The above is how a prominent Wellington commercial figure described the insanity last Tuesday by Stuff’s dying fleet of newspapers.
I shall write about this next Monday by which time the on-going reaction will have slowed. But in the interim I offer Stuff’s management a wager.
If they’re game to publish their audited subscription figures in say three months time, I’ll bet them any sum they wish to entertain that they’re down at least 25% from the last lot.
And if they wish, again any sum they’re prepared to entertain, subject to the money up front in a lawyer’s trust account, that they will cease publishing through lack of subscribers within three years.
Until Monday then.
31 Comments
I’m finding the festival of meaningless virtue signalling in Stuffed quite amusing but it’s no substitute for real news journalism. I agree that it will be another example of get “woke”, go broke or stay broke in their case 🙂
I suspect you are right but if I was stuff I would take your bet for say $20M and then pay people to subscribe ..lets say they have 100,000 (no idea real number) I just need to pay 110,000 people say $100 each to subscribe .costs me $11M and get $20M …… the only problem with the cunning plan is I doubt they could raise 200k to put in Trust account !!
The woke move of the century in my book. Stuff are stuffed!
They will certainly never get any of my money as a result of this type of rubbish.
Will a decent print media ever emerge in this country. At moment the left is winning the battles purely through misinformation spread through leftist media outlets. IT IS ACTUALLY VERY DANGEROUS!!!
You are absolutely right , two of my mates have cancelled their subscriptions because of it . Fortunately the southern men are waiting in the wings . Chris
Heavens above, Sir Bob, you don’t think Maori will be queuing to pay for Stuff now?
Much more likely to be asking the taxpayer to pay, I admit, and with this Government, to be successful.
Sad that what could have been an intelligent, disspationate look at the past had to be blown up into a posturing campaign. Just as they did with global warming.
Shame, I need the paper for lighting my fire in winter, which is all the Herald and Dominion et al, is good for.
To be fair, lining the kitty litter for Mittens to relieve himself at every stop is a pretty good use for the paper.
Yes we miss the Herald in Winter – it is now necessary to buy fire starters
“The greatest commercial suicide action in history?” Now THAT’S a classic Stuff headline – hyperbolic, grandiose and factually untrue.”
You are right in the sense that Stuff would first need to be a Commercially Viable Organization which it is not. Difficult to commit Commercial suicide in their case.
I see the Herald has responded by going after Stuff’s South Island base with a South Island homepage.
Stuffed are so obsessed with their activist agenda they’re turning away perfectly reasonable advertising
They refused to print the adverts for the Democracy Northland petitions calling for referenda on the Maori wards proposal. Perhaps they think our wet government will just keep bailing them out.
According to the advertising sales rep here is what they said on turning down the advert:
“Their decision [a three-member editorial panel] is based primarily off the core values that we are paying extra attention to at this given time. Particularly with our current value realignment, they believe the ad may not align with the message that the company is trying to push forward at this stage. While I appreciate that there should be a certain element of freedom of voice within all publications, it appears that at this time our editorial team is being extra cautious with what is going into our papers due to the sensitive nature of our current value realignment.”
“the message that the company is trying to push forward” They’re no longer even pretending to be anything other than straight-out activists.
That demeans all their reporting and shows it should come with a mental health warning. It should also be a barrier to receiving public money.
It would be if the Communists weren’t running the country. And that’s a serious comment.
stuff were doomed to failure when they started to apologise for the historical racist treatment of Maori, in articles published by the former evening post and dominion newspapers back in the 1970,s.
As soon as i read that, i terminated my subscription.
Just having a look at the website, it’s worse that I suspected, they’re even branding it ” Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono. Clearly no such thing as The Truth.
What we’re witnessing is the death of liberalism itself.
https://quillette.com/2020/08/16/the-challenge-of-marxism/
The subscription model is dead. So is the advertising income model.
Stuff is Stuffed, when you have a media organization representing the minority. Include also the NZ Herald, TVNZ, Radio NZ in that group. Minority views are prioritized far more biased than conservative views.
Suicidal is Stuffed vilification of their subscriber base. The conservative majority must apologize for being exactly that, conservative. How many stories need to be written about conservative racism, misogyny, tolerance, inequality, inclusiveness of minority groups?
The advertising revenue model is based on the reader or viewer of the media source, having an impartial view when it comes to advertisements.
So when you have a media organization that repeatedly insults their majority conservative customers (subscribers/viewers/readers). Those same customers need to take note of the advertising supporting the insult.
I personally boycott advertised products or services, when advertised on insulting biased editorial content. I take note, and go out of my way not to buy from those being advertised. Fortunately for us as consumers who vote with our spending habits. Soon enough advertisers will learn, that it’s not all about getting exposure, bad exposure huts sales.
“The subscription model is dead” I dont agree. Look at all the massive tech companies offering nothing but subscription models. The problems for STUFF aren’t based on subscriptions but on quality-or lack of it
Oxford dictionary ; impartial a. not favouring one more than the another.
