Jack Matthews and Allan Browne to depart as Fairfax restructures
Fairfax Metro CEO Jack Matthews and Fairfax Regional Media’s CEO Allan Browne are to depart the company following a major restructure of Fairfax, which will see the company move all its newspaper assets into one division.
The restructure will see Fairfax reorganised into five corporate divisions, with the company to bring together its metro division, which publishes The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, with The Financial Review Group, Fairfax Regional Media and Fairfax’s agricultural and local newspapers into one single division called Australian Publishing Media.
The other divisions include: a separate arm for the print and digital assets of Domain, Digital Venture which will include Fairfax sites like RSVP and Stayz, while Fairfax Radio and Fairfax New Zealand remain unchanged from the previous structure.
Allen Williams, the current CEO of Fairfax New Zealand will take over in the newly created role of managing director of Australian Publishing Media.
Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood said: “The formation of Australian Publishing Media will simplify the way that we do business. We have already integrated our print and digital activities in the Metro division, making us a genuine multiplatform media company.”
CEO of the Financial Review Group Brett Clegg becomes director of Business Media, a section within the Australian Publishing Media division. Business Media will include both the Australian Financial Review and also The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s BusinessDay section. Mumbrella understands at this stage there will be no copy sharing between the two business news desks.
Head of the agricultural publications Grant Cochrane and chief of marketplaces Nic Cola, will both also be taking on new roles within Australian Publishing Media. There are also reports that Fairfax Metro Media COO David Hoath has departed the company. Fairfax has refused to comment on whether he is still with the company.
The restructure will also see the creation of a new national sales team for all Fairfax’s metropolitan, business, regional and agricultural newspapers.
The new team will be lead by Fairfax’s commercial director Ed Harrison who has been promoted to group sales director. He will report directly to Allen Williams.
“Fairfax has an enviable set of advertising clients. In many cases, our deep relationships with these clients span multiple Fairfax divisions, functions and brands. Consolidating these relationships will allow us to work in true partnership and make the most of Fairfax’s large, diverse and valuable audiences,” said Hywood.
In making the announcement Hywood also thanked both Matthews and Browne saying:
I would like to acknowledge and thank Jack and Allan for their huge contributions to our company.
Today’s Fairfax Media is an integrated multi-media company. It’s a different from the place Jack joined seven years ago and Jack has driven the change…
Alan has been a remarkable leading in the regional business. Through difficult times he has established these newspaper as the most resilient and robust in the group.
Jack Matthews departure the company after seven years follows the decision to reduce the existing executive leadership team roles from five to three.
“My seven years at Fairfax has been a fantastic experience. Always interesting and challenging, most of the time even fun. I’d like to specifically thank the people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Any success I’ve achieved can largely be attributed to their quality, commitment and support. I wish them, and Fairfax, all the best,” said Matthews.
Allan Brown who leaves the company after 25 years with both Rural Press and the Fairfax said: “Over the last 25 years at Rural Press and Fairfax, I’ve worked with fantastic people and we have built a great publishing business of more than 200 title across Australia. I am proud of the team’s achievements and wish all those that continue this legacy the very best.”
As of 11am Fairfax shares had fallen 3.7 per cent in to 0.597 in the wake of the changes.
Nic Christensen
Update: Mumbrella editor-in-chief Tim Burrowes asked Matthews about his career in a recent interview. In the interview Matthews hinted that his departure might indeed be approaching.
Smart move by Fairfax I reckon.
Though, no mention of the other Marketplace businesses MyCareer or Drive. Both are performing horribly against their competitors and are a waste of resources and think space for management. I bet in a couple of months we will see both quietly shut down or downgraded into editorial only ventures.
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While it’s supposed to be about reducing bureaucracy, it looks like it’s just a cost reduction exercise. People like Clegg lose their management team. But it will create a nightmare when the channel sales are let loose. Some of those rate cards are going into the toilet. I predict a clusterF***
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Having worked with Jack Mathews back in the FD days, he was a great guy to work for and he brought a consistent vision to a business unit that was all over the shop. I hope that the Australian media industry can keep someone of his ability in country, but for some reason I doubt it…
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Most people who worked with Jack appreciate his digital vision which is exactly what Fairfax Media needs. Lets hope Greg Hywood installs digital people in at a senior level.
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Who is responsible for the autoplay vids on the Fairfax network and the link baiting?
Both are underhand, short term, ‘quick $’ related techniques, which alienate an audience.
I like Fairfax, I feel, out of the rest of the commercial media landscape, they give quite a balanced view (unlike the ACA / Today Tonight styled Murdoch press.) I just wish that the decision makers at Fairfax will stop being black hat and start focusing on the users experience. Will this now cease that Jack has departed, or was he against it himself?
I will spell it out for you Farifax: If you focus on building a long term positive experience for your users the money will come – I promise it will.
Quality over quantity
Stop autoplay
Stop link baiting
Hire great editorial staff and empower them.
Lead by example; innovate!
Become the leading online press platform for informed Australians…
(I do not work for Fairfax; I just worry that with their current tactics they are going to fade away, however I want them to challenge Murdoch.)
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Who will be the new .com hero??
What will they do with Domain reas worth 3.5b ?
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For all the harping on about autoplay, The Sydney Morning Herald website is the number one Current Events and Global News website in Australia (according to Nielson). So they are the leading online platform already. Farewell Jack, you’ll be missed.
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Curious fingers the core problem. Fairfax has no product focus and no product strategy. This re-structure is a cost reduction cover that will cement the jumbled approach to product. Corbett and Hywood and strangling the company. You can bet that this is solely about bad profit results and nothing else.
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Jack Matthews is a good guy and l hope like many,we can retain his passion in this industry. If we don’t those kwis will!
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Curious – you make some good points. While there’s no doubt Fairfax still has some work to do, smh.com.au is already the leading news website in Australia. It has the highest readership of all the news sites and outstrips all News Limited online mastheads and portals.
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He’ll be missed. A good guy who backed new ideas. He is someone who likes to grow things & bet you he just got sick of the cost cutting that Fairfax embodies these days. He build Metro Media. Farewell Jack O
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@Steve.
I like Fairfax and their balanced journalism. I am worried that the balance and comprehension is going to fade away and we will be left with Murdoch style slop.
With regards to the stats, do views of e.g; Drive, add to SMH stats, if Drive is viewed in Sydney?
How many false impressions are also added to these stats from the link baiting; (user reads the headline, then click and after 3 seconds click back because the headline was misleading…)
I don’t mind the SMH site, if it wasn’t for the underhand tactics registered above. Without them it would might actually rock!
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Link to what I mean here: re “smh.drive.com.au”
Which ‘portal’ records this traffic? SMH or Drive?
Can Nielsen confirm?
http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-.....2hccy.html
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