Pacific Magazines axes Famous Magazines’ print edition launches website as replacement
Pacific Magazines has announced it will cease publishing the print edition of Famous Magazine in another blow to the magazine industry. The current edition will be the last.
The publisher said 25 staff are affected by the decision and the company will look to “redeploy up to 10 into new opportunities within the business” while the remainder will be made redundant.
The weekly magazine will be replaced with a new website, FamousLive, which the publisher emphasised would be: “targeted at social and mobile video-obsessed millennials”.
Peter Zavecz, CEO, Pacific Magazines, commented on the print magazine’s closure: “The decision to cease publishing in print is never an easy one and we sincerely thank the Famous staff for their contribution to the brand. After much consideration, we feel that refocusing on a digital-only model with FamousLive is the correct one.”
The move comes amid continuing declining magazine revenues for print and sliding circulations with Pacific Magazines.
On the launch of the FamousLive website Zavecz said: “Our strategy is about adding value to audiences. The launch of FAMOUSLive refocuses our energy and investment to better tap into the immediacy, innovation and social currency this digital native market demands.”
In the announcement, the company said the new FamousLive website was and built by Pacific‟s in-house team, led by Darren Kerry, head of digital and innovation.
Darren Kerry, head of digital, commented: “A true social video and mobile first digital destination, FAMOUSLive deploys some great new tech, leveraging the Seven West Media data stack and offering our commercial partners unique targeting opportunities for both their programmatic and direct campaigns. And this is just the start.”
The most recent circulation figures Famous saw its circulation drop by 25% from 60,122 copies sold in the three months ending December 2014 to just 45,096 in the last quarter of last year.
Famous Magazine is a homegrown brand launched by Pacific Magazines some 10 years ago.
Nic Christensen and Zoe Samios
“The weekly magazine will be replaced with a new website, FamousLive, which the publisher emphasised would be: “targetted at social and mobile video-obsessed millennials”.”
Because nothing like that exists in the market already.
Hopefully the spelling is also better than their press release.
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More editorial staff to say goodbye.
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I believe the typo sits with Mumbrella, not the press release.
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Hi DJB,
Indeed it was an error from our end, not the release, we’ve altered now.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
Absolutely no loss – to the industry or to advertisers. The people who buy magazines like that are very low income and can barely read anyway – hardly value propositions.
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My heart goes out to the staff facing redundancy. All the best to those affected.
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Bit of a sweeping statement there, Liza… It’s actually a huge loss for the staff who rely on having a job.
Regardless of the content (which is usually dictated by the editor) or the perceived calibre of readers, a large group of people lost their jobs today and that’s a pretty sad outcome.
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That’s incredibly hard to hear. Another magazine biting the dust is never good news, no matter what you think of its content.
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Liza – what a gross generalisation to make. You know who looses out? The editorial team that was made redundant. I was faced with it last year via Bauer and I am having a tough time finding a job. Not to mention the panic, the stress of how you can support yourself financially, and also the daunting task of having to get out there again and look for work in the hopes someone notices your value. This is in addition to feeling useless, not having a sense of purpose and low self esteem.
Think about what and how you say things, because there are now a lot of people out there like myself who have been trying to deal with the loss of a job and also a steady income, while trying so hard to be positive. Do you know how hard that is? Being so flippant with your comments is ignorant and also disrespectful.
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