Magazines 'only product' banned from supermarkets, says publishers association

Thursday, 2 April 2020

ANALYSIS Media firms are far from the only businesses that are being rapidly strangled by the coronavirus lockdown.

Plenty of restaurants, retailers, moteliers, and a myriad of businesses in other industries will be in the same boat, while other companies will be trading through the lockdown relatively untroubled.

But media firms – being media firms – rarely tend to go quietly.

Bauer Media will close all its titles, blaming the economic impact of the coronavirus.

The announcement by German company Bauer that it is closing its New Zealand business today – coming on the heels of the closure of Radio Sport and voluntary redundancy invitations at NZME and pay cuts at MediaWorks – shows the sector hasn't been crying wolf about the strife it is in.

* Bauer Media closures: So many livelihoods, so much devastation

* Bauer closure 'apocalypse' for New Zealand print media: former editor**

NZ magazine publisher Bauer Media blames coronavirus lockdown for shuttering

A Bauer spokesman wasn't ruling out the possibility that some of its titles such as Woman's Day and New Zealand Woman's Weekly might be produced in Australia and could continue to be distributed in New Zealand.

'No final decision', had been made on that, he said.

But it may be curtains for Bauer's harder-hitting current affairs titles, such as The Listener and North and South – unless some brave soul attempts a management buy-out or something similar.

Since Bauer employs 237 staff in New Zealand, who now face being out of a job from tomorrow, the impact of the company's closure on people's employment prospects in the magazine industry is huge.

The Magazine Publishers Association was seething in a statement it issued on Thursday, calling on the Government to review its decision to only allow the printed production of daily newspapers and what is likely to prove a very limited number of community newspapers during the lockdown.

Magazines were the only product that had been banned from supermarket shelves by the Government, executive director Sally Duggan said.

'We believe our tight supply chains mean that magazine publication is not a safety risk, and that magazines are a rich and important source of quality information and news coverage that we can ill-afford to shut down at this time of crisis,' she said.

'We will find new ways of working, but need sensible decision making from government.'

Classical music lovers had plenty of time to mobilise influential former politicians, including former prime minister Helen Clark, to prevent the closure of Concert FM in February.

But Bauer's closure shows that may not be the norm when private media firms fold, and that their warnings therefore sometimes need to be taken at face value.

Yes, closures may be abrupt.

When Michael Anderson, chief executive of television channel Three owner MediaWorks, said on Wednesday that the company was in 'a fight for survival', it is safe to assume he was not rolling out a cliche.

Rather, what policy makers should probably take from that is that the company – which also owns about half the country's commercial radio stations – is in a fight from which it might not survive.

In this context, a comment from Finance Minister Grant Robertson that the Government was going to be working on a recovery package for the media and some other industries 'over the medium term' and would need to 'work our way through what that might look like', had some in the industry scratching their heads.

His statement appeared to lack any sense of urgency.

'What medium term?' was one response.

Lindsay Mouat, chief executive of the Association of New Zealand Advertisers, called on Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to broaden his review of public media to look at media more widely.

'There is the very real risk that the future of media in this country is a mix of only existing Government owned assets, global online platforms and a small number of niche news offerings,' he said.

But Faafoi appeared to try to shift the blame for the closure of Bauer New Zealand at least on to its own management on Thursday, by saying Bauer had not chosen to claim a wage subsidy for its staff or apply to its bank for a government-backed $500,000 bridging loan.

If that was his goal, it seems disingenuous.

Those support options are available for any business of Bauer's size, and evidently it made the call that assistance was not going to be sufficient.

However, if the Government's strategy is to let existing media businesses fall over, in the expectation that something fresh might rise from the ashes, that's a different matter of course.

Let's not trivialise the tough task of building up an audience to reach a critical mass in the online age.

But magazines, in particular, have always come and gone.

In some parts of the media industry – the magazine sector, the community newspaper industry and specialist business and online media included – the barriers to entry for new media operators are quite low, thanks in part to new technology.

The same probably couldn't be said, though, for national media organisations producing daily newspapers and television that require a network of reporters, printing presses, studios, international linkages, legal resources, and so on.

It is also worth noting that some types of magazines are more threatened by the lockdown than others.

Those at either the more 'newsy' or gossipy end of the spectrum – which include many of Bauer's titles – are obviously hard to put on hold, while those that have more 'timeless' content could be less inconvenienced.

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher says its magazines have been put 'on pause' during the level 4 lockdown, in accordance with the Government's guidelines.

'The May issues of NZ House and Garden and NZ Gardener are ready to print and deliver this month but have to be delayed.

'We'll get them out to subscribers as soon as the lockdown is lifted,' she says.

But its weekly TV Guide has stopped production for a month and Sinead says Stuff will resume it when it can. 'For Stuff, magazines are obviously only one part of our business compared with Bauer so we are less reliant on them.

'But in the context of the overall negative impact on advertising because of Covid-19, the loss of any subscriber or retail revenue on top of that is really just compounding the issues.'

Printer and publisher ICG – whose titles include Dish, Good, Little Treasures and Idealog – is also not sure what the future holds for all of its products.

'I think everyone is looking at everything,' says its managing director David Atkins.

'Who knows what is going to happen?'

He expects Bauer to keep some of its titles circulating in New Zealand, with some being produced in Australia with the help of New Zealand freelancers and contract sales reps, and speculates others may be taken over by their editors.

'They are very smart people, so it won't be the end of it,' he forecasts.

* Comments have been closed.