Alice O'Connell: Former Women's Weekly Editor on the sale of well-known Kiwi magazines

More volatility for some of our best-known magazines.   

The Listener, Woman's Day, and New Zealand Woman's Weekly are among a range of New Zealand and Aussie titles going up for sale.  

Publisher Are Media —which purchased them five years ago, in the chaos of Covid-19— is now on the market.   

Former New Zealand Women's Weekly Editor Alice O'Connell told Heather du Plessis-Allan a lot of these brands have a strong heritage, and she hopes they will live on.  

She says maybe it won't be in a magazine format, but there are different ways to consume information, and they could live online. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some of New Zealand's most iconic magazine brands are up
for sale again. This is The Listener, Women's Day, Women's Weekly.
They're all back on the market five years after being
saved from COVID. Alice O'Connell is the former editor of
the New Zealand Women's Weekly and is with us morning Alice.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Do you think the same thing is going on as
what was going on five years ago, which is that
they just don't turn enough of a profit? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I mean, I think there are a number of different
factors that led to happens five years ago. I mean,
of course COVID was a really big reason that that happened.
But I mean I think magazines are a difficult sowe
still so, I mean, things haven't improved by the looks
of it over season. Best just still wants to pull out. Now.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you think that they will find a buyer?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh? I mean, I certainly hope. So. I think, Look,
I have to really believe in in magazines. I think
they're such a wonderful medium to talk to people in.
It's such a I mean, you can't multitask when you're
reading a magazine, can you. It's such a special experience,
and I think a lot of us are looking now
there's so much information now the Internet was literally looking

(01:02):
for trusted sources of information. I think brands like The
Woman's Weekly and The Listener, I mean, they have all
this heritage, and I mean the Once Weekly has been
going for ninety two years. I'd like to think that
these brands really could live on. Maybe it's not in
a magazine moving forward. I mean, maybe these are different
ways that would be consuming this information. They could suddenly

(01:23):
live online. I think the Listener definitely. I would really
surprised if nted Me didn't put an offer for that,
and they already had that relationship. So yeah, I've high
hopes for what will happen to these times.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
The problem, Alice, is that that the magazines haven't actually
adapted to a digit These magazines haven't adapted properly to
a digital world yet. Because I was thinking about the
magazine that I read. The only one that I read
regularly is The Economist, which I read online, which I
had forgotten actually was a magazine. I just read it
like it's just a news source to me. Now, So actually,
in order to survive, shouldn't they do exactly the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh absolutely, And I mean these these magazines haven't had
their own standalone website. I mean there was a large
umbrella and it was called out to Love that housed
all the different magazine brands, and that really did dilute
the different titles. So I think that could have been
a big struggle for these ones, because as you said,
I mean, this is how we're used to consuming our

(02:19):
media now is online. I mean, the few of us
who were a part of Bauer and lost our jobs
that we started this website, capsule, and we're certainly finding
that there is a real audience online and real appetite
for a similar sort of proposition that magazine feel, but online.
So I have real optimism what might happen?

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Good stuff, Alice, good to talk to you. Enjoy your morning.
Alis O'Connell, former editor of New Zealand's Women's Weekly.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Here.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
The women's magazines have too little content and they are
too expensive. I haven't bought a women's weekly or a
women's magazine in a very long time. Bought one the
other day because just Cinda was in it, Theager. But
number one because that is my job to read about politics.
But also number two, I just got my obligatory. So
you bought that and you read the book. Hey, I'm

(03:04):
doing both at the same time. But I'm saying to
think you're her biggest fan. I I love just Center.
I've gotten an autographed book. Did you know, though, that
I've managed to I reckon mention her every single day
this week. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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