Browsing: Fairfax

Opinion
Dead wrong: Sandra King on why New Zealand’s print market is alive and well
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Over the past few months, discussions around the future of the media have come to a head, thanks in part to a couple of big announcements from the other side of the Tasman and a big one here in New Zealand too. This has brought about loads of discussion within the New Zealand industry about the role of media in society and changing trends in how consumers select and consume news. Worryingly, lots of commentators have been all too willing to eulogise New Zealand’s robust newspaper market. So I’m putting my hand up to remind you all that newspapers and magazines are alive and well in New Zealand.

News
.99 starts spreading Fairfax’s news—UPDATED
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.99’s win of the Tower business was a much-needed fillip for the embattled agency. And the good news has continued after it was handed the reins for a range of through-the-line communications for Fairfax Media’s Sunday Star Times newspaper after winning a pitch against Y&R Auckland and Christchurch agency Simpatico.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 24 July
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APN shuffles staff into senior appointments thanks to sales restructuring, M&C Saatchi’s hire at first sight, Wright Communications acquires a new trio, The Research Agency expands by two, Fairfax feels Droga5’s creative spirit and Dentsu eyes up Aegis.

News
APN’s Martin Simons on the tabloid Herald, the inevitability of paywalls and preparing for the future
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With the massive changes currently taking place in the Australian publishing scene at the moment and the steady move of readers from print to digital around the world, the newspaper business is at a crossroads. So what is the rationale behind the Herald’s change to tabloid? Will New Zealand readers soon be paying for online content? And how is APN preparing for the future? We chat with APN’s chief executive Martin Simons.

News
Fairfax looks on the bright side, prepares for the future with continuation of intern scheme
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There’s been plenty of press lately about media companies being forced to adjust the way they did business in fast-changing circumstances, chief among them Fairfax, which announced the cutting of 1,900 jobs in Australia and host of other big changes (check out this anonymous opinion piece by a Fairfax journalist in Australia that painted a rather vivid picture of the current situation at the company). But according to Fairfax Media’s group executive editor in New Zealand Paul Thompson—and as evidenced in Oriella’s global study—journalism remains a career of huge variety, opportunity and importance and the company says its continuation of the intern scheme in 2012 is “a sign of its belief in itself, its journalism and the future”. And, given that future will likely be digital, this year applicants will have to upload a video clip of no more than 90 seconds about themselves to YouTube as part of the process to show they’re up to the task.

News
All-powerful Sarahs dominate Magazine Awards as Good and Cuisine clean up
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It’s the night the magazine industry comes together to, as ACP head honcho Paul Dykzeul might say, indulge in a bit of gratuitous back patting. Or, as the MPA might say, reward the publications, publishers, editors, designers, sales folk and contributors who toil away on their various titles. And it was Good and Cuisine’s Sarah Nicholson that reigned supreme on the night, winning the top magazine and editor of the year prizes respectively.

News
The Press’ Holden steps into the Aussie breach as new Age editor
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The Australian division of Fairfax has announced some massive changes to its business recently, including a plan to cut 1,900 jobs, erect paywalls, outsource subbing for some of its titles to New Zealand and take some of its broadsheets tabloid. Fairfax NZ boss Allen Williams has said it’s a case of two markets and two time frames and the shifts won’t affect the New Zealand business, but they have affected the local industry in one way because Andrew Holden, the editor of The Press in Christchurch, has been named as editor in chief of The Age in Melbourne, replacing Paul Ramadge, who resigned yesterday.

