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Fairfax has bought the pretender to its lifestyle magazine throne NZ Life & Leisure, owned by Australian fashion and retail company R. M. Williams.
The big question is how many of the staff - some of whom left Fairfax Magazines under unhappy circumstances in 2005 - will return to the Fairfax fold.
News of the purchase leaked this week after R. M. Williams' chairman Ken Cowley revealed overtures in the firm's financial statements to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on October 31.
Fairfax did not return calls this week and yesterday issued a press statement confirming the purchase.
The buy will take the pressure off Fairfax's NZ House & Garden and Cuisine, which were competing in the same market. The audited national circulation of NZ Life & Leisure is 25,000 and readership 79,000.
Fairfax Media chief executive Joan Withers said the magazine was a natural fit with other lifestyle titles.
"Our investment is recognition of the titles standing in the market, and the exciting commercial future Fairfax Media sees for magazines of this genre."
NZ Life & Leisure editor Kate Coughlan said yesterday she would continue her role. Many editorial staff including Coughlan - a former editor of NZ House & Garden - left their jobs when INL sold its stable to Fairfax. The firm installed outsider Amanda Murphy to head the magazines division. Murphy left last year with little fanfare and Fairfax adopted a new structure where editorial control is vested in top-end management, led by Michal Mackay.
Coughlan indicated yesterday she and the editorial team would be making the move to Fairfax but could not comment on how many would be staying long-term. NZ Life & Leisure was founded in 2005 by Cowley, a former director of INL, long-time colleague of Rupert Murdoch and a member of News Corp's board of directors.
Prodigal son returns
Magazine publisher Michael McHugh is returning to New Zealand to start a new magazine/website called Mindfood, aimed at women readers. The website starts in January with the first magazine in March.
McHugh's involvement gives the venture a lot of credibility. A Kiwi who moved to Australia, he launched food title Delicious and as chief executive of Australian FPC Magazines oversaw successful titles including Vogue Living and Notebook. The latter, an integrated magazine and website, won best launch at the awards for the Australian Magazine Publishers' Association.
The Mindfood premise - a magazine for thinking woman aged 35 to 59 and covering the zeitgeist of environment, health and culture - makes sense. It rekindles memories of INL's prematurely axed Grace. The website will be marketed in Australia and New Zealand.
Third Dann
Television NZ has appointed Corin Dann as the new presenter for its Breakfast Business programme. He replaces Michael Wilson, who defected with the ASB Bank and most of the staff to join the new TV3 breakfast programme Sunrise. The Business media sector has become a family specialty. Corin's brother Liam Dann is editor of the Business Herald, and Corin's wife Lotta Dann was a former TVNZ breakfast business producer who left to join Sunrise. Corin is Radio New Zealand's economic correspondent.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards wondered if Wilson regretted his decision, saying the business programme had not suffered from the move to 6am from 6.30am, the change that prompted Wilson to leave. The Breakfast Business audience was up on the four weeks leading into the Rugby World Cup, and the 6.30am to 7am slot has risen 26 per cent.
The kids are all right
New Zealand On Air might lift its ban on taxpayer funding for programmes made for pay TV platform Sky Television, such as the kids' channel Nickelodeon and the Disney channel. Last week, NZ On Air chief executive Jane Wrightson chaired a seminar on children's television at the annual conference for the producer's body Spada, held in Wellington.
The existing policy restricts funding to free-to-air channels that reach 90 per cent of the country. But the seminar was told that channels such as Nickelodeon are included in the basic Sky subscription package with around 700,000 subscribers and that they are attracting a growing audience. As a Sky channel it did not get subsidised local content.
Surveys have showed that Nickelodeon - heavily based on US cartoon content - has made big inroads into TV2's kids' audience. Wrightson insists no change is imminent.
But the move will set off alarm bells for the free-to-air channels, particularly TVNZ which is using kids' programming to fill its new Freeview channel TVNZ 6.
Nickelodeon New Zealand has small segments of local content and a spokesman said it wanted a more local feel.
Producers at the conference mostly survive off taxpayer subsidies so they won't mind. But the question is a dilemma for NZ on Air as it shares out taxpayer cash to an ever-increasing number of media. Does it focus attention on one or two channels or does it just follow the audience and give money to any popular channels that are on pay or free TV?
The other option is that NZ On Air focuses on properly funding some good kids' shows so they don't need sponsorship deals. But that is unlikely to happen.
Cheap as chips
Website developer and Zeald.com chief executive David Kelly says the market is crowded with huge numbers of developers - often one-man bands - touting for work. One estimate was there were 1000 web developers in Auckland and around 55 in Tauranga, with some charging low rates to get work.
He says Zeald.com is promoting itself partly on scale and longevity.
Kelly was selling his wares to journalists at a launch of his book Secrets of Website Persuasion, which he is trying to sell overseas. He is putting in a sizeable promotional effort, hiring PR company Creo to lunch business journalists. On this occasion, it worked.
