Alison Veness-McGourty's 10 network

jordan graham/10 magazine australia

Kirstie Clements isn’t the only editor-in-chief to have toppled from the totem pole of Australian fashion magazines over the past two years. In December 2010, 17 months before Clements’ 13-year tenure at Vogue Australia was abruptly terminated, Alison Veness-McGourty upped stumps from Australia’s biggest magazine publisher, ACP Magazines [since acquired by the Bauer Media Group], after 11 years with the company, initially as deputy editor, then editor and editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar and launch editor of Grazia Australia. Following a short stint as a freelance brand consultant, in August last year the Bristol-born fashion veteran announced a joint venture with UK-based Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou to publish Australian editions of Neophitou-Apostolou’s 11 year-old indie style bible 10 and its menswear offshoot 10 Men. After bubbling along on 10magazine.com.au’s digital platform since September, the Australian print editions finally see the light of day on February 1st. What will 10 and 10 Men Australia offer fashion consumers in an already-saturated magazine market and what are Veness-McGourty’s thoughts on the fashion and publishing industries, almost three decades after she launched her career on a London tabloid chasing Linda Evangelista and the Princess of Wales? Frockwriter asks her more than 10 questions.

Katerina Chang is the bomb

Frockwriter first noticed Katerina Chang at the David Jones show in Sydney last month. As it emerges, it is no surprise that we haven't seen that much of her. Living in Australia for four years, initially studying a marketing degree at the University of Western Sydney, this 21 year-old Taiwanese beauty with Marlene Dietrich cheekbones first walked into the Sydney offices of Chadwick Models in July last year. She has been quietly building a body of work.

Alison Veness-McGourty out at Grazia

life.com

The latest in a (very) long line of recent ACP executive departures, Alison Veness-McGourty apparently cleared out her editor-in-chief’s desk at Grazia Australia before Christmas. But it took a Facebook status update from Damien Woolnough, the online editor of Grazia rival Vogue Australia on January 4, to alert the industry that something was up. Noted Woolnough: “Wow. Only Jan 4 and already big changes in the industry...... Nothing here guys.... Chair shifting on another ship with one man overboard”. Today, the official confirmation from ACP managing director Phil Scott – via Vogue licensee News Ltd - that Veness-McGourty has indeed resigned. Scott, with whom frockwriter hears Veness-McGourty did not see eye to eye, dismissed rumours that former Australian Women’s Weekly editor Robyn Foyster, now an associate publisher at ACP, would be replacing her. Scott also denied that Veness-McGourty was pushed because of Grazia’s poor performance. But given that sales slumped more than 10percent to 55,026 in the most recent audit, perhaps it’s not that surprising - one of six ACP titles to see a 10percent+ sales dive year on year (also OK!, TV Week, Zoo Weekly, NW and Picture). The founding editor of Grazia's Australian edition, which launched on the cusp of the GFC in July 2008, Veness-McGourty previously spent eight years as editor of ACP stablemate Harpers Bazaar Australia. During her tenure, the latter at one point outsold Vogue. 

The power of hubris: Should Bonds' charity have begun at home?

grazia

A Bonds charity singlet emblazoned with “The Power of Humanity” Red Cross slogan and launched a week ago in collaboration with ACP's Grazia to raise $50,000 towards the Victorian Bushfires Appeal, may come back to haunt the intimate apparel giant in the wake of this week’s news that Bonds’ Pacific Brands parent plans to axe 1850 jobs. And notably of course, following today’s revelations that PacBrands executives gave themselves 170percent pay hikes in 2008, with remuneration for the company’s 13 directors more than doubling from $7million to $15.5 million – a move that has been branded "obscene" and a "corporate crime".

The $25 singlet was apparently initiated by Grazia, with product and services donated by Bonds and Wazzup Screenprinting.

Two thousand singlets were made, with half distributed through General Pants.

