Welcome to the Deep Dive. We know you're here
because, well, you have that deeply ingrained
curiosity. The desire to get past all the daily
noise. Exactly. You want to get straight to the
fascinating core of a topic. And today we're
looking at something that might seem everyday,
perhaps even mundane to some. Right. But it has
a history that reads like an absolute business
thriller. It really does. We're diving into a
comprehensive Wikipedia article detailing the
history of a true media survivor. We're talking
about the New Zealand Women's Weekly. A total
institution. Right. So our mission today is to
explore exactly how a humble publication launched
on cheap newsprint way back in 1932 managed to
survive, well... utter financial ruin, aggressive
international competition, and a global pandemic.
To become an incredibly resilient cultural institution.
Okay, let's unpack this. Setting the stage here
is absolutely crucial because the story of this
magazine is, in a lot of ways, really the story
of print media as a whole. The overarching theme
we're going to see today is the surprising volatility
of the magazine industry. Right, because we tend
to think of legacy print media as these immovable
mountains. Exactly. We see them on the shelf
and think they've just always been there, totally
secure. But behind the scenes, it's often a desperate
scramble for survival. Yeah, a constant scramble.
Yet, despite that constant volatility, there's
an ultimate endurance to brands that manage to
deeply embed themselves in the daily lives of
their readers. It's a brilliant case study in
both fragility and staying power. Fragility is
definitely the right word for how this all started.
I mean, the launch date is December 8th, 1932.
Right in the thick of it. Yeah, this is the scrappy,
chaotic birth of the New Zealand Women's Weekly.
We've got two journalists driving this ambitious
project. Otto Williams, who takes on the role
of managing director, and Audrey Argyle. Who
steps up as the very first editor. Right. And
they launched this magazine with just 7 ,000
copies. Which is tiny. Tiny. And they're printing
this on basic newsprint. It's not glossy. It's
not glamorous. It's just a raw grassroots effort
to get a brand new publication off the ground.
Right. And since we're talking about December
1932, we know exactly what the economic climate
looked like. We are right in the teeth of the
Great Depression. Oh, wow. Employment is soaring.
The global economy is in tatters. And disposable
income is practically nonexistent for the average
family. Nobody had money for extras. Exactly.
So launching a print magazine, a product that
relies entirely on advertising revenue and people
having spare pennies to drop at the newsstand,
it was an extraordinarily risky gamble. It sounds
like financial suicide. It really does. And that
harsh economic reality perfectly explains the
absolute chaos of what happened next. But hold
on. If the economy was completely in the gutter,
why launch a magazine right then? Was it just
pure journalistic idealism colliding with financial
reality? That's usually how these things start.
Because they hit a brick wall almost instantly.
The timeline from 1932 to 1933 is basically a
frantic game of ownership hot potato. Oh, it's
a mess. Williams and Argyle were forced to sell
the magazine after just three months. Three months.
Due to severe financial difficulties, they barely
got out of the gate before the money completely
bright up. It's a classic story of editorial
ambition outpacing the runway. Right. They had
the vision for what this magazine could be, but
they simply didn't have the capital to weather
the startup phase in a depressed economy. You
need cash to survive those early days. You absolutely
do. So let's trace the rapid succession of hands
this publication passed through because it's
dizzying. First, after the founders cap out,
a woman named Ellen Melville steps in and runs
the magazine. Okay. But she only lasts for a
few weeks. A few weeks. That's barely enough
time to figure out where the office coffee is,
let alone run a national magazine. Exactly. It
was hemorrhaging cash that quickly. Yep. So Melville
passes it off. Next in line is actually the magazine's
printer, F .S. Proctor. And his wife. Wait, the
printer buys it? That seems like a massive conflict
of interest, or at least a really desperate move.
Did they actually want to be publishers, or was
this just a salvage operation? Almost certainly
a salvage operation. When a publication goes
under, the printer is usually the one left holding
the bag for unpaid invoices. Ah, so they're just
trying to get their money back. Right. The Proctors
likely took it over to either recoup some of
those printing debts, keep their own presses
running during a lean time, or try to flip it.
But they don't hold on to it for very long either.
Another quick flip. Yeah, by early 1933, a solicitor
named Vernon Dyson buys the publication. Okay,
a lawyer this time. Right. And he installs his
wife, Hedda Dyson, as the second editor. Oh,
interesting. And then finally, at the end of
that incredibly turbulent year, In late 1933,
the magazine is sold once again. Number four.
