Stuff chief executive Laura Maxwell is leaving the business to work for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in Australia, after a little over a year in the job.
Stuff owner Sinead Boucher will take the reins as CEO once again.
Maxwell, a former NZME executive who became CEO of Stuff lastyear, has been appointed managing director of News Corp’s Queensland digital and print publications.
Boucher, who bought Stuff for $1 from Australian publishing firm Nine more than four years ago, said Maxwell, who became chief executive in June last year, left with Stuff’s “best wishes and thanks”.
The Stuff newsroom in Ponsonby. Photo / Dean Purcell
“In her time with the business - first as chief growth officer and then for the past year as chief executive officer - Laura has supported our executive team as we delivered significant change in the business,” Boucher said in a statement.
“Over this period we have restructured the organisation, completed a total technology replatform, refined our print portfolio and shaped the group into two distinct businesses - Stuff Digital and Masthead Publishing - with separate content, product and revenue strategies.
“This step in our five-year transformation strategy has been well executed and Laura has helped to set us up for the next stage as we look to invest in new technology, capability and skills for the future.”
Maxwell said in a Stuff statement that she had loved her time in the role.
“It has been a privilege to work for a female-owned business and with such a strategic entrepreneur as Sinead, who is bold and brave and cares deeply about the future of the industry.”
News Corp announced later on Thursday that Maxwell would join the company in November. It said she would drive commercial revenue across the company’s digital and print portfolio - including the Brisbane-based Courier Mail - in Queensland “with a focus on strategic partnerships, integrated content, and advocacy programs”.
“Queensland is absolutely primed to lead Australia into the future, with a diverse industry portfolio that generates local jobs and delivers significant national and export earnings,” Maxwell said in a second statement.
“The 2032 Olympics and Paralympics will showcase Queensland to the world, and the opportunities before, during and after the event are there for the taking.
“I’m excited to help unlock these through the approach to life that Queenslanders have – getting stuck in and getting it done.”
Her departure comes as Stuff - like all media companies - operates in a challenging economy and media market. It has fallen to number 2, behind the NZ Herald, as the country’s biggest news website, although it’s a tight battle and new monthly numbers are due by early next week.
Ahead of the meeting, several sources said it had been pitched as a regular staff “town hall” gathering - they were expecting a regular business update. But others believed a bigger announcement was in the wind.
Maxwell would give her quarterly update, Boucher said via text this morning.
Stuff's leadership team, Nadia Tolich (left), Laura Maxwell, Matt Headland, Sinead Boucher, and Jo Norris. Photo / Stuff
Asked if there were any announcements planned, Boucher did not respond.
“Do you mean our town hall? Just the usual!” said Stuff Digital managing director Nadia Tolich, also via text.
Tolich and Stuff Masthead managing director Joanna Norris are likely contenders for the chief executive role, if Boucher decides to be there only temporarily.
As a private locally-owned company, Stuff is under no obligation to report, publicly, its financial position. It leaves the media company open to a fair amount of speculation about its balance sheet.
In February, Boucher told the Herald that Stuff was - and expected to remain - “a profitable, debt-free standalone, media business even in the challenging market conditions we find ourselves in”.
Stuff’s Three News ratings
Aside from that challenging economy, Stuff is now more than a month into its partnership with Warner Bros Discovery to deliver the 6pm TV news on Three.
Ratings have been falling, although executives have been quick to highlight external influences - such as the Olympics and live coverage on Sky - as having an impact.
From June 1 to July 5, the former Newshub at 6 bulletin had a daily average audience (all ages 5+) of 228,600; from July 6 until August 4 – the first month of the Stuff bulletin – that daily average audience dropped to 190,900.
In the critical 25-54 age bracket, Newshub at 6′s average daily audience was 75,200 whereas its successor’s daily average audience in the first month was 57,200.
In both age brackets, TVNZ increased its own daily average audience.
TVNZ received an extra boost from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump - its breaking news coverage that Sunday morning, as well as regular updates through the day, led to a bigger 6pm news audience. Three, on the other hand, had nothing until 6pm.
WBD NZ and Australia head of networks Juliet Peterson said last week she was pleased with the first month of the new-look Stuff-produced bulletin and was “certainly not panicking” about the numbers.
“I would expect them [ratings] to come down for lots of reasons – school holidays, Olympics... and it’s a new product. It takes time.”
WBD had previously seen, when it revamped the likes of AM, that it took time for ratings to bounce up.
“We are certainly not panicking and I never had any intention of making any judgment this close.”
Asked when she would be making judgments, she said: “I think most things, particularly when they are long-running, everyday deliverables like that need several months.
“I think they probably need a little bit longer than that if they’ve been through a period of instability and viewing behaviours, like we’re seeing of the scale of the Olympics.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