In its February 16 edition, Grazia encouraged readers to buy the “exclusive and strictly limited edition” feelgood merchandise, devoting a corner of its front cover to a shot of Bonds ambassador Sarah Murdoch in the garment:


grazia via GWAS

On February 18, Australian fashion media-specialist blogger Erica Bartle criticised the initiative on her Girl With a Satchel blog.

Noted Bartle:

“Grazia is well-meaning, no doubt, but I can't help but feel its fashionification of this unfortunate event borders on being tacky… I can't help but feel I'm being served a tabloid Big Mac with a charitable, calorie-free side salad”.

On Wednesday this week – prior to the retrenchments announcement by Pacific Brands – Bartle (an ACP contributor) posted an apology to Grazia, saying that she had had a change of heart.

The post prompted a barrage of commentary from readers (including this journalist), many of whom thought that Bartle had gotten it right the first time.

In the comments on Bartle's latest post, one anonymous poster claims that the photograph of Murdoch in the slogan-emblazoned singlet was a retouched version of an earlier image from the January 2008 edition of ACP stablemate, Harpers Bazaar.

While this remains to be seen, the singlet and image appear to have been organised with the blessing of Murdoch, who released the following statement to Grazia for the February 16 edition:

“The Power of Humanity has been well and truly witnessed with so many Australians banding together to support those devastated by the fires. Every dollar raised from the sale of these Chesty singlets will go to Australian Red Cross to continue that support. Thank you.”

You have to wonder just how Murdoch is feeling about her ongoing Bonds ambassadorial role today.

Grazia stops the press

The hits just keep on coming for ACP's apparently unstoppable fashion weekly, Grazia, judging by this mock newspaper promo mailout (above) just sent to advertisers by ACP and which floated frockwriter's way on Friday afternoon. Evidently jack of all the negative press coverage, ACP decided to go into the news business itself. And guess what? When it comes to Grazia, it's all good news!

The headline blasts:

"Grabbing headlines for all the right reasons!"

Underneath, a score of more good news headlines, which include the revelation that television advertising is due to recommence in March.

Among the bullet points:

"Blitzing the newsagents with sexy solo point of sale initiatives"

"Increasing presence at premium supermarket checkouts and reading centres"

"Grazia.com.au stronger than ever - 16million page views and 1.5million unqiue browers since launch"

And the pièce de résistance:

"Advertising revenue surpassing all expectations"

Given how many names of industry experts and authorities are rattled off, it's a wonder that grazia.com.au could not ID a photograph of Australia's hottest new modelling export, Myf Shepherd, two weeks ago. But look, let's not dwell on that. With one fashion staffer recently moving off the masthead and into a consulting role - Lenna Boord - perhaps Grazia's authorities just have a little too much on their plates.

You can’t blame ACP for wanting to make its own headlines, considering how bad some of Grazia's press has been.

First there were retrenchments, amidst rumblings of 150 job cuts, at ACP parent PBL – with Grazia’s future mooted to be uncertain.

Then there was the rumour that the magazine might move monthly.

The rumour was swiftly refuted by ACP Magazines' Publishing Director Women’s Lifestyle Pat Ingram - shortly before ACP made the announcement that Ingram had decided to transition to retirement.

Most recently came the news that Woolworths plans to move Grazia from the prime checkout position in “the majority” of its 780 stores to the general magazine section, due to slow sales, with predictions that circulation figures for the December quarter will be lower than the 70,000 of the initial audit.

As noted by Australia's leading fashion media-specialist blog, Girl With A Satchel, advertising/promotional pages accounted for a mere 10percent of Grazia's recent issue #27, compared with 38percent of the launch issue and 19percent and 23percent of the September 1 and December 1 issues respectively.

“But it is just hanging in” one industry analyst told frockwriter.

Obviously there was some terrific news for Grazia in November, with the news that the magazine had “hit launch expectations” by achieving its target circulation of 70,000+ copies for its preliminary Audit Bureau of Circulations audit, based on an average of the first 10 weeks of sales.