This time it goes to Brett Print and Publishing
Company, which would later become New Zealand
Newspapers. That's the same major company that
published the Auckland Star. So it finally lands
somewhere with actual resources. Exactly. What's
fascinating here is that this rapid, chaotic
turnover could have, and probably should have,
easily killed the publication. Oh, without a
doubt. Usually when a business changes hands
four times in its first 12 months, it's a complete
death spiral. The readers lose trust, the advertisers
flee, and the staff burns out. It just looks
totally unstable. But in this unique case, each
owner essentially served as a temporary life
support system. Wow, that's a great way to look
at it. They kept the heartbeat of the magazine
going just long enough to pass the baton to the
next person, eventually landing it in the hands
of a larger, more stable publishing house that
actually had the resources to sustain it. So
they just kept it breathing. It was a brutal
crucible. But it somehow laid the very groundwork
for its long -term survival. It's like they accidentally
built a relay team just to survive 1933. A very
stressful relay team. Very. And because of that
relay, after that incredibly rocky first year,
the magazine actually found its footing. When
Brett Print and Publishing took ownership, they
made a very smart move. They retained Hedda Dyson
as the editor. Right. Vernon Dyson's wife. Yes.
She wasn't just a placeholder. She ended up bringing
some serious, much needed stability to the brand.
She remained the editor from 1933 all the way
to 1948. That's a solid 15 year run. It's massive.
And that kind of editorial continuity is vital,
especially considering the era. Think about what
happened between 1933 and 1948. Oh, just a few
global events. Right. Hedda Dyson steered this
magazine through the prolonged recovery of the
Great Depression, the entirety of the Second
World War, the resource rationing, and the post
-war rebuilding phase. That is an unbelievable
amount of history to cover week to week. She
took a volatile hot potato project and tuned
it into a dependable weekly staple for households
navigating incredibly stressful times. A real
anchor for people. Exactly. By the time she stepped
down in 1948, the New Zealand Women's Weekly
was no longer a risky startup. It was a known,
trusted entity. After her, Ola Rudman took the
reins briefly from 1948 to 1952. But the concrete
foundation had been permanently poured. Here's
where it gets really interesting. Because if
Hedda Dyson poured the foundation, the next editor
built the absolute empire. Oh, yes. We're talking
about the era of Jean Wishart. She takes the
helm as editor in 1952, and she doesn't leave
that position until 1984. 32 years as an editor.
That's almost unheard of in modern media. it's
staggering just think about the sheer volume
of deadlines but more importantly think about
the shifting cultural tides she had to navigate
it's a completely different world from start
to finish exactly she starts in 1952 we're talking
post -war domesticity very conservative family
values then she steers this massive ship through
the cultural revolutions of the 60s the women's
liberation movement the economic shocks of the
70s right up to the neon soaked power suit era
of the 1980s Fashioning to shoulder pads. Literally.
Keeping a weekly magazine relevant across those
drastically different decades requires an incredible
editorial ear. It absolutely does. And her tenure
represents the undisputed golden age for the
publication. She had to constantly evolve the
content. She couldn't just keep doing what worked
in 1952. No. The advice columns, the recipes,
the fashion, the social issues they covered in
1955 would have looked completely alien to a
reader in 1982. Yet she managed to thread that
needle, keeping the loyal older readers while
attracting new ones. It's a tough balancing act.
And if we look at the numbers during this era,
they prove her success. By the early 1980s, under
Jean Wishart's leadership, the circulation of
the New Zealand Woman's Weekly peaked at around
250 ,000 copies. Just to put that 250 ,000 number
in perspective for you. We're talking about a
country the size of New Zealand, which had a
total population of just over 3 million people
in the early 1980s. That ratio is wild. It means
roughly 1 in 12 people in the entire country
bought a copy every single week. If you lived
in New Zealand during that era, you couldn't
escape this magazine. You went to the dentist,
it was there. Your grandma's coffee table, it
was there. Sitting in the break room at work,
there's a copy. Total ubiquity. That kind of
market saturation is almost unimaginable today.
That is the power of a true legacy brand, achieving
ultimate circulation density. It transcends being
a mere product and becomes part of the cultural
furniture. The cultural furniture, I like that.
When you have a circulation that dense relative
to the population, the magazine doesn't just
reflect the national conversation. It dictates
it. It sets the agenda. It tells people what
is fashionable, what new ingredients to try for
dinner and what social issues are acceptable
to discuss. Jean Wishart was arguably one of
the most influential cultural figures in the
country simply by deciding what went on to those
pages for over three decades. But as we know,
in the media landscape, no monopoly lasts forever.
