Exactly. And by merging you have chance of bringing those Cleo readers over to Cosmo. Now they could go anywhere else or could be lost from magazines forever.
I think they might see the value in holding onto the Cleo branding as part of their corporate back catalogue until such time as they can revive it in a different form. Mixing it in with Cosmo might not be appropriate if that’s the plan. Of course, they can always steal bits from Cleo and incorporate that into Cosmo.
When ACP brought all the Emap titles, I was surprised that a lot of the titles weren’t merged then. Like Ralph and FHM - that could’ve been merged until the FHM title.
Disgruntled former CLEO staffers reveal working at the magazine in its last year was ‘hell’
The Daily Telegraph
This is a familiar story regarding mismanagement of an Australian company/business from overseas management who have no idea. I know of at least two other companies who have been in similar turmoil in recent years, following foreign management stepping into companies where they do not understand the Australian landscape or people. The results in those cases have been that the companies are in worse shape and have lost market share.
“The team was so mismanaged, directionless and all teams had massive infighting,” one source claimed. “(They) were constantly aggro and everyone was depressed. It was such an insecure atmosphere, everyone was just so scared about losing their jobs.”
More gossip surrounding Bauer Media in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Private Sydney.
Bauer magazine empire loses more gloss
It was once referred to as Sydney’s Tower of Power when the late Kerry Packer walked the corridors of 54 Park Street, corralling his legions of glamazons and producing some of the finest, most ground-breaking and profitable women’s magazines in the world.
But this week insiders at the once great magazine empire were describing a scene straight out of The Hunger Games. As one senior writer noted: “there are people sobbing in their cubicles, it’s appalling”.
In 2012 Germany’s Bauer Media paid a whopping $525 million to James Packer to buy out the family’s publishing empire, a sale which would see iconic mastheads such as Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Cleo and Belle, all titles pioneered by Australians for Australians, fall into foreign hands under the leadership of billionaire Bauer heiress, Yvonne Bauer.
Rivals now estimate the Australian business could be worth around a quarter of what family-owned Bauer paid, while constant upheaval in senior management ranks and controversial moves, such as sourcing articles from German magazines and translating them into English before “dumping” them into Australian titles, has further eroded the publishing house’s reputation with both advertisers and readers.
In the years that followed Bauer’s buyout at Park Street, the German company which proudly espouses the credo “We Think Popular”, began a campaign of shutting down magazines, with the likes of Madison, Women’s Fitness, Grazia, Zoo Weekly, Bourke’s Backyard, BBC Good Food and martial arts title UFC all being killed off.
On Wednesday the worst kept secret in Australian media was confirmed when Cleo magazine was unceremoniously axed after 44 years, resulting in yet more job losses and further damaging the Bauer Media brand in Australia, which just days before said rumours Cleo was folding were “pure speculation”.
Bauer also announced this week that sister magazine Dolly had effectively been shrunk by half as it focuses on the digital world rather than magazines, further alienating the masthead from the millions of women who grew up reading it, while rumours persist its two biggest money earners, Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly, will soon be merged, with one editor overseeing both titles and yet more job losses.
Last week AWW editor-in-chief Helen McCabe announced she was leaving the magazine after six-and-a-half years at the helm and with apparently no job to go. She was put on six months’ “gardening leave” within days of the news coming out, while insiders told PS it was precipitated by “yet another meeting with management in which she found herself banging her head against the same walls she has been banging her head up against ever since Bauer first took over.”
PS’s repeated calls to various management remain unanswered, including interim CEO Andreas Schoo, a former lawyer who is one of Yvonne Bauer’s right-hand men in Hamburg who was dispatched to Sydney following previous CEO David Goodchild’s sudden departure last December after just one year in the job. Goodchild followed Matthew Stanton, who quit Bauer after six years, a move which prompted Yvonne Bauer to issue a note to staff admitting it had been a “tumultuous few years” for the Australian operation.
“What an understatement,” one of Bauer’s Australian editors told PS at the time.
Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke has been named the new editor of Dolly, which becomes a bi-monthly from the May 2016 issue (on sale in April). She is currently features editor of Dolly and Cleo. Lucy Cousins, current editor of the two magazines, finishes next week.
With Cleo gone, is this the next women’s mag in line for the chopping block?
Shop Til You Drop is tipped to be on the way out.
The Australian Women’s Weekly has a new editor-in-chief - Kim Wilson former New Idea editor-in-chief and currently editing Kidspot.com.au for NewsLifeMedia was named today.
What I’ve been saying for ages.
What does Bauer Media need to do to become a real force again?
With Bauer Media closing titles and struggling to find relevance in the digital landscape, Mumbrella’s Miranda Ward looks at how things got to this point, and what a new CEO needs to do to fix the company’s fortunes.
Australia’s largest magazine publisher, Bauer Media, will look back at 2015 as something of an annus horribilis. In the past 12 months it lost a CEO, the editor of its most high-profile publication, its sales director, and closed three major masthead magazines, while its digital strategy failed to get off the ground.
The company’s issues boil down to three core problems – bad management, no coherent digital strategy and no real budget for content.
Bauer is going to lose another senior executive, with Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Bronwyn McCahon leaving this April after 16 years with the company.
You’re witnessing a company in crisis.
Jesinta Campbell re-creates first Cleo cover for final issue
The Sydney Morning Herald
Interestingly, Jesinta Campbell is also the cover girl for competitor Cosmopolitan this month, so it’s strange to see both magazines sitting alongside each other on the newsagents’ stands.
That first issue had the cover price of 60 cents… is Cleo going to do the same price for its last issue? 
Former Pacific Magazines boss Nick Chan has been named new CEO of Bauer Media’s Australian and NZ operations. He had previously worked at Bauer Media’s predecessor Australian Consolidated Press.
Mumbrella reports Bauer will cease publishing motorsport magazine Auto Action across print, digital and social channels and is seeking a new owner for the mag. It looks to me Bauer is trying to streamline (or even exit) the auto publishing business, after closing down the local edition of Top Gear and selling three motorcycle titles to Citrus Media, both in 2015.
Marina Go, who oversees Hearst Australia titles Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, has quit after two years with Bauer Media. She will depart at the end of October to take up a board role with automotive retailer Autosports Group ahead of its initial public offering next month.
Bauer Media has announced that Matt Dominello, publisher of The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, Yours and Good Health, has resigned in order to pursue his interests outside of publishing. His departure is the second from a publisher in three days after Marina Go’s departure was revealed late last week. Dominello, who joined Bauer Media 18 months ago, will remain in the post until December in order to manage a handover.
Bauer Trader Media has sold its adventures titles to Adventures Group Holdings, a group of investors led by Robert Gallagher, the current general manager of adventures at Bauer Xcel Media. The magazine titles sold include Caravan World, Campertrailer Australia, Motorhome and Caravan Trader, Travelin, Turu and associated websites. The deal is expected to be finalised at the end of November, with existing Trader staff who work directly on the brands transitioning over to the new business.
Bauer Media has approached Seven West Media about a possible purchase of Pacific Magazines, The Australian is reporting.
Lovely, because we’d like to see all of the mag industry in Australia decimated is what that is saying.
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