According to Nielsen Online data, the grazia.com.au website generated 9,830,512 million page impressions in the first three months, a result Pat Ingram described as “incredible”.

Indeed some considered the news so incredible that they bitched about the figures on GWAS, accusing ACP of manipulating figures.

Friday's even more terrific Grazia news coincided of course with some very bad news for the media sector.

News Corporation announced a 42percent profit nosedive, the company's biggest trading loss in its 50 year history: a $US5.9billion first half net loss (A$9.2billion), due to a second quarter net loss of $US6.417 billion ($A9.82 billion).

News Corp’s Wall Street Journal subsidiary announced 25 job cuts, with the title’s newly expanded retail and luxury division the hardest hit. Sending tremors through the fashion business, those departing include the WSJ’s 23 year veteran fashion reporter Teri Agins, for whom the WSJ’s fashion round was original created in the 1980s.

Earlier in the week ACP’s PBL stablemate Ninemsn announced 20 job cuts.

The news that ad revenue at Grazia is "surpassing all expectations" follows the release of the March issues of Australian Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, whose bumper ad pages from luxury fashion and beauty companies suggest that both magazines are defying the global economic meltdown.

Given today's media story in The Australian however, which cites one industry source claiming that LVMH Group, the world's biggest luxury conglomerate, has cut its Australian advertising budget by 30percent, it's more than a little confusing trying to work out precisely what is going down.

Another local media industry insider told frockwriter that "distress rates" have become the new black in the Australasian fashion and beauty media, with 25percent off ad card rates offered by some outlets - with last-ditch, last-minute offers of 40percent off not unheard of.

Model ID fail @ ACP

myf shepherd, not shepard, at christian dior haute couture SS09 - and definitely not alexandra agoston-o'connor/getty

Frockwriter doesn’t want to be too hard on the poor old worker bees over at ACP, especially in the wake of today’s news that this week’s edition of Grazia carries a mere 11 pages of ads and advertorial. Whilst Woolworths reports that it is moving Grazia from the prime checkout position in “the majority” if its 780 stores to the general magazine section, due to slow sales - amidst predictions that circulation figures for the December quarter, due for release next month, are expected to be lower than the 70,000 of the initial audit. But look for all the time that the “acp.com.au” domain name spends on this blog every day, we are disappointed that a few key details seem to be getting lost in translation.

Firstly, accompanying Grazia's online haute couture diary from Alexandra Agoston-O’Connor today, is an image from yesterday’s Christian Dior show in Paris, together with the caption:

“Alexandra walks in the Dior haute couture spring 09 show in Paris”.

screengrab grazia.ninemsn.com.au

Guys, that is not Agoston-O’Connor at all, but in fact another Australian model, Myf Shepherd.

FYI this is Agoston-O'Connor in the same show:


christian dior SS09 haute couture/getty

Memo to ACP stablemate Harpers Bazaar moreover, that is in fact the correct spelling of Shepherd's surname, as distinct from “Myf Shepard”, as is reported today by the Harpers' team re Shepherd's new incarnation as muse for the Superfine denim brand (which frockwriter reported last week):


screengrab harpersbazaar.com.au

We all make mistakes. But, you know, if indie blogs and web forums which don't have your gargantuan resources (not to mention advertising) can get it right, then why on earth can't you?

It's not like you spend so many hours newsgathering your own original stories that you don't have the time to check.

Sadly this is neither the first time that Harpers has called Shepherd Myf "Shepard":


screengrab harpersbazaar.com.au

Nor even the second occasion:


screengrab harpersbazaar.com.au

Thanking you.

