Zoo Weekly relaunches ‘retired’ website as extension of Viewa content
Bauer Media owned ‘lads magazine’ Zoo Weekly has relaunched its website and subscription newsletter this month despite the magazine “retiring” the online assets in October last year, Mumbrella can reveal.
When contacted by Mumbrella, Bauer Media they said: “At this stage the site is an extension of the Viewa content and is an extension of the reader service for the minute, in addition to the brands social media presence.”
The strategy will see them utilise Viewa, an augmented reality application for smartphones and tablets, helping to drive online and print engagement. It allows readers to open the app and hold their smartphone or tablet over an image within a magazine for immediate delivery of digital content.
The publisher declined to comment the reasons for its change of heart in its online strategy.
In October last year Zoo “retired” its website and online community, with Ewen Page, associate publisher of the title, telling Mumbrella at the time: “We’re retiring the website but we’re not getting out of digital.”
Subscribers to the title received a newsletter, the first since the site had been closed, on March 2 with the subject line ‘We are back!’
At the time of the ‘retirement’, a notice on the website directed readers to a digital edition of the magazine and encouraged them to subscribe to dating website ‘Zoosingles.com.au’.
According to the most recent figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations which take in the months of October to December 2014, Zoo Weekly saw its circulation drop by 36.3 per cent, shifting an average of 24,122 copies a week.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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