From mags to riches
When Bauer suddenly closed its magazine titles earlier this year, it took Sido Kitchin months to recover from the shock. Now, she tells Eleanor Black, she’s back with a publishing empire of her own.
After six months of mourning things that weren’t to be, Sido Kitchin is in celebration mode – and that means a team dinner at her Grey Lynn home tonight: beef birria, chipotle chicken and margaritas catered by Sarah and Otis Frizzell from Lucky Taco.
Woman, the first of four titles from School Road Publishing, headed by Kitchin, has rolled off the presses, with close to 30,000 copies bound, boxed and distributed. Sitting in her new glass-fronted office in Parnell, an illuminated lightning bolt on the wall behind her, Kitchin, 49, is nervous and elated.
She has curated a diverse, warmhearted mix of local stories and columns designed to appeal to Kiwi women seeking connection and support in a tough year. ‘‘I think magazines are having a moment for that reason,’’ she says of the gloom of 2020. ‘‘There’s nothing like taking time out with a mag.’’
That said, her titles are reflective of the challenges thrown up by the pandemic. The fortnightly Woman is a gossip-free zone, with just a smattering of Royals coverage and, for now at least, no Hollywood stories. ‘‘We can’t speak to people in the same way we spoke to them a year ago, because it’s all changed.’’
Later this month home title Haven will join Woman on shelves. In November, Thrive (wellbeing) and Scout (domestic travel) launch. This is a small, start-up operation, but Kitchin is no rookie.
She has edited two of New Zealand’s most-read magazines – New Zealand Woman’s Weekly and Woman’s Day – and was editorial director of mass market women’s titles at Bauer Media until its abrupt closure in April.
The Zoom call that ended things is already legendary, a chilling, cautionary tale for anyone who works in media. The entire Bauer NZ workforce logged on from their homes to learn that the German company was exiting the market immediately, citing reduced advertising revenues due to Covid-19. In a moment, 230 jobs were wiped.
‘‘People assumed I had some inkling,’’ Kitchin says quietly, visibly upset at the memory. ‘‘I was as blindsided as everybody else. I find it hard to even think about. I get a lump in my throat when I remember that day. I know the sun was shining. I know it was extremely hot. I just remember everything going into slow motion, disbelief. Is this really happening?’’
Her team of 32 had just produced their first magazines remotely in lockdown. ‘‘So many of those women’s mag subscribers are older and they live on their own or they’re in retirement homes where they couldn’t have visitors like they normally could.
‘‘As we worked away we thought, well, at least they’re getting their communication from us – we will be a constant through this time. Well, we know that wasn’t to be.’’
Unable to gather her team to process the shock news, Kitchin sent an email saying in part, ‘‘I’m so sorry… I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful team than you guys – and I’m heartbroken.’’
‘‘Then it was a matter of getting on the phone and talking, talking, talking,’’ she says. ‘‘I didn’t even tell my husband till the afternoon because I had been so focused on the rest of the team. There were so many people who were absolutely blindsided and gutted.’’
For the next few months, Kitchin says she was ‘‘inert’’. Grateful to be able to heal at home with family – children Cleo, 17, and Darcy, 11, and husband Conrad Armstrong – she says she spent a lot of time lying on a beanbag in the sun.
‘‘I had been clinging to the hope that some mags would keep going. I got a call that Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly would be back on the shelves with 100 per cent Australian content and while I understood that from a business perspective, I had hoped to provide some New Zealand content. I mourned that for a while.’’
Sido Kitchin grew up in the newspaper business. Her father Peter worked at the Evening Post. As a child, Kitchin would go to the office and marvel at the typewriters, the perma-cloud of cigarette smoke and the pneumatic tubes that would whisk copy from one department to another.
‘‘I used to sit there waiting for Dad and think, ‘This is amazing, I want to do this’. He was so passionate about what he did. He was a sub mainly in those days, literally chopping and pasting stories and writing headlines, and then at 2pm they’d all disappear to the pub. They had fun, they loved it.’’
Peter Kitchin, a well-loved industry figure who became chief reporter and then assistant editor of the Evening Post, wanted her to go to university, so Kitchin did a year of law school before enrolling in Wellington Polytechnic’s journalism course in 1990. She worked for suburban newspapers, in Wellington and then Auckland, until she was invited to the first Shortland Street wrap party.
‘‘It was dying in the ratings and the critics had been brutal, but I still remember thinking, ‘How can I be a part of this?’’’
She was a publicist on early 1990s TV drama Marlin Bay, writing thick press packs and leading set tours, before moving to TVNZ, then enjoying a golden era, with Richard Long and Judy Bailey delivering the news, and Paul Holmes bringing the sizzle.
She joined the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly as deputy editor under Wendyl Nissen, now editor of Thrive, and followed Nissen to Woman’s Day, developing a reputation for getting the big stars to agree to talk – and, in a pressured, competitive realm, for being nice while doing it. She was the publicity manager for Channel 7 in Melbourne for a stint before returning home to edit the Weekly, her dream job, and still a publication she holds dear.
Kitchin tried to buy it after Bauer pulled out of New Zealand and put its titles up for sale. ‘‘I was particularly worried about the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly; it belongs to the people of New Zealand and we are its custodians.’’
With support from her associate editor Sophie Neville and legendary film and television producer John Barnett ( Whale Rider, Sione’s Wedding), she pursued a deal for several months, and she got tantalisingly close.
At the 11th hour, Bauer withdrew the Weekly from sale; it was one of six titles bought by the Australian private equity firm Mercury Capital and relaunched with a combination of original and syndicated content.
‘‘I was ready to have that magazine on sale in July. I had press releases written, put it that way. That was devastating as well.’’
Kitchin was considering her options when she got a phone call from Greg Partington, owner of Stanley St advertising agency. He, too, had been hoping to acquire a Bauer title.
‘‘He loves magazines, he’s passionate about telling New Zealand stories, and had also been through an acquisition that didn’t happen,’’ says Kitchin.
‘‘Unbeknownst to us, we had been on the same journey.’’
Partington offered Kitchin the chance to start her own stable of magazines. ‘‘Within 24 hours I had to choose between two completely different directions. The idea of starting something new at this stage in my magazine career – I thought, ‘wow that is an opportunity’.
‘‘Greg’s given me incredible freedom and independence and I hope I’ve made him proud. He came out to the printers to see the first copy come off the bindery, which was a wonderful moment.’’
Support came from other quarters too. Retired Bauer chief executive Paul Dykzeul is on the board of School Road Publishing. Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher and The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive reached out. There is a sense that all-local Kiwi content is valued and celebrated now, more than ever.
But Kitchin is realistic about the task ahead. ‘‘I’ve been in media for 30 years. I know what my [circulation and readership] numbers were at Day and I know what my expectations are for this, and they are completely different.’’
Checking in a few days after Woman’s launch, I learn that Kitchin’s Mexican fiesta was a great success, although she ducked out early.
‘‘I planned to celebrate for hours, but I was exhausted,’’ says Kitchin. ‘‘After thank you speeches and strong margaritas, I hit the wall and I was in bed by 7pm. The team celebrated until midnight while I slept like a log in my Woman T-shirt.’’
‘‘We can’t speak to people in the same way we spoke to them a year ago, because it’s all changed.’’ Sido Kitchin