Australia's landmark glossy monthly popular magazine Cleo – is closing – those nasty economic pressures have come to bare and in the magazine sector money speaks.
The final edition of Cleo, which was first published in 1972, will be the March edition on sale February 22, Bauer Media announced.
Ita Buttrose its founding editor told News Corp she had seen the closure coming. Ita Buttrose weas quoted as saying: "The writing was on the wall once I knew they were going to start stripping stories from other publications rather than commissioning stories here in Australia."
The article cited Bauer as stating that it plans to relaunch Dolly with a greater focus on the online market. And here is the rub: Bauer Media Group interim CEO Andreas Schoo said - "Scale, engagement and a robust digital strategy are key to our success, and we believe we have a compelling offer in Dolly and Cosmopolitan to lead our young women's portfolio into the future,"
New Life
The Australasian Religious Press Association annual conference a short few months ago in Brisbane, in this same context of Christian media going digital, saw one of the speakers cite New Life as closing.
Alas the editor Rev Bob Thomas was in the audience and called to the speaker's attention that the evangelical fortnightly newspaper of 80 years was alive and well but now in a digital format.
Bob Thomas then gave a detailed account as to New Life's morphism from its traditional hard copy with postage and print costs into a virtual digital publication and a significant increased readership.
Christian Media
Christian media across the board has not been slack in taking on the digital world and today although some publications might appear in hard copy, the larger part of their readership are through their digital editions.
They, like the secular media have realised the cost factors with tighter budgets reflect what is happening across all media, and as Christian readers have adapted to their secular media on line, so too their Christian media.
On Saturday 16 April the "One Day in Melbourne – Evangelicals On-line" one day conference is being held at the Salvation Army headquarters in Blackburn on this very subjects.
The leading plenary is by Sophia Sinclair on social media and the afternoon panellists are:
Dr Bruce Redman—Platforms
Head of Salvation Army Media
Dr Rowland Croucher—Blogging
John Mark Ministries
Ms Sheelagh Wegman—Editing
Tasmanian Anglican Editor
Mr David Goodwin—Design
Former Editor of On-Fire 'Salvation Army'
All five are giving their time free of charge for the Gospel. The day has no charge so as to ensure the Christian community has access to the latest information.
The focus is for missions publication editors, Christian bloggers, parish publications editors, those engaged in social media, and the forgotten Christian Media groups too small to be normally associated with for the professional ARPA group.
To register for One Day in Melbourne Saturday 16 April - 11.00am – 4.30pm. timeout@bushorchestra.com 0419 917 713
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html