Bauer bullish on magazines, profits and life after Cosmopolitan

Bauer Media remains profitable and committed to its Australian operation despite a string of magazine closures.

The December 2018 cover of Cosmopolitan.

Bauer Media remains profitable and committed to its Australian operation despite a string of magazine closures topped off by the demise of Cosmopolitan, says its local chief executive.

“They think’s it’s a great place to be,” Paul Dykzeul says of the family-managed, Hamburg-based company. “I have never had one indication from them that Australia is not part of their long-term thinking.”

Mr Dykzeul, who runs Bauer’s Australian and New Zealand operations, says it has no immediate plans to acquire faster growing parts of the local media industry, but it is always looking.

In an interview with Media, Mr Dykzeul said the Australian operations remained “very profitable” even as they faced digital headwinds, falling advertising revenue and sluggish circulation, a set of challenges buffeting publishers everywhere.

“I’ve been involved with the business for the last 12 years, and it’s never not been profitable,” he said. “This perception that somehow Bauer is an unprofitable business is laughable beyond belief. It’s a very profitable business and remains a very profitable business. Most of the rubbish that’s written about us is written in the online space. Who cares? No one reads it. It’s irrelevant. Don’t mean anything to me.”

Mr Dykzeul said the local business was always looking to expand, but there was nothing on the drawing board right now, following speculation it wanted to buy radio assets. The company has a very successful commercial radio operation in the UK.

Paul Dykzeul.

In a rare interview in 2013, owner Yvonne Bauer told Media that mergers and acquisitions were a top priority for the company after it expanded with great success into the US and UK. And Mr Dykzeul said: “Part of our ­responsibility here is to expand the business and we’re always looking. We’re looking at everything.

“There’s a very big team in ­Europe that works on this and they are working with us here in Australia, and we’re always keen to look at new things. But are we looking specifically right now at television or radio or outdoor? The answer is no.”

Bauer boasts 60 magazine brands in Australia, including Harper’s Bazaar, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, TV Week, Good Health and several parenting and auto publications following its acquisition of ACP Magazines from Nine Entertainment for more than $500 million in 2012. The company has more than 600 magazine brands around the world, 400-plus digital products and 100 radio stations in ­Poland, the UK, Slovakia and Scandinavia, and holds a stake in Radio Hamburg. In television, Bauer part-owns German broadcaster RTL II and operates several music channels in Britain.

Mr Dykzeul last week drew the curtain on the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, more affectionately known as Cosmo, after 45 years because it hadn’t been profitable for a couple of years. Cosmo’s circulation and revenue had declined to a level where it was no longer ­viable, joining a long list of defunct magazine brands including Dolly, Men’s Style, Yours, Grazia, ­Famous, Penthouse and Cleo.

At its peak, Cosmo sold about 150,000 copies a month. That had dwindled to the “high 20,000s-early 30,000s”, Mr Dykzeul said.

Former editors-in-chief of Cosmopolitan’s local edition include Mamamia founder Mia Freedman, I Quit Sugar’s Sarah Wilson, and Bronwyn McCahon. Current editor-in-chief Lorna Gray, appointed just four months ago, is yet to comment on the ­closure.

Cosmo’s December issue will be its last. The announcementlast Tuesday fell on Mr Dykzeul’s 66th birthday. He said he was working “very hard” at improving the Australia-NZ business, but left the door open for future closures.

“Closure is always the last, last option,” he said. “But to say, have we arrived at every ‘last, last option’ — the answer’s no.

“If there’s any magazine company in the world that says they’re not going to close a magazine, they’re liars. But I’m not working on anything at the moment.”

“Right now, we’re focusing on the business and its totality, and we’re working really, really hard at category strengths and we’re really, really strong in some areas; some areas we’re not that strong in, and we’ll either close them or sell them,” Mr Dykzeul said.

As Bauer’s fashion magazines face intense competition, he was bullish about The Australian Women’s Weekly, which was launched in 1933 by Frank Packer.

“Women’s Weekly is still an incredibly strong and powerful brand. Our fashion business, like every fashion business in the world, is challenged but we are very confident about that business going forward.”

Bauer’s celebrity-focused magazines, including Woman’s Day, New Weekly and OK, are also battling fierce competition.

“Obviously, celebrity’s tough but it’s still a bloody, damn good business,” Mr Dykzeul said.

The group’s other categories are also doing well, but specific details are scarce. “Our real-life area with the likes of Take 5 and the big range of one-shop titles that we have is amazing business. TV Week, our TV magazines, are still strong. I mean, it amazes me, to be quite honest. Our home area, including the two titles that we acquired recently from News (Corp), is really, really strong — really strong,” he said, referring to Inside Out and Country Style. As part of the deal, Bauer also bought Home.Life.com.au in June.

Bauer’s motoring operations, which last month announced a new car show, WhichCar TV, with Network Ten, were performing “really well”. “We’re in good shape.”

Before taking over Bauer’s Australian business following the departure of Nick Chan in June last year, Mr Dykzeul ran Bauer’s magazine operations in New Zealand for more than nine years. ­Before that, he spent 11 years in Sydney as a director of international business for ACP Magazines, once owned by the Packer family.