How much does Ita Buttrose think Women’s Weekly is worth?
Some former Australian Women’s Weekly editors, including ABC chair Ita Buttrose, tell Annette Sharp what dollar value they put on the once great magazine.
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How much do I hear bid for the once great Australian Women’s Weekly?
Do I hear $100 million? Do I hear $10 million? Do I hear $1 million?
In the interests of preserving what was once one of the nation’s most treasured brands, this column passed the hat around last week to some of The Australian Women’s Weekly’s (AWW) most proven former editors-in-chief to see if one of them couldn’t be persuaded to buy and salvage the iconic 87-year-old publication before she sinks like the Titanic.
While AWW’s circulation and readership figures have been going downhill for more than a decade, a number of its former editors remain hopeful the magazine — which is often credited with teaching Australian women how to cook, sew, vote, save money and raise their children — still has a bright future.
Based on the recent sale of Bauer Media’s swag of magazine titles to private equity company Mercury Capital for $50 million (which, given Bauer’s at-gunpoint acquisition of Pacific Publications two months earlier for $40 million, values the entire premerger Bauer business at just $10 million), former AWW editor-in-chief Deborah Thomas opened the bidding at our hypothetical auction with $1 million.
“I think in a depressed market, in which no one is buying magazines, $1 million is about the right figure to put on an opening bid,” said Thomas, who presided over the title from 1999-2009 and is now CEO at Camp Quality, admitting she could probably be talked into lifting her bid to $5 million if a rival bidder emerged.
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And then before this columnist could say “in this week’s Women’s Weekly..” another bidder did emerge in the form of the magazine’s most famous former editor, Ita Buttrose (AWW 1975- 1981).
Buttrose, now chair of the ABC, admitted she still placed great sentimental value on the magazine — one she believes is the “only great magazine” in the country.
“$20 million!” bid Buttrose bullishly.
“The other titles in the stable I don’t imagine to be worth a thing.”
Casting her mind back to the 1970s, Buttrose said during her time at what was then Kerry Packer’s publishing company ACP, she and the executive told anyone who cared to listen that the Weekly was “priceless.”
“You couldn’t put a dollar sign to the value of being on the Weekly’s cover,” she said.
“It really was priceless.
“The Weekly began in 1933 during the Great Depression and it was hoped the magazine would help lift women’s spirits and morale and lift them out of the gloom of that time. I would think it would be exactly what is necessary to do it again now, at this time, when we are in recession again,” she added, giving a shout out to current editor Nicole Byers who she said was doing a good job under tough circumstances with no budget.
Perhaps intimidated by the stature of the rival bidders, Robyn Foyster (editor-in-chief AWW 2007-09 and group publisher ACP/Bauer 2011-13) couldn’t be persuaded to open her chequebook on the day.
She did however share that she thought the magazine to be worth between Thomas’s bid and Buttrose’s.
“I don’t think what Mercury Capital paid for the group can be used as a yardstick but I do think the magazine is certainly worth, at a minimum, at least ten times what Deb’s offering,” she said pluckily, putting Foyster’s estimate in the $10 million+ ballpark and handing custodianship of the Weekly back to Buttrose.
Back in 2012 when Bauer bought the magazines from James Packer for $525 million — for a good price said no one at the time — some speculated that figure meant Bauer priced AWW at about $300 million, valuing the balance of titles in the ACP stable — some 50+ magazines – at $225 million.
Foyster, like Buttrose and Thomas, is eager to see the Weekly restored to its once great former glory. She has a hundred ideas about how that could happen.
“It needs to own its digital site, it needs to own food with a food network and have a high-profile star like Jamie Oliver, it needs to get back to telling real life Australian stories — both fiction and nonfiction, it needs to enter into partnerships with other iconic Australian like Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrmann …” the tech and media businesswoman said, rapidly spouting ideas.
“There’s so much it needs to do and there’s so much future out there for them. We all just hope the right caretaker comes along to do it.”