They never do. The golden era hits a wall in
the 1980s, or more accurately, it hits an Aussie
invasion. The Australian magazine's Woman's Day
and New Idea entered the New Zealand market.
Here comes the competition. Suddenly, the New
Zealand Women's Weekly is no longer the only
game in town. funded, aggressive international
competition right on their home turf. What did
that actually look like on the newsstand? It
looked like a total disruption of the established
order. The Australian imports brought a different
energy. They often had glossier pages, deeper
pockets to buy exclusive celebrity photos, and
a slightly more aggressive, gossip -driven editorial
stance compared to the more traditional homegrown
feel of the weekly. So they were flashier. Much
flashier. They fragmented the market. So instead
of everyone buying the same magazine, the audience's
attention gets sliced up. Precisely. When you
go from a near monopoly to a highly fragmented
competitive market, your numbers are going to
take a hit. Fast forward a few decades to 2011,
and we can really see the long -term impact of
this shifting landscape. Let's hear the numbers.
The New Zealand Women's Weekly's circulation
had dropped from that peak of 250 ,000 down to
82 ,040. Which, to be fair, is still a massive
amount of magazines to print, ship and sell every
single week. Oh, absolutely. But obviously, it's
a huge shift from the glory days of the 80s.
It is. By 2011, they had fallen to third place
in paid sales. They were sitting behind the TV
Guide, which held the number one spot, and our
media's New Zealand Women's Day, one of those
very Australian imports that had disrupted their
dominance in the first place. The invaders took
the lead. The market had completely reordered
itself, and the weekly had to adapt from being
the undisputed king to being a resilient challenger
in a crowded checkout aisle. Even with those
shifting numbers and the relentless competition,
it's clear the magazine never lost its cultural
prestige. I mean, they had an incredible royal
milestone, so to speak, in 2007. The 75th anniversary.
Yes. The magazine celebrated its 75th anniversary.
And to mark the occasion, the special guest was
none other than the prime minister at the time.
Helen Clark. That's a huge deal. When the sitting
prime minister shows up to celebrate a magazine's
birthday, it really cements the publication status
as a piece of living history. It's a testament
to the fact that regardless of circulation dips,
the brand still held immense gravity. It absolutely
did. The legacy editors who followed Jean Wishart.
People like Michael McKay, Jenny Lynch, Sarah
Kate Lynch, Wendell Nissen, Saito Kitchen, Sarah
Stewart and Fiona Frazier. They were all managing
this shifting, highly competitive landscape.
It's quite a roster. They were fighting for shelf
space and ad dollars, but they were also acting
as the custodians of a national treasure. But
as we've seen time and time again in business,
no amount of prestige, history or good editorial
work can protect a publication from an entirely
unprecedented global economic shockwave. Which
brings us to the most dramatic chapter in this
entire story, the COVID -19 pandemic. Everything
changes here. Let's set the scene for early April
2020. The pandemic is sweeping the globe and
governments are triggering sudden widespread
economic shutdowns. Businesses are frozen. Supply
chains are halting. Total panic. And right in
the middle of this unprecedented panic, the Bauer
Media Group, which owned the publication at the
time, makes a devastating announcement. They
announced the immediate closure of several of
their New Zealand brands in response to the economic
impact of COVID -19. Just shut them down. And
right there, among those shuttered titles, was
the beloved New Zealand Woman's Weekly. The gravity
of this moment cannot be overstated. Think about
the timeline we just walked through. This magazine
launched in 1932. It weathered the darkest, most
desperate days of the Great Depression. Changing
hands four times. Exactly. It survived the resource
rationing and existential threat of World War
II. It navigated the massive cultural upheavals
of the mid -century. It fought off heavy -hitting
international competitors in the 1980s, and it
adapted to the rise of the digital internet age
in the 2000s. Survived everything. Everything.
After 88 continuous years of publication, overcoming
every conceivable obstacle, a microscopic virus,
and the subsequent economic panic appeared to
finally kill the magazine. The presses stopped.
The story, it seemed, was completely over. It
was a shocking sudden end. You don't expect an
88 -year -old institution to just vanish overnight.
No, you really don't. But, incredibly, it wasn't
the end. This is where we get the dramatic rescue,
and it happens with whiplash -inducing speed.
They announced the closure in early April 2020.
