The most significant magazine launch in the near future will be Pacific Publications’ rival to ACP’s legendary, but declining, Australian Women’s Weekly. Pacific’s general manager, sales and marketing, Peter Miller, says focus group research into the new magazine is “very encouraging”.
Bev Hadgraft, who has been researching the magazine’s potential for more than six months, hasn’t had much time to ride a push scooter around the office, like she did at That’s Life! when she was editor (Media Eye, October 18, 2002).
Meanwhile, hot on the heels of Wealthcreator (Media Eye, February 21) comes Business Success, a 15,000-copy tabloid-sized magazine full of success stories about small and medium-sized businesses, to be launched on April 16 by Matthew Danswan, of Ink Publishing.
John McDonald, of Media Publishing, last week launched Australian Art Review as a $16.95 quarterly magazine and website.
In June, the State of the Arts company will replace 24 Hours, previously published by the now-defunct Terraplanet, with Limelight, in conjunction with the ABC (B&T, March 21).
This month ABC Magazines is also publishing RC Rollercoaster, a quarterly for “tweens” aged six to 12, based on ABC children’s shows.
ACP plans to launch Disneygirl next month (B&T, March 14). Time Inc is currently launching the first of four puzzle books (Media Eye, March 7).
NDD has launched Teen Vogue, imported from Condé Nast US: 202 pages for $5.95. Next month, Slow Right Down hopes its new Vice free street magazine, with half its content from Vice, of the US, will speed right up.
All current and new publishers also hope business will speed up. But whether the market is really recovering is a talking point, not a certainty.
Too much war news?
TV weekday evening news audiences fell significantly last week below the Iraqi war’s first week but were still higher than usual.
Nine’s average from March 24–28 was 1,402,903—10.6% below the previous week; Seven’s average of 1,133,663 was 1.1% down and Ten’s 1,034,534 was 10.4% down.
But Seven’s average was 6% up year-on-year, Seven’s Sunrise was 79% up and Sunday Sunrise 28% up. The Iraqi-Australian time difference has particularly benefited breakfast bulletins.
Sport beats all
Nine’s broadcast of the Cricket World Cup Final on Sunday, March 23, was the most-watched program so far this year, with 2,465,643 viewers across five cities, according to OzTAM. It helped Nine win the week with 32.6% of viewers, 8.6 more than Seven’s 24.0%, followed by Ten with 22.4%, the ABC with 15.4% and SBS with 5.6%.
The top 10 programs included two other sport events, both the Australian Swimming on Nine, the fourth and 10th programs of the week. Also three Seven Network lifestyle shows, Better Homes & Gardens (third), Surprise Chef (seventh) and Hot Auctions (ninth). Seven still leads Nine in lifestyle and drama: Blue Heelers is certainly not down at heel as the sixth program last week.
Out-voguing Vogue
ACP’s Gourmet Traveller has continued to gain circulation and readers “by keeping itself above the increasing number of food magazines,” its editor, Judy Sarris, told Media Eye last week. “Vogue Entertaining & Travel is closest to us but we’re actually higher up the scale than it.” In circulation also: Gourmet Traveller in December had an ABC-audited Australian circulation of 80,624 (up 0.21% year-on-year), compared with Vogue Entertaining’s 57,050 (down 1.49%).
Gourmet Traveller’s circulation has risen by 125.2% in the past 10 years against a flood of other food magazines. Its readership in December was 327,000, up 0.21% year-on-year.
“Delicious, Super Food Ideas and Good Taste (all FPC Living) are mass-market titles—totally different from us. Donna Hay (News Magazines) is also different, all food, whereas we’re not just recipes but also cooking for entertaining, and about restaurants and travel,” said Sarris. “Half our customers are subscribers and we aim at, and achieve, from 38% to 44% advertising.”
Bell needs 2SM
For Southern Cross Broadcasting to succeed in Sydney, it needs 2SM as a music station as well as 2UE for news-talk, radio industry sources believe.