Grazia's "incredible" figures while other weeklies slide

ninesmn

Frockwriter hinted that Grazia might have a good Friday. Well congratulations are due to Alison Veness-McGourty and her Grazia team, who have apparently dumbfounded the critics – including frockwriter – by achieving the magazine’s target circulation of 70,000+ copies for its preliminary Audit Bureau of Circulations audit. That’s obviously an average of the first 10 weeks of sales, including what one assumes would have been blockbuster early issues. It's about the only good news for ACP on the weekly front, with the circulations of all other Australian weeklies falling from 0.7 to 18.4percent in the July-September period. Pacific’s Famous fell by 18.4percent.

In a press release Pat Ingram, Publishing Director, Women’s Lifestyle, ACP Magazines, noted:

“We are delighted to confirm that Grazia has hit our launch expectations. Readers and advertisers have embraced Grazia’s unique mix of fashion, entertainment, news, trends and beauty and these figures underscore how in just three months Grazia has already made its mark.”

There remains some confusion as to the exact nature of this first audit.

Media analyst Steve Allen told frockwriter on Tuesday that it was a “publisher’s statement” - and indicated that Grazia’s figures had been flagged with the letters “PR” on the Audit Bureau of Circulations November 30 audit report.

B&T also refers to it today as a “publisher’s statement”.

Crikey today refers to it as a “publisher’s estimate”.

Yesterday, the Audit Bureau of Circulations told this blog that it most definitely is not a publisher’s statement, but a "preliminary" independent audit, based on 10 weeks of sales, because the magazine had not been publishing for the complete 13 week cycle.

Pat Ingram also referred to the success of grazia.com.au which has generated, she noted, “an incredible 9,830,512 million page impressions in just three months”, citing Nielsen Online data for the July 21-October 31 period.

Anyone who punches in the grazia.com.au URL to web intel site alexa.com might be nonplussed to find that grazia.com.au does not even register on alexa.com’s Top 100,000 list.

Punch in grazia.ninemsn.com.au however and it certainly does register in the Top 100,000 – not as grazia.ninemsn.com.au, but as ninemsn.com.au. This is for the simple reason that alexa.com makes no differentiation between the two.

A Nielsen Online spokeswoman told frockwriter that Nielsen has definitely been tracking the right site. Well, that's good to know.

Citing Nielsen data once again, ninemsn.com.au calls itself:

“Australia's leading online media company”, which is visited by "over 8.2 million people each month, representing 75 per cent of Australian Internet users".

Frockwriter understands the ninemsn.com.au site would have generated “hundreds of millions” of page impressions over the July 21-October 31 period.

With link love from ninemsn.com.au, and a A$7million marketing campaign, by all accounts it is not so incredible that grazia.com.au could achieve those results.

Grazia's good Friday?

ninesmn

Ah Grazia. Has there been another Australian fashion magazine which attracted as much kvetching from the get go? Frockwriter can’t think of one – and nor can Australia’s most high profile media analyst, Fusion Strategy’s Steve Allen. Launched on July 21st amidst a blaze of hype, and a A$7million marketing campaign, the knives were out for the mag by mid September, with reports of slow newsagency sales and word on the street that Grazia publisher Australian Consolidated Press “won’t remotely” make its November audit target of 70,000+ copies. Then last month came reports of ACP retrenchments and further speculation that 150 jobs at the PBL parent, in addition to some magazines – notably Grazia – may be under review. Which speculation prompted this opinion piece from frockwriter. The latest rumour? That Grazia is about to go monthly. Flatly denied by ACP. Now comes news that an internal ACP audit [correction: preliminary independent audit according to the ABC] of 10 issues of Grazia will be included in the Audit Bureau of Circulations' September 30 audit. The results are embargoed until midnight Thursday 13th November.

The latter information was delivered to ABC subscribers, including Steve Allen, on Tuesday morning.

Although obviously unable to release the information, Allen told this blog that in spite of the fact that it’s a mere publisher’s statement, it is nevertheless an encouraging sign for the magazine.

[UPDATE 13/11/08 @ 12.16pm. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, this is not a publisher’s statement, but a "preliminary" ABC audit of 10 issues - preliminary, due to the fact that Grazia had not been publishing for the normal 13 week cycle].