News
Global journalism study shows ‘cautious optimism’, Kiwi media less affected by digital technologies
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News of three senior defections at Fairfax in Australia surfaced yesterday, following on from last week’s news that it planned to cut 1,900 jobs—or around 20 percent of its staff—as part of a restructure aimed at facing up to the challenges of digital publishing. News Ltd is also set to cull staff, although it has said the number is “significantly less” than Fairfax (its own press appears to be looking on the bright side of that decision). And while New Zealand’s newspaper biz is still doing it tough at the moment, Fairfax NZ chief executive Allen Williams told the NBR it was a “case of two different markets, in two different timeframes”, so going tabloid and putting up paywalls wasn’t on the agenda–yet. Add in the Leveson enquiry in the UK and it’s tough out there in media land, so it was interesting to see the results of the 5th annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study, which showed the world’s media were cautiously upbeat despite continued uncertainty in the global economy and “digital technologies have affected the practice of journalism less markedly in New Zealand” than elsewhere.

Opinion
On the importance of subs
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We let out a wee chortle—and felt a wave of ‘there but for the grace of God go us’—yesterday when we received the run-down for this week’s edition of Media7, which was to discuss the proposal by Fairfax to outsource some of its Australian sub-editing requirements to New Zealand. But, slightly ironically, given the episode’s focus on the loss of local knowledge and errors of fact slipping through unnoticed as a result of such decisions, it probably could have done with a sub. 

Opinion
Don’t worry about the New Zealanders, worry about the robots
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Not surprisingly, Fairfax’s proposal to outsource 66 Australian editorial jobs, including some sub-editing, to New Zealand didn’t go down too well with its staff or the national journalists’ union and led to a 36 hour unprotected strike among staff from The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Sunday Age, The Sun Herald, the Canberra Times, the Newcastle Herald and Wollongong Illawarra Mercury that finished this morning. News Ltd also recently announced the possibility of up to 400 editorial jobs getting the chop and while the local industry reported some pretty solid numbers recently, some of the big Aussie mastheads are thought to have had their biggest ever drops in circulation in March, so it’s obviously a tough time to be in the newspaper game, both for journos and for publishers. But as if all this wasn’t enough, an article we read recently in Wired shows editorial staff might have another fight on their hands due to the rise of robot reporters, which the chief of pretty frickin’ amazing US company Narrative Science has predicted will be writing 90 percent of the news in 15 years. Let’s hope Gina Rinehart doesn’t get wind of this technology. We demand another strike. Hasn’t anyone seen I, Robot? 

News
And now, the newspaper news
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The magazine sector had some pretty good news to report in the latest round of readership and circulation figures and, given what’s happening internationally, the New Zealand newspaper sector should also be fairly pleased with the results, which show there’s still plenty of life in the old dogs yet. 

News
APN bags the big ‘uns at Canon Media Awards, as The Press rewarded for courage under fire
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A rapidly changing media landscape means it’s not the happiest of financial times for many in the newspaper and magazine publishing sector at the moment, but those issues were briefly forgotten on Friday night as the industry gathered in Auckland to reward the best in the business at the Canon Media Awards. And it was APN, which has recently enlisted the help of Deutsche Bank to conduct an asset review, that again popped the most corks on the night and followed on from its ‘grand slam’ last year by taking out the vast majority of the big awards. 

News
Fairfax rings the changes
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Following on from last week’s story about Fairfax Media halving agency commission, it has sent out a release detailing the changes to its business model and its effect on customers. And it’s also announced some changes to its sponsorship programme by aligning itself with Spikes Asia rather than Cannes Lions. 

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: March 16
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Unlimited hunts for a new helmsman, MediaWorks plays some more news and current affairs swapsies with TVNZ, Rodney Hide sharpens his pen for the NBR, Grownups.co.nz finds some independence, EMC names new marketing director, Village PR adds to the flock, and Hamilton company Torpedo7 hops into bed with an Aussie suitor. 

