‘Changes' planned at Metro Magazine amid ‘tough’ times

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

The future of long running magazine Metro is under the microscope as its managers confirm changes are afoot, but refuse to confirm if that could see key staff - including its high profile editor - exit.

The exact proposal is shrouded in mystery and nobody at the magazine nor from its owners, investment firm Still, would confirm what’s on the table or whether any jobs were at risk.

Questions sent to Still, including about whether key staff at the publication were being made redundant, were not answered.

However, a response was received from Metro magazine’s new general manager, Julia Barnes, who confirmed the publication was “making changes to protect [its] long-term sustainability”.

She did not address questions about a proposed restructure, or whether any roles had been disestablished, but said the magazine remained “in the middle” of a “process”.

“With our next issue in production, any public comment right now would be premature as the situation is still evolving,” she said.

“Print magazines are tough, but we’re committed to Metro’s future.”

Former Metro editor Simon Wilson said one “tactic” sometimes used by magazine publishers was to remove the editor in favour of guest editors.

“Before I was at Metro, [the] Metro and North & South editors were made redundant and they had … senior writers in a kind of managerial role where they weren't called editors. That lasted for a little while, and then they made editors again,” he told The Post.

“When I was at Cuisine, I was made redundant from there because they decided … ‘we don't think we need an editor’.”

Metro’s editor Henry Oliver would not comment.

The publication’s chair, Sam Johnson, a projects director at Still who founded the Student Volunteer Army in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, was also unwilling to comment.

“As a journalist, do you think it’s fair to any of the team if I comment? I don’t think it is,” Johnson said over text.

Metro is a fixture of news stands in Auckland, having first been published in the early 1980s under the editorship of Warwick Roger, who died in 2018.

The magazine was caught up in the closure of Bauer Media during the Covid-19 pandemic and briefly ceased publication before being rescued by entrepreneur Simon Chesterman and relaunched as a glossy quarterly magazine.

It was again sold in 2023, this time to investment firm Still, a company with an ambitious aim to acquire or launch 100 local businesses in the next decade. Its chief executive, rich-lister Hideaki Fukutake, could also not be reached for comment.

At the time, Fukutake described Metro as an important cultural icon in New Zealand.

Wilson, who currently writes for the NZ Herald, said Metro still had an important role to play in Auckland.

“I think Henry [Oliver] has done a remarkable job. I think I did a good job in my time, but publishing, the city, media have all moved on - and Henry's moved with them in ways that are, I think, exciting and invigorating,” he told The Post.

“I always used to say it's a zeitgeist magazine. Warwick Roger invented this magazine at the beginning of the 80s that captured the zeitgeist of brash, money driven, freedom loving, big city bursting out … when the Labour government came along and swept away the old world of Robert Muldoon.

“[Roger] was doing great current affairs journalism … about what was the underbelly of the city. But he was also celebrating the entertainment and hospitality scene.“

Editors, Wilson believed, helped provide the “editorial life” of a magazine.

“That was championed in this country all the way back by the old legacy magazines like Women's Weekly and The Listener whose editors were always the people whose vision made them what they were.”

Former Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey has been a contributor to Metro since its inception and believed every city needed a “terrific magazine”.

“Metro has been a considered read, the articles are good [and] thorough. I think it's important for a city the size of Auckland,” he said, noting many of the city’s local community papers have since been shut down.

With Auckland’s struggles, and an impending local election, Metro remained relevant, added Wilson.

“The city’s under siege economically … and everybody knows that for a whole range of factors a whole lot of businesses are struggling. But there is a fight back. There is a determination to survive this and make it work,” he said.

“Metro strikes me as being right in there on the cultural side, on the hospo side, and on a whole lot of social issues.”