‘$750K worth of savings are expected’: Luke Girgis departs The Brag Media
The Brag Media has made some major leadership changes six months after being acquired by ASX-listed music company Vinyl Group, including a review that sees managing director and publisher Luke Girgis depart.
Current general manager, Jessica Hunter, has been promoted to head of The Brag Media, while Billboard’s Lars Brandle has been appointed as head of content.
Vinyl Group said it is expected that there will be $750,000 worth of savings over the next year, following the thorough review of the business and Girgis’ departure.
I couldn’t agree more. The way that business was run was far from profitable, or professional, and the traffic was driven by US titles, not their O&O brands as they try to claim. Behind the shiny awards ceremonies and bold claims, it was a rogue operation with a lot of questionable business decisions. No wonder they’ve let him go.
The op-eds were an embarrassment and the Australian publishing operation was non existent. The smart move by Vinyl would be to take Girgis salary and invest it back into the the local titles. Word is he also had an Assistant. It’s good to see an iconic title like Rolling Stone is now in the hands of a more sophisticated operation. The fact a hack like Girgis ever got his hands on that title shows how far the publishing industry has fallen
Brag was a small re-seller media business infatuated with it’s own PR. Vinyl probably realised it is time to park the self-promoting op-eds, save 750k and attempt to properly stitch the bandaid business together. If I was a media buyer who worked with this business, I would be interrogating those results.
Absolutely disgusting the sort of money Girgis was on. Like a tapeworm…
I wonder if Luke is going to update his self-created Wikipedia page?
A $750K salary for a business of that size is absolutely ridiculous. It’s no wonder they let him go.
Most people don’t understand The Brag’s underlying business. They call themselves Australia’s largest youth publisher, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
For a business that generates $8.39 million in revenue, the large majority of this is for managing the ad sales of larger US publications like Variety, Playwire and Hypebeast here domestically. The bulk of this revenue flows offshore which is why you see them having only ~$335k in net profit. The average growth of 125% they’ve seen the past two years? It was simply bringing on board new US publications with very little of it flowing through to their bottom line. Girgis could’ve doubled their net profit if he’d taken a pay and chosen to invest back into the business.
If you actually look at the traffic to The Brag’s owned and operated publications on IPSOS or SimilarWeb the brands are tiny.