I was startled to hear about the reports of the closure of POL Publications earlier this week. They do VIVE magazine (of which I am a subscriber and have half my subscription left!), POL Oxygen, Fashion Capital magazine for Chadstone SC, Luxe and VIVE La France. I hope ACP, News or Pacific think about picking up their mastheads - if they can't continue operations after the proposed finance review. Pacific could do what they did with Text Pacific, the name POL Pacific works! I'm not sure what the details are behind the financial mis-management, but the current climate hardly supports the sustainability of Niche magazine publishers. You'd think as consumers tastes tighten, sales would increase, but the whole magazine publishing industry in Australia has seen a period of decline.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
POL Publications placed in administration
I was startled to hear about the reports of the closure of POL Publications earlier this week. They do VIVE magazine (of which I am a subscriber and have half my subscription left!), POL Oxygen, Fashion Capital magazine for Chadstone SC, Luxe and VIVE La France. I hope ACP, News or Pacific think about picking up their mastheads - if they can't continue operations after the proposed finance review. Pacific could do what they did with Text Pacific, the name POL Pacific works! I'm not sure what the details are behind the financial mis-management, but the current climate hardly supports the sustainability of Niche magazine publishers. You'd think as consumers tastes tighten, sales would increase, but the whole magazine publishing industry in Australia has seen a period of decline.
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There will still be one more issue coming out in 2 weeks
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your follow up comment.
I'm really glad to hear about that since VIVE magazine is a favourite of mine and really provided something that was missing in the market. Hopefully it will be able to continue on well into the future...
Hi Kate
ReplyDeleteI doubt there will be any more issues after the next one. Also I highly doubt if subscribers will also receive this copy, but it will be going out on the News-stand.
Just a follow up ^ - I ended up receiving that issue in the mail. It was surprising though as no mention was made of the problems with the publisher and the future. There was even promotional subscription material and incentives included.
ReplyDeleteThat's because the Vive editorial staff had no idea POL was going under. The Director even told the insolvency company that there were no employees. Who was putting together a 100-odd page bi-monthly? Elves.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. ^
ReplyDeleteI really think it is a scary time for employees in magazine publishing.
I mean with what's now going on with ACP, and then with POL - where are all these retrenched editorial and creative staff going to go? It's not like the Australian industry is huge and competition for roles is already fierce.
I feel book publishing doesn't have the same problem because let's face it who really wants to read a book online, whereas newspapers and magazines are having a hard time maintaining fresh and new content because of the web.
Anyway I'm still surprised no further announcements have been made to subscribers. If they do make a comeback, their behaviour will hardly be conducive to positive future relationships.