME and Stuff – all needed to … Read more
One month ago Bauer closed all its New Zealand mags, including Woman’s Day. This week a new issue of Woman’s Day went on the shelves. What’s going on? After a five-week absence, a major women’s magazine produced by Bauer has returned to New Zealand supermarkets and subscribers’ letterboxes. At first glance, it appears to be … Read more
After falling victim to the Bauer Media magazine massacre, Shelley Howells realises that it’s not just ex-colleagues she’s missing. I was reading a Q&A about why video chat can be so dang exhausting, when a penny dropped. What with the pandemic, lockdown and being made redundant, I’ve been having loads of feelings, which I usually … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to the editor of Homestyle magazine Alice Lines and chairman of the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) Nicholas Burrowes. With … Read more
With the lion’s share of the spend going to support broadcasters, newspaper operators are likely to be ‘aghast’, says media analyst Gavin Ellis. The first round of a rescue package for New Zealand media has been announced, following government promises to “triage” its support measures for an industry in crisis. The majority of the funding … Read more
Thousands of magazine subscribers are out of pocket following the closure of the New Zealand arm of the Bauer publishing empire. Cat MacLennan is one of them, and she has a message for the company’s German chief executive and majority owner, Yvonne Bauer. Tēnā koe Ms Bauer, I am one of your magazine subscribers in … Read more
At today’s online meeting of the Epidemic Response Committee, media representatives have appeared in the unfamiliar seat of the interviewed rather than the interviewer. Here’s a highlights package. Committee chair Simon Bridges opened by acknowledging the parlous situation the New Zealand media find themselves in. He also noted that representatives of NBR and Māori TV … Read more
It’s a more complicated issue than simply whether one company should control the majority of the market, writes regulatory law expert Edward Willis. The closure of Bauer Media’s operations in New Zealand, along with many well-loved magazine titles, is devastating. The broad impact of the closure, coupled with the realisation that Bauer Media’s print media … Read more
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject. It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with the surprise announcement that … Read more
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly. Updated with comment from Bauer at the foot. … Read more
Today came the shocking news that Bauer Media is closing its New Zealand operation, with the loss of scores of jobs. Bauer was the publisher of most of NZ’s magazines, among them Metro, Woman’s Day, North & South, Next, Home, the Listener, Kia Ora and the NZ Women’s Weekly. Here readers, writers and former staff … Read more
The Covid-19 crisis in media has claimed NZ’s biggest magazine publisher, Bauer Media, but the government says it didn’t seek help through its business assistance initiatives. Bauer Media NZ is closing its doors permanently and with immediate effect due to the severe economic impact of Covid-19, staff have been told via a Zoom meeting this … Read more
Just a tiny handful of print publications will continue through the lockdown, with only daily newspapers specifically identified as being able to continue. Duncan Greive spoke to publishers of magazines and community newspapers about the impact on them and their communities. Publishers of magazines and community newspapers are reeling, after a ruling from their regulators … Read more
‘A girl’s best friend’ was Creme magazine’s tagline, and for many girls growing up in New Zealand in the early 2000s, that was absolutely true. Five years after Creme shuttered, Amanda Robinson looks back at a teen phenomenon. When I think of Creme magazine I think of grocery shopping at the Foodtown in Glenfield Mall, … Read more
Bauer has announced the closure of Paperboy, its acclaimed ‘freemium’ Auckland magazine. Former Metro editor Simon Wilson laments the passing of a brave experiment and wonders why its publisher let it fold. What sad news, that Bauer Media has pulled the plug on Paperboy, and especially sad that it comes little more than a year … Read more
Paperboy launched late last year as a stylish free weekly magazine by and for Auckland. We at The Spinoff noticed what they were doing with their covers, and not doing – all 30 of them run below – and asked editor Jeremy Hansen to write about what he looks for in a cover. We’ve just … Read more
The June issue of North & South featured a cover story as old as time: ‘what the hell is wrong with millennials’? Two millennials had a read and What They Found Inside Will Shock You. First published June 16, 2016. The latest issue of North & South has done the unthinkable, and found a non-millennial … Read more
Today marks the publication of the third issue of Bauer Media’s new Auckland commuter-focused free magazine, Paperboy. Catherine McGregor sat down with the magazine’s editor Jeremy Hansen to discuss urbanism, optimism and why he’s glad to be a cheerleader for the new Auckland. The Spinoff: Free commuter magazines are a completely new model for Bauer, … Read more
On Wednesday, Simon Wilson said goodbye to Metro, where he had worked for nine years, five as editor, and to the magazine’s publisher Bauer Media, which last month made him redundant. This was his farewell speech. “They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round. They all laughed when Edison recorded … Read more