Barely two months later, on June 17, 2020, an
investment firm called Mercury Capital swoops
in. Out of nowhere. They purchased the New Zealand
Woman's Weekly as part of a massive acquisition
of Bauer Media's Australia and New Zealand assets.
The speed of that transaction, especially during
the height of global pandemic uncertainty, is
remarkable. It shows a huge appetite for risk,
but also a deep understanding of media value.
And they didn't waste any time getting back to
business. Just one month after buying it, on
July 17, Mercury Capital announced that they
would resume publishing the New Zealand Woman's
Weekly alongside some other former Bauer publications.
Just turn the presses back on. By late September
2020, Mercury Capital officially rebranded the
publishing house as Our Media. The magazine was
officially back from the dead. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, this rapid, almost
immediate revival underscores a critical truth
about the modern media landscape. It shows the
inherent, enduring value that investors still
see in deeply trusted legacy brands, even during
the most severe global crises. Brand value is
resilient. Exactly. When Mercury Capital bought
the magazine, they weren't really buying the
physical printing presses or the office furniture,
were they? No, they were buying the name. They
were buying brand equity, which is really just
the business term for 88 years of blind, accumulated
consumer trust. When the world is panicking,
an 88 -year -old brand represents safety, recognition
and a pre -existing loyal customer base. People
want what they know. They recognize that while
the economic conditions of April 2020 were terrible,
the brand equity of the New Zealand Women's Weekly
was still immensely valuable. And that brings
us right up to the present day. Under the stewardship
of our media, the historic publication continues
to endure. They brought on Marilyn McLaughlin
as the editor in 2020, right during that intense
rebirth period. Right out of the gate. And she
successfully steered the ship. until shifting
to a lifestyle editor role in early 2026. This
magazine, which was pronounced completely dead,
shuttered, and mourned by its readers, is still
ticking, still publishing, and still finding
its way into homes today. It's a phenomenal trajectory.
From an initial print run of 7 ,000 copies on
cheap newsprint, Passed around by desperate owners
trying to avoid bankruptcy. Yeah. To a national
powerhouse printing 250 ,000 copies a week. Setting
the cultural agenda. To a casualty of a modern
pandemic. And finally, to a resurrected survivor
under a new media conglomerate. It's just an
incredible timeline. Let's just take a second
to recap the sheer scale of what we've explored
today. We started in the bleak winter of 1932
with Otto Williams and Audrey Argyle gambling
everything on 7 ,000 newsprint copies. The ultimate
underdog. We tracked the chaotic first year where
the magazine changed hands four times in a desperate
relay race for survival. We saw the dizzying
32 -year reign of Jean Wishart where the magazine
reached total cultural dominance. We discussed
the monopoly breaking against flashy Australian
competitors in the 80s. And then we witnessed
the magazine get pushed to the very brink of
death in April 2020, only to experience a sudden,
miraculous rebirth under our media just months
later. So what does this all mean? What this
means, and why this should matter deeply to you,
is that the survival of a publication like the
New Zealand Woman's Weekly shows how media is
inextricably linked to the cultural memory of
a society. It's more than just paper. The things
we choose to read, the physical objects we choose
to bring into our homes and keep alive through
sheer consumer demand, they become a literal
mirror of our own history. This magazine didn't
survive for over nine decades just because it
had clever owners or good distribution channels.
Right, it had to connect. It survived because
generation after generation of readers decided
it held value. It documented their lives, their
changing fashions, their milestones, and their
evolving worldviews. In times of extreme volatility,
whether it's the Great Depression or COVID -19,
readers often crave the comfort of familiar,
tactile routines. We reach for what we know.
When we study the lifespan of legacy media, we
aren't just looking at corporate balance sheets
or circulation numbers. We're tracking the heartbeat
and the habits. of the society that consumes
it. That makes a lot of sense. It's not just
paper and ink. It's a timeline of who we were
and who we are. And that leaves us with a final,
somewhat provocative thought for you to ponder
as we wrap up today's deep dive. We live in an
increasingly digital, entirely ephemeral world.
Media companies today can pull the plug on a
website and years of content can vanish into
the ether in a matter of seconds. That happens
all the time. In a landscape like that, will
the tactile, physical experience of holding a
printed weekly magazine something that survived
the Great Depression and a modern pandemic, eventually
transition from being just a casual supermarket
checkout staple into a rare, highly coveted luxury
item? That's a fascinating question. Will the
very act of sitting down to read print become
a deliberate premium experience in the future?
It's something to think about the next time you
walk past a newsstand and see those physical
copies waiting there. Thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive, and we'll catch you on
the next one.