Ask anyone and they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s a turbulent time to be in the newspaper industry. Yet, despite the considerable difficulties, one group is not only surviving but thriving.
The Smith family has been in the publishing industry since the 1860s, beginning with George Bell’s arrival in New Zealand from England during the Otago gold rush. Bell soon obtained a job writing editorials for the Otago Daily Times, and six generations later the family is still at it: Today it is behind the Allied Press group, an expanding media empire that now stretches throughout the South Island.
The group’s showpiece is still the venerable Otago Daily Times, New Zealand’s last independent daily newspaper. However, there is far more in the Allied stable than just the ODT. Allied now has a presence in every corner of the South Island except for Nelson/Marlborough, and it continues to grow; in the past year, it’s added both Christchurch’s Star Media and Balclutha’s Clutha Leader to its stable. It has a majority stake in the Greymouth Evening Star Company, which recently bought Stuff toss-off Kaikoura Star.
While expanding can seem somewhat counter-intuitive, given a media landscape dominated by cutbacks and redundancies, family patriarch Sir Julian Smith seems to subscribe to the idea that if you’re not moving forward, you’re going backward. “We need growth – the company can’t stand still,” he told Newsroom last year.
Sir Julian has a delightfully old-school approach to journalism, which appears to work to his advantage. The ODT tends to fare far better than its larger contemporaries in terms of circulation performance, and Allied Press papers and journalists tend to be heavily represented in the annual Voyager Media Awards. Last year the group’s Mountain Scene paper won the Community Newspaper of the Year title, while the ODT narrowly lost to The Press in the over-30,000 circulation category. This year, The Star is a finalist for Community Newspaper of the year.
Aside from its media interests, Allied is also involved in the printing industry. This year, in conjunction with Webstar, it bought Christchurch printing operation Inkwise for an undisclosed sum.
Along with Sir Julian, Nick Smith (his brother) is also involved in Allied. Nick’s daughter, Charlotte Smith-Smulders, is listed as the publisher of Star Media. The group’s stable of newspapers and magazines includes Kiwi Gardener, Rugby News and Dunedin TV channel Star Live. It also has a majority interest in the Post a Note website.
2018: $80 million