BBC deal with ACP to take Top Gear to Australia

BBC Magazines and Australia’s ACP Magazines are setting up a joint venture partnership.

The first fruit of the agreement between Australia’s largest magazine publisher and BBC Magazines, the UK’s third-largest consumer magazine business will probably be an Australian edition of Top Gear.

ACP Magazines sold its stake in its UK joint venture ACP NatMag, which publishes Reveal and Real People, to its partner the National Magazine Company.

BBC Magazines profile

ACP Natmags profile

Bullie’d off the shelves

The Bulletin - Australia’s 128-year-old weekly news magazine - has closed. The demise of the ‘Bullie’ has been blamed on competition from websites and expanding weekend newspaper supplements.

ABC News described the title as having been ‘critical in defining Australianness’.

English language news weeklies have a hard time all over the world because of the strength of US titles such as Newsweek and Time - though even these are feeling pressure from online news.

The Week developed a successful UK business strategy, which has also worked in the US - so much so that Felix Dennis kept the title when he sold off the Maxim-based US arm of his magazine empire. However, The Week follows a Victorian model and keeps costs down by summarising other people’s news; it does not publish original writing from writers such as Peter Carey, as The Bulletin did.

The news comes just days after the sons of Australia’s two media dynasties - Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer - joined forces to take private Consolidated Media Holdings, the remnants of the late Kerry Packer’s media empire. CMH owns 25 per cent of PBL Media, which in turn owns Channel Nine, Bulletin publisher ACP and stakes in websites Ninemsn and Carsales.com.au.

Media commentator Harold Mitchell expressed surprise at the closure, given its closeness to the Packer family, which had owned the title since 1961, in a news report video.

However, media analyst Peter Cox said the magazine had been a favourite of the late media mogul Kerry Packer and upon his death, there had been no need to keep it open.
‘Quality journalism is an expensive product and it has low viewership and readership in Australia,’ he said. ‘It’s not a surprise to me at all.’

The issue of The Bulletin dated 23 January 2008 will be the last.

Profile of news weeklies in the UK.

Celeb bodies shift print

The twin obsessions of celebrity and body image are driving sales of the best-selling magazines in Australia. Celeb gossip titles have combined sales of 1.4 million copies a week and readership of almost 6.5 million.

Bauer tipped to take Emap

Both NatMags and Hearst are reported as having pulled out of bidding for Emap’s consumer titles, leaving Bella and Take a Break publisher Bauer as favourite.

Another report suggests bids are expected to be lower than expected - which would not be good news for the publisher in the week that Heat, one of its flagship titles, was excoriated in the press and by readers for a tasteless sticker involving Jordan’s disabled son. More than 100 people were reported as complaining to the Press Complaints Commission, prompting the magazine to settle quickly by making a payment to charity.

A deal would make good sense for Bauer if it wants to stay in the UK. The German group has struggled to launch new titles as its market-leading weeklies have faded in recent years.

Would Cosmo readers have raped the local vicar?

Jeremy Leslie’s mention of The Best of Cosmopolitan reminds me of the story told by former editor Linda Kelsey in her book on the magazine, Was it Good for You, Too? (Robson Books 2002). In 1972, editor Joyce Hopkirk asked Richard Burton to pose for the mag’s first naked centre-spread. He replied:

‘I feel the sight of this body would incite the maidens of Wales to rape the local vicar, so sadly I must decline your kind offer…’

So Cosmopolitan ‘[struck] a real blow for equality’ and printed a naked Paul de Feu (Germaine Greer’s husband).

TV Week freebie from ACP-NatMag

ACP-NatMag has dipped its toes into the TV listings sector with TV Week, which will go out free with Best and Real People each week. The magazine is based on the Australian TV Week and will have a circulation of 640,000.

But with 5m such magazines sold each week and many millions more going out free as part of other weeklies or as newspaper supplements, how much can the market take? It will certainly irritate newsagents who have been complaining for years that such titles are too cheap.