Tough times for women’s magazines as Bauer buys Pacific
The history of Australian women’s magazine publishing is littered with the stories of tough women using every resource to smash opposing editors and their publications. Now Bauer has bought PacPubs, which one will reign supreme, asks Annette Sharp.
Opinion
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And then there was one.
The history of Australian women’s magazine publishing is littered with the stories — and the shoes — of tough women, primed for battle by aggressive male backers, using every resource available to them to smash opposing editors and their publications to pieces.
For five decades, society pages and gossip columns have documented the rise of women over women in Magland.
We’ve read how Esme Fenton’s sensible courts gave way to Ita Buttrose’s elegant Charles Jourdans at The Australian Women’s Weekly.
How Lisa Wilkinson’s ’80s wedges gave way to Deborah Thomas’s flats at Cleo.
How Jackie Frank’s ballet flats gave way to Nicky Briger’s sharp stilettos at Marie Claire, and how Mia Freedman’s retro slingbacks were pushed aside for Sarah Wilson’s tan leather sandals at Cosmopolitan.
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In a war of attrition between Bauer Media (previously ACP) and Pacific Publications, there have been too few survivors of a battle that once created Australian icons and legends.
Sadly, no more.
In fact, on Friday, following news Bauer had acquired rival Pacific Magazines for a meagre $40 million, it seemed there might be only one woman left standing when the dust settles between the two publishers.
She is Fiona Connolly, editor-in-chief of Bauer’s women’s celebrity entertainment category and, while a congenial and pleasant person, one doesn’t know yet if she is made of the same tough stuff as the women who preceded her at Bauer/ACP some 30 or 40 years ago.
We will soon find out, with Connolly now seemingly set to preside over the spoils of a once-thriving industry.
Connolly is now in charge of both Woman’s Day and New Idea, the oldest women’s journal still published in the country.
The pitched battle between the two magazines — a feud that inspired the 2013 mini-series Paper Giants: Magazine Wars and introduced the national media to chequebook journalism and a famous rivalry between editors Nene King and Dulcie Boling — is no more.
Whether both can survive remains to be seen.
Does the nation need two publications making up stories about royal princes?
You’d think not.
Given Bauer’s propensity for closing titles, an axe, too, must now hang over all of the other PacPubs titles — Marie Claire, Instyle, Home Beautiful, Australian Women’s Health, Australian Men’s Health, WHO, Girlfriend, That’s Life and Family Circle — though presumably not Better Homes And Gardens, as the TV synergy appears too lucrative.
Having announced the closure of its titles in New Zealand last month, Bauer looks set to follow Hearst Magazines’ lead in the northern hemisphere and close Harper’s, Elle, OK! and NW for at least three months as it conducts a review of the business and decides how many more magazines are for the chopping block.
There have been plenty to meet with that fate since Bauer bought the once-great ACP publishing press in 2012 for a reported $500 million — 12.5 times the amount it has paid, after legal persuasion, for Seven West Media’s Pacific Publications.
Cleo, Dolly, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, FHM, Rugby League Week, Shop Til You Drop, Zoo Weekly, Women’s Fitness, People, Picture and Top Gear, not to mention dozens of adventure, motorcycle, trucking and men’s titles, have all closed during the past eight years.
One former editor spoke for many yesterday when she said: “It really is the end of the world as we know it.”
Maybe not, but the future certainly looks grim for some — and the woman who has long been Connolly’s rival at PacPubs, Louisa Hatfield, is expected to be in Bauer’s sights first.
Seeing off her former rival could be the first test of Connolly’s mettle and character.
After which there will be many more tests to come.