News
DDB takes out local agency derby, justONE and OMD take category wins
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Success is fairly subjective in adland. Depending on who you’re talking to, it can be about the cash earned, growth rates achieved, accounts gained or creative plaudits won. And while DDB Group hasn’t quite had the run of things when it comes to awards of late, its “exceptional” business performance over the past year was enough to win it the 2012 Fairfax AdMedia Supreme Agency of the Year last night at the Imperial Lane Bar & Restaurant, adding to the agency of the year titles it has recently been awarded by the NBR, Campaign Brief and Campaign Asia Pacific. DraftFCB was a close runner-up, justONE won specialist agency of the year and OMD took the media title. 

News
APN jumps on AR bandwagon
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APN is claiming to be the first New Zealand publisher to launch an augmented reality app, with The Herald’s TimeOut section being made into an interactive print product through the use of regularly updated virtual content. 

News
Latest newspaper stats a mixed bag for print, but big rises for online and mobile
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The latest numbers for newspapers have just been released and, according to Nielsen, readership levels for all dailies via print decreased ‘significantly’, as they did for the country’s biggest newspaper, The New Zealand Herald. But there were plenty of positives, with some readership increases, circulation remaining fairly static for most papers and massive rises in the online and mobile realms taking up some of print’s slack. 

News
Media worlds keep on convergin’ as Fairfax switches on to IPTV
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Once upon a time, newspapers were rivers of gold. But, as everyone knows, those rivers have started to dry up recently as readers went online and got their news hit for free. Now publishers around the world are embracing visual media—and competing with broadcasters—to try and fill the financial void. And Fairfax has joined that brigade with its soon-to-launch local IPTV arm. 

News
Fairfax rings changes within Kiwi divisions
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The latest annual report from Fairfax painted a fairly grim picture for the Australian-owned media company, with a loss of A$401 million on the back of a A$651 million writedown in the value of its mastheads and a 40 percent reduction in the value of its share price this year. In an effort to raise capital, local teacher’s pet TradeMe is set to be partially floated and changes are also being made within both the New Zealand newspaper and magazine divisions.  

News
The powerful few: Kiwi media becoming plaything of global shareholders, say researchers
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The News International phone hacking saga put the cosy network of media and government in sharp focus and showed how powerful media organisations can extert undue pressure on lawmakers and law upholders. And, according to a report by AUT University’s Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD), similar trends—and their associated dangers—are also evident in New Zealand. 

News
Net users cast votes and websites salivate as 2011 People’s Choice Netguide Awards are announced
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Internet users from around New Zealand, over 278,000 of them in fact, have been busy singling out their favourite websites as part of the 2011 People’s Choice NetGuide Web Awards. The results have been tallied and while there were a few repeat offenders, this year’s overall winner isn’t even of local origin. Mega social networking site Facebook took out the top honour for Site of the Year, taking the crown from last year’s winner stuff.co.nz. The site also nabbed the Best Social Networking Site award. 

News
Shift_the way you move…
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…as David MacGregor goes solo, Dave Shoemack gets a plum posting in Holland, Telecom’s punching bag departs, Fujikistan goes international, Andrew Mehrtens gets Gallic for TV3, The Press wins plaudits at PANPA, Mango activates an expert, CAANZ adds to its stable, Orangebox cuts cake, Kordia shacks up with PPR, and The Economist names a new sponsorship and marketing guru.  

News
Publishers up the reach, but still hunting for missing moolah
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Much like the domestic magazine sector, newspaper readership remained relatively stable in the latest Nielsen reports and the overall trend for circulation continued downwards. And while the online and mobile properties of the two big publishers are continuing to lure Kiwi eyeballs, recent financial results show the digital dimes still aren’t replacing the lost analog dollars. 

News
Trading currencies: readership and circ face off as latest mag stats released
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It’s that time again, a time when publishers weep, gloat or possibly just say ‘meh’ and get on with it as the ABC circulation and Nielsen’s Magazine Comparatives Q2 2010 – Q2 2011 readership results are released. And while the market appears to have stabilised after a fairly rough period, there are some interesting, some might say counter-intuitive trends on display in the yearly comparisons, with some significant disparities between circulation and readership for some titles and publishers.

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