Variety Australia is now online, featuring original and syndicated content relevant to Australian audiences. A print edition is also slated for late 2022, along with a number of events including the Variety Australia Awards and the Variety Australia 100.
The storied brand comes to Australia by way of The Brag Media which is following up its successful launch of Rolling Stone Australia in 2020.
Mediaweek spoke to both the CEO of The Brag Media, Luke Girgis, and its editor in chief, Poppy Reid, about their newest venture.
When asked why they chose to launch a local version of Variety, Reid said that there has never been a better time for a project like this.
PR: “Variety is so iconic, it’s been around 116 years, it’s just nuts. There’s never been a better time in history to launch something like this. The other art sectors have really been struggling but film and TV in Australia have gone nuts. There’s a stat which I’ve been loving at the moment which is that television production has surged to $1.9 billion in the last financial year in Australia. If you pair that hunger for film and TV with such a legacy brand like Variety, it just makes sense.”
While Variety Australia will be syndicating some content, Reid said that the focus will be on the local industry, which is thriving at the moment.
PR: “The Australian market is just punching above its weight when it comes to film and TV. There are so many films that are being made here, so many studios that are launching here, so many directors and actors from Australia and New Zealand that are putting Australia and New Zealand on the map. There’s so much to cover.”
Girgis also said an important part of the deal was the fact that The Brag Media was already repping Variety in Australia.
“What’s important to know is that we have been representing the Variety eyeballs in Australia and New Zealand for about a year and a half now. We already have got a lot of tremendous success and already a lot of clients for Variety in Australia, mainly consumer brands. We already know that there is a huge commercial appetite for the brand here in the country.”
The Variety Australia Team
Variety Australia will be led by Jake Challenor, executive editor, B2B, who joined The Brag Media in March following the acquisition of The Music Network. On his team will be journalists
Lars Brandle and Vivienne Kelly who will work across Variety Australia, The Music Network, and The Industry Observer. Reid said that with this experienced team she is confident that the voice of Variety Australia will reflect that of the iconic international brand,
PR: “There’s a very clear tone of Variety in the US, they’ve shared their style guide with us and it’s got all these like Varietyisms in it, which is really fascinating. We’ve also brought Jake Challenor on board and so I trust his vision and trust his legacy as a journalist and as an editor. We will definitely pay tribute to the legacy that Variety already has.
“The Brag Media has a lot of titles, there’s a lot going on all the time, you have to have people who have their boots on the ground that understand the market and understand those industries. Personally, I’ve never written too much about film and TV before, my background is largely in music and the music industry. Jake has a really storied history and he’s brought on Vivienne Kelly, who’s incredible. Then we’ve got
Lars Brandle who’s a pretty big deal in the trade press sector.”
Jake Challenor
Bringing an international brand into a local market
The agreement between The Brag Media and PMC marks the pairing’s second local edition of a global media brand after the successful launch of Rolling Stone Australia/NZ in 2020. Variety Australia is the second international edition following the launch of Variety China in 2019.
While Girgis said that while they can’t go into too much detail yet about their plans for a print version of Variety Australia, and their event schedule, he did say that a huge investment will be going into events, and a very meaningful print strategy will be put into place.
LG: “If you look at our history with Rolling Stone magazine, we released that right as the pandemic hit, when all of the competitors like Bauer Media and all those print legacy publishers were closing 40-50 titles each, we decided to launch then. We took a lot of inspiration from the vinyl industry in music. If you think about vinyl records, there’s no reason for them to exist in 2020. For some reason though I keep buying them every week.
“We decided to treat the print magazine like a proper sensory experience. We were very particular about the thickness, the paper, the quality of the images, the length of the journalism there. Everything about it was supposed to be a really sensory experience, just like a vinyl record. We’ve quickly found out that that philosophy has served us really well. It’s not a cost centre for us but a profit centre for us. With the readerships growing quarter on quarter, the latest Nielsen numbers have us at nearly 200,000 readers in print alone. It is something that we’re really proud of and I guess our music background has actually helped us in the print world.”
Reid said that the secret to launching local versions of famed international brands is to pay attention to the local readership.
PR: “With Rolling Stone, yes, we syndicate articles online and in the magazine, but we try and keep it to a minimum, we know that our Australian and New Zealand readers are interested in slightly different things. We try and market to them and try and have our finger on the pulse of what they want to read about. And we’re very much led by local readers.”
The goals for Variety Australia
When asked about what the long and short term goals were for Variety Australia, Girgis said that they are one and the same, with the goal to do them bigger and bigger.
LG: “That is to provide the best publishing offering in Australia, the most valuable to both consumers and to the industry in screen and entertainment. Put on the most iconic events in the country in that industry. And we plan to do more and more events year on year and double down on our content growth year on year.”
Variety Australia launch homepage
What this deal means for The Brag Media
Girgis said that while The Brag Media started out focused on music, the company’s mission is now to be ubiquitous in Australian culture, and this Variety deal helps achieve that.
LG: “We certainly started with music and we quickly became the largest music publisher in Australia. But The Brag Media’s mission is to be ubiquitous in Australian culture, so that extends beyond music. You’ve seen with our acquisitions and our launching of new titles over the years, we are now very heavily into gaming, anime, and we’ve got a whole bunch of female culture brands like SheKnows. This launching into film, screen, technology and entertainment is not an unsurprising move for our strategy where we just want to be ubiquitous with Australian culture.”
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Top Image: Poppy Reid, Luke Grigis, and Joel King