Southern Cross Broadcasting’s MD Tony Bell is understood to be interested in buying 2SM (Media Eye, last week) but the industry believes it would cost about $25m because of the shortage of Sydney licences and recent prices such as the $13.5m DMG paid for a Gosford licence, the $25m Hot Tomato paid for a Gold Coast licence, the $11.5m Southern Cross is believed to have paid for 4BH and the $90m it paid for 2UE and 4BC.
Media consultant Bob Scott, former GM of 2Day, Triple M and 2WS and who negotiated 2SM’s sale from Chris Murphy to Bill Caralis for $8.5m four years ago, told Media Eye on Monday: “As far as I know, 2SM is not for sale, as Caralis needs it for his network of 34 regional stations in NSW and south-east Queensland. He’s passionate about radio and is in it for the long haul.”
Four quit Time Inc
In the past three months, four senior Time Inc executives have resigned: Vern Bowery, Time magazine publisher, is retiring in his mid-50s (B&T Weekly, March 28); Bruce Guthrie has resigned as Time Inc editorial director (B&T, March 14) to consider his future; Rob Morey, the company’s circulation director, has joined Next Media in a similar job; and Andrea Darling, marketing director of Time Inc, has also resigned.
Radio upset
Austereo has made a submission to the Australian Broadcasting Authority against its plan to issue another commercial FM licence in Adelaide, where Austereo owns SAFM and Triple M. Its arch-rival DMG Radio, headed by Austereo’s founder Paul Thompson, has 5AA Adelaide but would also be keen to own the new licence. The ABA said last week it now has “no timetable” for issuing the licence.
Rival TV shows
Three programs returned to the Nine Network on Tuesday. At 8.30pm, Crime Scene Investigation had 1,330,127 viewers, just beating All Saints on Seven with 1,324,945, followed by Law and Order:Criminal Intent on Ten, with 1,023,534.
At 9.30pm, Stingers on Nine had 999,962 viewers, beating Rove Live on Ten (908,291) and Meet My Folks on Seven (767,182). At 10.30pm, no show was in the top 100 programs: The West Wing on Nine, Angel on Seven and Ten’s late news.
Seven won from 7.30pm to 8.30pm the same night with Better Homes & Gardens (the evening’s top program) and Surprise Chef ahead of Becker and Everybody Loves Raymond on Ten and Bachelor II on Nine.
People in the news
Kris Noble, who after 10 years as the Nine Network’s drama director has been replaced by Posie Graeme-Evans, is now executive director of the sitcom-chat show Greeks on the Roof. It is being produced by Granada for the Seven Network and will star Mary Coustas as Effie.
The shop under Gary Morgan’s’ Roy Morgan Research in Melbourne became vacant so he’s opened a café there, Morgans at 401. His staff gets a 10% discount. The ghost of General Douglas MacArthur haunts the building, as it was his HQ when he commanded Allied forces in the South-West Pacific in World War II.
Rob McCasker, formerly program director of Fox FM in Melbourne, has moved to the same position at The Hot Tomato’s new station, 102.9FM, soon to be launched on the Gold Coast. He has joined one-time 2SM program director Jaan Torv (the station’s owner), his ex-WSFM breakfast presenter brother Hans (managing director) and ex-WSFM and Mix GM Graham Miles (the station’s GM). With that management overhead and the $25m licence cost, it had better make money.
The speed of news
The world sees and hears the Iraqi war as it happens. Until Baron de Reuter first used the new telegraph to transmit news from London in 1851, it was transmitted by sea. Even in 1915, it took four days for Australian newspapers to publish the first news of the Gallipoli landing on April 25.
Philip Luker’s Media Eye appears in B&T every week. T: (02) 9328 1741 F: (02) 9328 4808 Mail: PO Box 475 Woollahra, NSW, 1350. E: philip.luker@bigpond.com.au
