Metro magazine ends print run to focus on digital future
Friday, 20 March 2026
Auckland’s long-running Metro magazine has announced it will “pause” its regular print production and focus on its digital future.
The Post was first to report last September that the publication, which has regularly been printed since the 1980s, was undergoing staff changes. It was later confirmed the magazine’s editor, Henry Oliver, and three other full-time staff had left Metro.
It’s understood while Oliver and one other staffer were made redundant, the remaining two chose to resign immediately after.
At the time, Metro’s general manager Julia Barnes confirmed that the magazine was “making changes to protect [its] long-term sustainability”.
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The magazine relaunched with a “refreshed” glossy style over summer, with a press statement in December declaring: “Metro Lives”.
But the Summer 2026 edition could be the final print version of Metro, with subscribers informed today that the focus from now on would be on the publication’s digital offering.
“As many of you will be aware, the economics of print continue to tighten. Despite the care and effort that goes into each issue, the current model is no longer sustainable,” readers were told on Friday.
“With that in mind, we’ve made the decision to pause regular print production for now, and shift our focus to Metro’s digital, newsletter, and event offerings, which we’ll develop and share with you in due course.”
Subscribers were told that if they were happy to keep supporting Metro, any remaining subscription fees would go towards “protecting and preserving” the magazine’s archives.
“We are working towards a $10,000 target to complete this, and your support will contribute directly to that effort.”
One former Metro contributor, speaking anonymously, theorised that the magazine’s shift in direction after the departure of Oliver was partly to blame for the current situation.
“Metro has always had such a snarky, insider tone and that’s what everyone loved about it. They said the things others couldn’t or wouldn’t. To completely ditch that and turn it into something very different, which seemed to be lighter and more commercial, and only give it one issue to bed in was always going to be a stretch for something with such a history.”
But Sam Johnson, Metro’s chairperson, told The Post that it was purely a financial decision and that the brand would live on.
“The economics of magazines are quite difficult at the moment, and the decision came down to, really: to invest more in a magazine that's not washing its own face is bad business, but it's worse philanthropy,” he said.
The magazine’s previous model under the last editor was “so deeply financially unsustainable, it didn't make sense to continue,” Johnson said.
“This isn't the end of Metro either. It's just the model of subscriber-based paying a certain amount for a magazine that arrives in the post quarterly, we've decided not to do that model. But it's not to say print won't continue.”
In October, Johnson told media that Metro would continue with “guest editors” in place until the magazine’s finances were back into a position where full-time staff could be supported.
Metro’s decision to end its print run follows fellow long-form magazine North & South also deciding to put its return to news-stands on an indefinite hold.
In an email to subscribers last October, editor Sarah Daniell wrote that the investigative magazine had “a compelling and powerful lineup of features for November but sadly it was not to be”.
She continued: “The N&S digital and print project has been put on hold”.
Metro is a fixture of news stands in Auckland. It 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 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.
At the time, its chief executive, rich-lister Hideaki Fukutake, described Metro as an important cultural icon in New Zealand.