“If it was going to be dire, they just wouldn’t audit” Allen told frockwriter on Tuesday morning.

It was in fact an abrupt volte face from our conversation late Monday afternoon, during which Allen reiterated sentiments that he had previously expressed in The Australian, that the industry buzz was that Grazia was not doing well.

“All the other publishers are saying they’ve seen scan data results” said Allen. “Noone will go on the record. It could be that the industry is ganging up on ACP. They’re saying they haven’t got a hope in help of reaching their target, but I have no idea”.

I had phoned Allen to hear his thoughts on the monthly edition theory – to which Allen replied that although in 30 years tracking the Australian publishing industry, he could think of publications which had increased their publishing frequency, he was at a loss to recall anyone going the other way (obviously overlooking The Australian Women's Weekly, which became a monthly in 1983).

Noted Allen on Monday, “We’re going into a small recession and feeding a weekly title that has a rate card set in our view at around 100,000 copies and if it’s half that or less, it’s just a mouse you can’t feed in a downturn. So it wouldn’t surprise us (if Grazia went monthly). And we could see how they could rationalise their decision, but to us that would be really declaring defeat, we couldn’t believe then that they had got to their target. If they had got to their target they would produce evidence of their circulation. And they have produced none. We’ve always doubted that they could find a gap in the market for the numbers that they were talking about. So perhaps we are a bit negative. But everything that we are told suggests that they’re battling”.

He added, “The way they’re handling this, they’re either supremely naïve or there’s the biggest amount of bitchiness in the market that we’ve ever seen. I haven’t seen a rival publisher that will say anything positive”.

In light of the new ABC September 30 audit information however, those rival publishers will now have to “put up or shut up” according to Allen.

When asked if ACP was considering changing Grazia’s frequency, ACP spokeswoman Hannah Devereux told frockwriter:

"Grazia is a weekly magazine and will not be going monthly".

Now while Devereux is obviously au fait with what’s happening with the Australian edition of the magazine, as a general statement about Grazia, FYI the latter does not appear to be entirely correct.

Grazia was originally launched in Italy in 1938.

According to the websites of the magazine's various coeditions however, almost half of Grazia’s now 12-strong international lineup (which includes both English and Arabic editions of Grazia Middle East), does not in fact publish weekly. The Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek and even, incredulously, Indian, editions publish monthly. Grazia Croatia is published bi-weekly.

Evidently those publishers are a little less bullish than ACP.

Grazia - but for what exactly?

And so to Grazia. A magazine on which I’ve had quite a few thoughts since its $7million launch in July - which included a God-awful radio advertisement which had evidently been designed by some beer-swilling ad neanderthal. I have resisted blogging on it until now. But here’s what I said to one or two friends after I’d seen the first issue: I give it six months. Today comes word that 150 jobs at Grazia’s parent company PBL may be under review, with Grazia’s future uncertain.

We are all obviously living in very uncertain times at the moment, some having a harder time of it than others. PBL is not the first, and nor undoubtedly will it be the last, Australian media outlet to wield the razor.

July was an extremely awkward time to be launching any new magazine in Australia, notably a women’s magazine, with circulations of some titles experiencing double digit nosedives.

But beyond the difficult business environment and low consumer confidence, I couldn’t help thinking that Grazia may have been doomed from the get go.

To begin with, it had Kate Moss on the launch cover.

Moss might still be newsworthy in many ways but she’s really yesterday’s story and if that’s your grand opening statement, it doesn’t augur well.

Secondly, I grew very quickly tired of seeing the word “exclusive” slapped on stories which did not seem to bear any resemblance to scoops.

I bought and flicked through the first issue, telling myself that I shouldn’t be too hard on the Grazia team.

After all, some, if not many, staff members seemed to be new to the fiercely competitive weekly gossip/news game and while I certainly would not describe editor Alison Veness McGourty as a friend, I like her as a person. And everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves.

