Magazines Now: Rolling Stone audience grows 15 months after launch

The Brag Media secured the rights to return the Rolling Stone brand to Australia in 2019. The brand first reappeared in Australia online and the quarterly magazine launched last year.

According to Roy Morgan readership data the magazine has already built a readership of 180,000. (See below for more.)

The magazine has a long history in Australia and over the years it has cropped up at several publishing houses as well as a number of small indies also having a crack.

An Australian edition of Rolling Stone was originally launched by Melbourne-based publisher Phillip Frazer in 1970 with varying amounts of local content. The rights later changed hands to a trio of journalists Paul Gardiner, Jane Mathieson and Paul Comrie-Thomson and much later in the 1990s came under the control of publisher Phillip Keir and journalist Toby Creswell.

Ownership later transferred to ACP Magazines and later indie publisher Paper Riot before the last edition rolled off the press in January 2018.

Looking after the overall editorial for Rolling Stone Australia is Poppy Reid, managing editor of The Brag Media. Although The Brag Media currently has over 20 brands, it actively commissions local content for just some of them. The other brands include the trade title The Industry Observer and another consumer music brand, Tone Deaf.

The chief executive of The Brag Media is Luke Girgis. “Luke and I went to New York when we’d first looked into the deal with Penske Media Corporation (PMC) to license Rolling Stone here,” Reid told Mediaweek.

“We went over to New York and visited their offices in Fifth Avenue. We met with all of the different departments. We met with Jerry Portwood, Rolling Stone’s, digital director, and he summed up succinctly how Rolling Stone magazine decided on long-form features. He said, ‘Look, you know, we don’t break artists, we anoint them.’

“That’s really stuck with me, in terms of how we should be choosing the covers,” continued Reid. “It’s not about breaking artists and showing readers the next big thing. It’s about anointing them.”

The Brag Media’s latest edition
Top: Two of New Zealand’s best exports – Keith Urban with Poppy Reid

Reid said that was one of the decisions behind putting Keith Urban on the cover. “He had never been on a Rolling Stone cover before. It just felt like it was time.”

As to what works editorially, Reid noted a mix of music and lifestyle was essential. “Sex, drugs and crime work really well. A piece on the seven scariest Australian serial killers was was a fun few months work diving inside the minds of these killers.”

The deal for using content from the US edition of Rolling Stone ensures a pipeline of solid gold content. “Our deal with PMC means we can syndicate all of their articles, plus all of their video content as well onto our own platform. If they do a big long-form documentary or a video interview, we can then upload that onto our own socials and our own platforms. We’re syndicating about eight to 15 pieces a day depending on what’s available.”

Rolling Stone looks like it’s had good support from advertisers, but they are not about to turn away additional support.

“We have had instances where we’ve had to cut down copy or leave features out of the magazine, because we’ve sold so many ads, which is a great problem to have,” said Reid.

Power of the brand

The Rolling Stone name helps open doors, noted the local managing editor. “Oh, it’s wild. I used to work at the Music Network. And then came over to The Brag Media. We would sometimes be almost begging for certain interviews, say like Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters. We’d make our case, including how many clicks and the size of the audience etc. Now he just kind of say the name of the artist we want and we’re in!”

See also: How good is the brave Rolling Stone launch edition?

PwC’s magazine outlook

PwC’s Media Outlook Report released earlier this year had several sobering reminders and forecasts for the sector. Not that it really needs any more of a wake-up call.

The total consumer magazines market declined to A$482 million in 2020, representing a decline of -27.3%, said PwC.

The Report continued: The impacts of COVID-19 on consumer magazine print circulation and advertising revenue, coupled with the subsequent closure of some of the country’s most popular titles, accelerated the decline of Australia’s magazine revenue in 2020.

Despite declining revenue, magazine consumption has held relatively strong.

Diversification continues to be a driver of magazine revenue, with special events, experiences, and partnerships driving alternative options for consumers and advertisers alike. In October 2020, Vogue’s Fashion Night In festival promoted brand partners through access to special sales, prizes, online events, and masterclasses, all available virtually during the pandemic.

It is anticipated that we will see more magazines applied into new and diversified formats as a strategy to revive the sector and feed changing consumption preferences accelerated by the pandemic.

Advertising and circulation forecasts

From an advertising revenue figure of $280m in 2016, PwC is forecasting that to drop to about $90m in 2025.

From a consumer magazine circulation revenue figure of around $650m in 2016, PwC is expecting that to drop to close to $300m by 2025.

SMI data for the financial year ending June 30, 2021 reported that while year-on-year ad spend on printed magazines was down 35.5%, it was partially offset by growth in digital magazine ad spend of 10.5%.

Roy Morgan Readership

Several months ago we ranked by Roy Morgan readership the top six magazines in Australia as at March 31, 2021.

The recent June 2021 readership update for those titles is below with YOY change.

Most read magazines

In the weekly marketplace, the two fierce rivals are now of course under common ownership, as are the top five.

Australia's most read weekly magazines

For a more complete picture of the magazine marketplace here is the complete list of magazine readership figures for the past 12 months as recently released by Roy Morgan

There was an impressive Covid recovery for a number of titles, including several bouncing back with readership increases over 100,000. There were however still plenty trending down too.

Roy Morgan Readership June 2021

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