New chief executives plan for change at media heavyweights

APN News & Media CEO Brett Chenoweth. Photo / Supplied

Companies that control newspapers and dominate online news have new chief executives planning more integration of media assets.

John Fairfax Holdings yesterday appointed Greg Hywood as a permanent CEO.

He had held the role on an interim basis at the end of last year.

More changes are ahead for the company whose New Zealand assets include Stuff, the Sunday Star-Times, the Dominion Post and the Press, among others.

Hywood - who is a former publisher of the Australian Financial Review - had been filling in since Brian McCarthy left.

McCarthy was unable to make a long-term commitment to change at the company including the creation of a new metropolitan division that combines most of Fairfax's digital media.

It includes key Australian newspapers including the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

It involves boosting the internet-based media alongside print. But the board will be hoping it marks the end of upheavals in the top management for the media firm.

Hywood is the third Fairfax chief executive since David Kirk was appointed in 2005.

At the start of this year Brett Chenoweth took over as chief executive of APN News and Media, publisher of the Herald and nzherald.co.nz, as well as other assets.

APN also owns magazines and half of The Radio Network.

Last year APN also embarked on a campaign for greater integration of its media interests including newspapers, radio and online in this country.

Chenoweth replaced longtime chief executive Brendan Hopkins and this coincided with a shake-up of the APN board.

Chenoweth said Fairfax and APN were going through a similar change of direction and he expected there would be other changes in the group. But he did not think there was any change in the competitive make-up of the New Zealand markets.

Hywood could not be reached for comment at the time of going to print.