News Magazines rebrands as NewsLifeMedia

The chief executive of News Magazines, Sandra Hook, today announced that as of today News Magazines will be known as NewsLifeMedia. The rebranding reflects a radical overhaul of the company’s business model and its aim of becoming Australia’s leading Lifestyle and Life Stage content company.

“This name change recognises the work we have done over the last few years to strategically reimagine our business. We are elevating our digital focus, creating new products and services, developing our presence in Women, Lifestyle and Life Stage, while building on the strength of our phenomenal print brands,” said Ms Hook.

“Today, NewsLifeMedia’s print and digital assets reach an unduplicated audience of around 8.5 million Australians, and we are number one in the majority of lifestyle verticals we participate in. We are number one in Food, Fashion, Health, Parenting and Weekends, and continue to grow our Home vertical. With our magazines and websites working together, NewsLifeMedia will invest to accelerate the growth and commercialisation of our specialist verticals.

“In repositioning as NewsLifeMedia, we are harnessing the authority of our print brands and the power of our digital platforms, with an unwavering focus on audience and advertiser engagement.

“The recent acquisition of KidSpot underpins our commitment to expanding our portfolio of lifestyle brands. Future acquisitions and strategic partnerships will further strengthen NewsLifeMedia’s position as Australia’s leading lifestyle and life stage content business.”

Zara Curtis (pictured left with Sandra Hook), commercial director at NewsLifeMedia, said: “Our rebranding represents a quantum shift in the way we will do business both vertically for deeper connections and through the portfolio horizontally for scale and reach. By restructuring our portfolio into lifestyle verticals, we will deliver richer integration for our advertising customers across all platforms that we publish, putting content in context for more relevant connections and meaningful action with consumers.

“NewsLifeMedia’s print and digital assets now reach almost one in two Australians aged over 14. Significantly, the company also retains 100% ownership of its digital assets, which gives us the edge in building and monetising audiences. This allows us to be truly customer-centric,” said Ms Curtis.

At NewsLifeMedia, group publishers are now responsible for the creation and monetisation of all digital and print assets in each content vertical, including social media, tablets, mobile and any other medium each brand explores in future.

NewsLifeMedia mastheads have a gross readership of 10.87 million, which represents 21.8% of all magazine readership (including Newspaper Inserted Magazines).* Collectively, the company’s print and digital assets reach an unduplicated audience of 8.5 million people – or 46.2% of the population aged over 14.***

“As News Limited’s Lifestyle arm, we are working energetically to deliver our brands and content whenever and wherever our audiences want it. Our new name better reflects our approach to delivering highly engaged audiences across multiple platforms while maximising benefits for media agencies and advertisers,” said Ms Hook.

Source: * Roy Morgan Readership Survey (September 2011); **Nielsen Online Ratings, September 2011; *** Roy Morgan Readership Survey (September 2011) + Nielsen Online Ratings, September 2011

NB. Newspaper Inserted Magazines and body + soul liftout are based on the readership of the host newspapers