👉 Background: In 2012, Bauer Media, the German magazine company, developed and executed on a bold strategy to consolidate some of Australia's most iconic magazine brands. They acquired:

• Australian Women's Weekly, TV Week and ELLE Australia for $525 million from Nine Entertainment
• New Idea and That's Life from Seven West Media for $40 million

‍👉 What happened: While Australian Women’s Weekly once had the highest per capita magazine circulation in the world, it hasn't been a positive decade for these magazines. In 2020, Bauer Media gave up on this consolidation strategy and sold these magazines to a private equity company Mercury Capital for under $50 million. They re-branded the group to Are Media.

‍👉 What else: Now the magazine-merry-go-round continues because Mercury Capital is looking to offload Are Media to a new buyer. But in this market, with digital players outperforming magazine for ad dollar and readership, it's become a challenging asset to sell.

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‍What's the key learning?

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‍💡Legacy media might be on struggle street, but it’s not game-over for those brands who are willing to work through a major turnaround. By 2020, the number of magazine closu.res outnumbered magazine launches by almost 4:1.

💡But legacy media doesn’t have to mean outdated media. Take Condé Nast, which owns Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ and Vanity Fair. They have totally transformed their business model from the old-school physical magazine sales to a digital-first mode. This includes:

• Vogue podcasts
• Instagram page with 51 million followers
• More than 5.7 billion views on the Vogue YouTube channel.

💡In 2021, after this major shift of business model, Condé Naste turned its first profit in years. So traditional media can survive, and even thrive, if they’re willing to rethink how they operate.