Unfortunately while I did buy several other copies, and regularly check the website, Grazia failed to compel me with its content. To the point where I found the weekly contents precis done by Erica Bartle over at the Girl With A Satchel blog far more interesting than the magazine itself – and of course Bartle doesn’t charge $5 per edition. Bartle mentioned at one stage that 36 salaries went into making Grazia. It seemed like a hell of a lot of resources.

Sadly the other copies are still sitting largely unread in my car. I don't have much time to spare and, with few exceptions, I tend to find that if something does not pop up via my phone, BlackBerry, news alerts or Google Reader, then it probably isn't worth knowing. And I know I'm not alone in that respect.

The minute the international SS09 collections launched, I assumed Grazia might come into its own.

It had the staff, it had the resources and what’s more it also had the website, with a half dozen blogs at its disposal.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem to have any urgency.

Like vogue.com.au, it took days before Grazia staffers trundled back into work to bundy on after that New York Fashion Week opening weekend and upload images which they essentially get for nix via their substantial network of international affiliates.

Meanwhile, the fashion-obsessed public was logging onto a myriad blogs and web forums, including this one, as well as photo agency outlets, the nanosecond every show wrapped. Just to get close to the news.

I heard that Veness-McGourty would be going to the shows. I'm still uncertain if her trip was just to Milan. But frankly, even if it was, I think that's an inexcusable indulgence for the editor of a brand new weekly magazine. Especially one who is under the budget gun.

One day, as reported by the magazine's fashion director Mark Vassallo in one blog post, Veness-McGourty swanned around head-to-toe in Prada.

The Prada plug might have been fabulous for Grazia’s relationship with a potential future advertiser, but what’s the point of having advertisers if you don't have any readers? In one editor’s letter, Veness-McGourty noted that people keep telling her “We love Grazia!” They were probably the publicists.

The blogs consistently failed to update – or seemed to go live days after they were posted. I’ve been there, done that, two years ago, when virtually noone was blogging from the shows. Certainly no mainstream outlets. It’s just not good enough anymore.

As with the magazine, I simply stopped looking at the Grazia blog. It didn’t seem to be breaking any news or providing any unique content that you hadn't read somewhere else first and noone seemed to be talking about it in any of the forums I regularly peruse.

Today’s Telegraph story claims:

“The practice of paying six-figure sums for exclusive stories and pictures has ended, with cut-price rates being offered for commissioned articles”.

I'd be curious to know precisely which stories and images that have been published by the Australian edition of Grazia in fact came with "six figure" price tags. Material that was commissioned by, and syndicated from, the international editions of the magazine? If you were paying six figures for material, you would expect some kind of world scoop. There were none as far as I could see.

I know of one local freelancer who offered the magazine what she described as a scoop, but was knocked back and told, “We don’t pay for stories” (and just to clarify, I have had zero contact with the magazine, so it wasn't me).

This may partially explain why it’s been so hard to find bylines on some Grazia stories - and leads one to assume that some material may have been simply cobbled together by staffers from material published elsewhere. It certainly read that way.

I know exactly how much it costs to cover the four big fashion cities on the ground because I have done it myself. On a minumum budget. The total cost for four weeks is less than half the budget that ACP sources tell me Harpers Bazaar has traditionally spent to send two people to just the Milan and Paris shows fortnight.

That may be OK for a monthly fashion glossy that is rolling in advertising money, and for which of course these show trips are essentially a schmoozfest for luxury advertisers - the majority of them located in Europe.

But it's not OK when times are tough and when you’re pumping out not a magazine a month, with the luxury of a three month lead time, but a magazine a week - and moreover, when you are not OK! and have but a tenuous grasp of the exact meaning of the word “news”.

Grazia's Australian edition appears to me to be asleep at the wheel. Their biggest problem is the fact that fashion never sleeps.