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Ita Buttrose has been appointed chairperson of Reddo Media Services, an iPad/tablet-specialist digital publishing start up that she predicts will help change the future of magazine publishing in Australia.
“Magazine publishers are struggling with declining circulations and their revenues are under pressure,” said Buttrose. “The old ways that once served us well are no longer the way of the future. Tablet publishing is a far more cost-efficient, modern way to produce a magazine.”
According to Reddo, tablet publishing is set to boom in Australia. “Forecasts are that by December, there will be well over 3.5 million tablet devices sold in Australia, and around half of all Australians will be using tablets by 2016.”
Reddo maintains it is well placed to provide an outsourced, enterprise-grade tablet publishing solution, suitable for all magazine publishers. It has chosen the Enterprise Agency Edition of Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite as its platform to create and distribute publications for tablet devices.
Buttrose says that the highly engaging and interactive tablet publishing format offers massive potential not just for publishers of consumer, business to business and trade magazines, but it is also ideal for custom publications, corporate reports, manuals, internal documents, and for government and education publications.
“It’s exciting to be a pioneer in this next important – and for some companies crucial – stage of publishing, an industry that I am passionate about,” she said. “I am excited by what tablet magazines have to offer. I am looking forward to helping established publishers transform their publications for tablet devices. Indeed there is also a tremendous opportunity to launch titles exclusively on tablet.”
Among her many career achievements, Ita Buttrose was the founding editor of Cleo Magazine and the youngest editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
In 1981 she became the first women to edit a major metropolitan daily newspaper in Australia when Rupert Murdoch appointed her Editor-in-Chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs.
Buttrose went on to become the first woman Editor-in-Chief of the Sun-Herald and publishing consultant to Fairfax magazines. She was also one of the first women, along with then Australian Women’s Weekly Editor Dorothy Drain, to be appointed to the board of Australian Consolidated Press and the first woman to be appointed to the board of News Ltd Australia.
Reddo founders, Shane Mitchell and Troy Martin must be delighted with the appointment of Ita Buttrose, whose involvement in the startup is sure to go along way towards attracting additional capital, after Reddo successfully completed a first round of capital raising.
Reddo will launch with magazine publishers and corporate clients including Switzer Media + Publishing (RUSSH Magazine), Prime Creative Media, Culture Media, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jobpac and magazine industry peak body Publishers Australia.