BRW to close weekly print edition
Fairfax Media’s BRW – Australia’s best known business magazine – is to cease publication as a weekly title, Mumbrella can reveal.
BRW – previously Business Review Weekly – will continue as a digital brand and with monthly flasgship editions such as its annual Rich List and Best Places To Work surveys
Mumbrella understands that publisher Amanda Gome – who took the helm just a year ago – is considering her options.
Gome
Gome returned to Fairfax in October last year with a brief to bring a new digital strategy to titles within the company’s then Financial Review Group – BRW, Smart Investor and Asset magazine.
James Thomson was appointed editor of BRW, Joanne Gray to Boss and James Frost to Smart Investor.
BRW quickly unveiled a new website, app and redesign, with Smart Investor following later.
Since BRW’s digital relaunch, Mumbrella understands that subscribers to its email newsletter have grown from 8,000 to 40,000 and monthly unique browsers have increased from 80,000 to 280,000.
As well as the website, the BRW app will continue.
The flagship editions , where relevant, will now be inserted in The Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age as a means of widening circulation.
The move comes just a fortnight after Fairfax revealed the closure of its monthly glossy newspaper-inserted titles the(sydney)magazine and the(melbourne)magazine and its quarterly title Financial Review Capital as part of cuts which will see another 25 editorial staff let go from the business unit and 20 from the News and Life Media unit.
Earlier this year Gome and Thomson talked to Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes about the BRW relaunch during which she said “We will be weekly for a very long time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20AOwRQpOtk
Gome – formerly CEO of Private Media has previously described her focus as being on building entrepreneurial business sites.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Sad but inevitable. I guess with all these print closures what’s going to happen to the local newsagency? That said, people will pay good money for good business advice so BRW should thrive in the digital space – low overheads and high paywalls….
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All you have to do is to travel on public transport to see people are not reading magazines, they are either looking out the window or on their electronic devices
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In Affectionate Remembrance
of
PRINT MEDIA,
which died at Pyrmont
on
11th OCTOBER 2013,
Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing
friends and acquaintances
R.I.P.
N.B.—The body will be cremated and the
ashes taken to The Australian
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I tried to renew as a paying subscriber from a retention e-mail but after the entire process (CC Details) and the works i got a message that it couldn’t be done as I was an existing subscriber – please call 1300…. It was 8 at night, they were closed – thought for sure someone would call to follow up (easiest sale ever – Hi, our system hasn’t processed your payment, can I do it now? #Yes)
Rule #1: Make it easy for customers to give you money.
Disappointing that it is closing, BRW is a superb publication (I can be disappointed, I actually subscribed for a few years). I was given web access – I think it was Meh compared with the magazine and my couch.
I am ‘online’ all the time for work etc – It was great to get offline and still read quality business content.
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@ Offal…. I’d hardly call print dead. If you just take just the five best selling women’s weekly magazines in Australia – Woman’s Day (345,000 per week), New Idea (291K), That’s Life (203K), Take Five (175K), TV Week (160K) – that’s close to 1.2 million magazines a week!!!!! And guess what? Unlike most digi sites people actually pay for them. That’s a business model NO digital site in Australia can hold a candle to. Just chuck in newspapers here in Sydney – The SMH (142K DAILY), The Tele (310K) and The Oz (116K)… that’s another 570,000 people who apparently aren’t reading print every day….
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Would be interesting to understand the cause – is it falling circ and circ rev. or is it ad revenue driving the challenges?
Everyone claims no one reads magazines but the audit numbers aren’t that bad. The real bleed appears to be in the ad spends – agencies appear to be deserting the format.
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BRW is certainly not good business advice. It’s potentially one of the worst business magazines i’ve read in a long time. I regret subscribing. I think the low-cost, online format will suit the sort of news that BRW sought to publish.
AFR Capital on the other hand was worth keeping, even on a quarterly schedule.
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*the real ex-reader* – you hit the nail on the head. Lack of media agency interest in the format is the KEY driving factor behind these closures.
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I predict Fairfax Media will axe the weekday (Monday to Friday) print editions of SMH and The Age within 12 months. The signs are not good.
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Kingmaker – how long will the mag industry allow that to happen? I know the agency teat fed them for a long time, but now its starving them. When do they establish better direct advertiser relationships?
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Very sad. Shame they couldn’t make more of a stab at keeping it. Other business publications are still doing ok eg. Forbes, Harvard Business Review etc.
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So does that mean it’s now going to be BRM (print) or BRD (digital)?
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@ anon, To be fair it was intended with an element of humour, (even the english cricket team is till playing long after their “death”.)
I love print, have spent decades involved with it, but we do all have to accept that it is on a one way street.
I agree that digi isnt paying its way and eventually it will have to, but Faifrfax’s closing of magazines last week.. and BRW this week is very telling.
The emperors clothes are threadbare, whether we can see his genitals is moot.
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i’m really disappointed as I love BRW, some periods more than others. Amanda Gome is an excellent editor. It’s not going to work online, there are already good business websites.
Why don’t they make it a monthly?
When The Bulletin closed I also asked why they didn’t make it a monthly. People just don’t have the time to read a business weekly, it’s too much.
BOSS is the most boring, dull magazine in existence. How can that survive and BRW be closed?
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@ Louise… BOSS is free with The Oz. BRW is $7 at newsagents.
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Hard to see how AFR print will survive either. Fairfax has forced the digital issue but appears to have no quality plan for its products. They all are simply fading away.
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Thanks JB, but even free Boss is still the dullest magazine in history! Why not make BRW a monthly and/or include it in The Fin every month?!
So today in SMH it’s revealed that it was the advice of consulting firm Bain & Co to shut BRW down. Consulting firm?!!!
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@JB – BOSS is free with the AFR, not The Oz, but I agree with Louise, BOSS is an incredibly boring three minute read.
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So sad, so predictable.
On the bright side, a boost for digital.
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@ Fairfax Lover… you’re right. I was thinking of The Deal which is free with The Oz. And that is truly, truly dull. It would turn students off economics for life if you read that thing….
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