How private equity gutted my old tech media newsroom

Whenever I tell people I used to work at ARN, I always have to clarify: not that ARN.

Nothing to do with Kyle and Jackie O — this was Australian Reseller News, a trade publication covering an under-the-radar but billion-dollar network of technology resellers and distributors.

Today, however, ARN and its owner, global publishing company Foundry, are shadows of their former selves. Like many publishers, the business has passed through multiple private equity hands, with each sale stripping away at this small yet vital corner of the Australian media industry.

When I first joined ARN seven years ago, its owner was still known as IDG Communications Australia, and the newsroom retained a real sense of hustle and bustle, producing the Australian editions of global mastheads like PC World, Computerworld and CIO.

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Only months earlier, the then-54-year-old business had been sold to China-headquartered Oceania Capital, the first of three private equity sales in as many years, followed by Blackstone and, most recently, Regent.

And now, according to a recent report by Influencing, ARN is effectively the last masthead standing, following yet another round of redundancies that over the last seven years all but obliterated IDG’s once-thriving Australian operation.

According to the report, and verified by Mumbrella, almost the entire local team has been let go, leaving only a skeleton group of editorial, sales, and event managers running what remains profitable: ARN’s events.

Private equity firms have one goal and one goal alone: quick profit. That quick profit is pursued through a familiar playbook of so-called operational “synergies”; essentially,  massive cuts, higher margins and then a sale.

A deal with a private equity firm may look attractive to a beleaguered media owner, drawn by the promise of a quick payday, but for anyone who cares about the long-term future of their company, it’s often a dead end.

Another private equity firm, Red Ventures, shut down ZDNet’s Australian operations in 2022 and recently demolished headcount across its US titles at Ziff Davis, including CNET, Mashable and Lifehacker.

The fate of IDG/Foundry and ZDNet could be awaiting Are Media, which was bought by Mercury Capital in 2020 and is now up for sale.

This is the PE playbook facing Are:

• Mass layoffs and entire teams — notably IT, finance, and editorial support — systematically dismantled or absorbed into other markets.
• Recentralisation of mastheads across global markets, producing a homogenised media offering with little to no local reporting, distinct editorial voice, or differentiated advertising opportunities.
• Teams drained by repeated layoffs, uncertainty and the burden of redistributed workloads.

As homegrown brands, ARN and its New Zealand sister title, Reseller News, managed — at least editorially — to avoid some of the most brutal cuts and homogenisation, although the same could not be said for CMO, which was shuttered in 2023.

In hindsight,  I don’t believe IDG/Foundry’s local decline can be pinned solely on the death of print or the struggles of digital advertising.

There was never any shortage of marketing dollars, particularly during the pandemic, when cloud adoption, WFH tech and digital transformation spending went into overdrive.

In its last available ASIC filings from 2019, the business was still slightly profitable, $73,157 in the black.

Yet post-Covid, following its sale to Blackstone, ARN’s event sponsorship and award fees were hiked by double digits,  alienating a tight, fiercely loyal group of Australian technology companies, who were both our audience and our revenue.

These were resellers and distributors representing major vendors like Dell, Cisco, and Microsoft.

They had considerable marketing budgets and long-standing relationships with our masthead,  relationships that soured when it became clear our events were becoming more about profit than partnership.

I understand: a publisher needs to be profitable. But this was not the way to do it, and what’s left now is a shell of compared with less than a decade ago.

The hollowing out of IDG/Foundry is yet another — though by no means unfamiliar — blow for journalists and a once-vibrant tech media industry.

For advertisers, these mastheads were more than just ad space: they fostered tightly knit communities, where deals could be brokered at an event before the pre-drinks had even finished.

For now, my understanding is that the remaining local team is just as in the dark about the future of the Australian operation as the rest of us, thanks to a communication blackout from IDG/Foundry’s global HQ.

But if there’s one thing I still believe, it’s that there’s demand for technology titles: just not for the leftovers.