Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, InStyle, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Good Health, NW and OK! magazines have all been axed, with the new owners Mercury Capital citing a catastrophic drop in advertising revenue due to Covid-19.
The announcement comes days after the Australian arm of the German Bauer Media was sold to the venture capital firm Mercury Capital, which has yet to rebrand and rename the company.
The decision to close the magazines was not taken by the family-owned Bauer Media Group, which said on Friday it had completed the sale of its Australian publishing business to Mercury Capital.
At least 240 magazine staff once employed by Bauer Media Australia have been laid off by since the pandemic hit Australia in April.
Mercury said Nielsen data revealed the economic impact of a full month of Covid-19 lockdowns was a 38.8% month-on-month drop in media advertising expenditure.
Brendon Hill, Bauer Media Australia and New Zealand’s chief executive, said no one could have anticipated the swift, widespread and ongoing impact of the pandemic on the magazine business and industry.
Seven of the magazines had already been suspended by Bauer in May, days after the publisher bought Seven West Media’s magazine publishing arm Pacific Magazines for $40m.
A further 40 staff will be made redundant by the closure of the suite of publications, on top of the 140 who were laid off in April and 60 who were let go after Bauer bought Pacific Magazines, bringing the total job losses in the magazine industry since April to 240, not including freelancers and contributors.
“We, like many other media companies, have deeply felt the impact of Covid-19,” Hill said. “The reinstatement of these titles and teams was always dependent on the advertising market bouncing back and the return of domestic and international travel. Despite promising signs from advertisers in recent weeks, this has not outweighed the medium-term outlook for these titles.
“Additionally, with a second lockdown in Victoria and minimal travel, it is not feasible to sufficiently distribute NW and OK! without transit channels. The financial impact of these factors and the ongoing economic uncertainty makes the return and sustainability of these titles no longer viable. We have been forced to reset and future-proof the business like all of the media industry has.”
It’s been a slow decline for what was once Kerry Packer’s celebrated magazine empire – Australian Consolidated Press – since it was bought by Bauer Media Group in 2012 for $525m.
Eight years and many magazine closures later, Bauer sold the company for less than $50m to Mercury Capital.
The media commentator Tim Burrowes told Guardian Australian in May that the suspended magazines were unlikely to come back into circulation and the pandemic had “ripped the heart out of magazine publishing in Australia forever”.
