An insider reveals the “strategy” behind Fairfax’s decision to close down its two successful investment magazines Shares and Personal Investor:

Financial Review and BRW publisher Michael Gill is following the Wall Street Journal model – Smart Money
– and wants the magazines to be for “elite, sophisticates” wanting
exotic hedge funds, private equity, etc. Fair enough, but this approach
deserts the big baby boomer demographic.

Their AFR desktop strategy (where all the content from PI/Shares/BRW gets aggregated under the AFR
online service with no branding) would have cut a lot of the support
for the individual mags’ websites and ultimately undercut the
brands. Closing the mags might be a pre-emptive move because they
see the writing
on the wall.

AFR editor Glenn Burge has long lusted
after having all the mags staff as part of the bigger AFR pool –
particularly some of the specialist writers where the AFR is weak.

Savage cutbacks in the print run on PI and Shares
were good for cutting costs, but if you don’t give newsagents good
quantities you lose both position within displays and as they sell out
(say they were delivered only six copies) they are loath to reorder more
because by the time they arrive, it is probably almost time for the new
issue.

PI circulation was falling heavily – but no
management intervention? Why no investment to take the mags upmarket where
they say they want them to be? After all, PI has a fantastic heritage/loyal subscriber base going back to 1983.

The Saturday AFR
is the one under real pressure circ/revenue wise. It’s a good example of big
newspaper publishers being lousy at producing specialist mags – the only exception
is the insert mags which work well.