Understand why this evolved in human history, children.
Report the facts, or make it clear you have a bias.
I don’t expect the government to agree.
I suspect that our glorious “progressive” government will simply bail them out again.
Democracy? Not to much…
Actually, when I think about it, Stuff are adopting the optimal policy they could to maximise profits.
If Stuff continue to try to make money from subscriptions and advertising, they will almost certainly continue to fail. Who wants to pay to read the views of a bunch of whiney teenagers? However, perhaps we should consider the possibility that the head Stuff hack could be sufficiently self-aware to realise this?
There is clearly huge value in the Stuff brand – as the print propaganda arm of the government, rather than as a real media organisation. Under the “progressive” (neo socialist) system, the key to success is to unlock government subsidies.
The fact is, the government can get great value for money from the Stuff brand. The child army of hacks are experts at writing mind numbing propaganda pieces about baby Neve et al, which helped to generate the biggest electoral landslide in NZ’s history.
Expect Stuff to hold out their hand to the government…
Sometimes the terrorists win…
Maybe, but who is going to be there to read this crap. We discontinued our subscription a number of years ago and have looked online at mainly local news, but I have now deleted all their apps off all my devices.
I wrote to stuff congratulating them on their Uriah Heap impersonation (their grovelling apology for their reporting on Maori) No response – I’m,not surprised!
To see that stuff freakwintly has wonderful articles based on the brilliance of my crazy FB posts (I call them 1+1=2 articles) is awful. A very negative thing to discover and more so my reactions are still anger based. As an aspiring gentleman with 20 or so recordings on my ph for people who understand my aspirations to get out of the gutter. 1 is about WW2 and Adolfs doppelganger (my education finished early)
Coffee some time Sir Bob Jones?
Stuff was sold for a penny. I did hope that it would be bought by a capitalist who would forswear the tradition of allowing editorial independence and give some much needed direction to ensure balance. Of course it wont happen like that because everyone knows that as an investment it is already stuffed. But as an act of philanthropy maybe? As you point out, the infantile antics of the current owner and ‘reporters’ antagonize the very people who are most likely to read conventional news services. Is there a business model that would work that would cater for people like me who are still interested in reading what is going on in the world (and thus need more than is provided by the blogs) and want reasoned analysis not agenda driven opinions.
Stuff.co.nz were the only media joint in NZ do any homework regarding the Ruby Princess debacle.
Cruise ship used to spread the Covid-19 virus.
5 April 2020: New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller announces a criminal investigation into the operator of the Ruby Princess cruise ship after the death of 10 passengers from coronavirus. This was to be conducted by the NSW Police homicide squad.
15 April 2020: A Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess was initiated to curtail the police investigation. Some months later the Commissioner reported that everything was an unfortunate string of accidents and errors.
22 April 2020: NZ Customs announced an investigation into Ruby Princess cruise-ship staff concerning Covid-19 clusters in New Zealand.
Accidental, or not, the Ruby Princess certainly spread the virus far and wide:
See image showing where virus from the Ruby Princess was spread.
Here is a false declaration of health sent by the Ruby Princess to the Auckland District Health Board. It was obtained by stuff.co.nz under the Official Information Act. The declaration is dated 16 March, and claims to have been submitted at the port of Tauranga, however, the cruise of the Ruby Princess was cut short, and the ship never visited Tauranga.
On 15 March a declaration of health would have been sent from the Ruby Princess, then at the port of Napier, to the Bay of Plenty District Health Board. This would have been needed to dock at the port of Tauranga, as planned for March 16. After changing one word, Napier, to Tauranga, and the (first instance of the) date to the 16th, and presumably the registration number, the same document was sent to the Auckland District Health Board. This would have been needed to dock at Auckland, as planned for March 17. Doing this had the effect of hiding the true health situation on March 16. Why was it necessary to hide the true health situation of the Ruby Princess? One has to assume that someone on board knew the ship was carrying Covid-19.
From: http://preearth.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1174
I’m unsure which is making me more nauseous , Stuff’s grovelling apology to the Maori nation , or Jacinda Ardern’s ghastly woke moment , our ” climate change emergency ” …. either / or , the real issues besetting our country go unaddressed as we focus on needless feel good fluff …. Sigh !
Stuffs business model along the lines of:
“ We love minorities, special interest groups, diversity, LGBT, and socialist policies.
Everyone else are idiots, racist, misogynist, bigots, we hate you all !
BTW, Please buy my paper. Also, remember to support our advertisers, without whom we couldn’t bring you our message.”
SM, terrifyingly, if you believe the latest poll, the mass lemmings in this country still think Cindy is infact Neo i.e. THE ONE! I should have taken the Blue pill instead of the Red one.
Also
“remember to not argue the point or raise any critical questions regarding global warming (sorry – climate change) because we will not publish any probing questions or science based skeptical comments. The topic is CLOSED just like the USSR. dissenters not allowed !!”