Response to false statements made in Inside Golf newspaper article

We wish to respond to a false and misleading piece recently published on social media and the website of Inside Golf newspaper.

On May 19, 2019, Inside Golf published a piece on its website, social media channels and email newsletter titled:

Think print is dead? Think again.

In this piece Inside Golf stated:

While once notable Australian golf titles like Golf Magazine, Pacific Golfer, Golf Vacations and most recently, Australian Golf Digest, have either exited the Australian print industry or announced a shift to digital-only platforms…

This statement is false and misleading.

Australian Golf Digest has not exited the Australian print industry. Further, Australian Golf Digest has never announced a shift to a digital-only platform, nor does it intend to.

To the contrary, our print product remains – and will remain – a core focus of what Australian Golf Digest is built on. We have published the magazine continuously for 584 issues (spanning 48 years) making us not only the oldest golf media brand in Australia but also one of the oldest media brands in the country. It’s something we are extremely proud of.

With the acquisition of the Golf Digest brand by Discovery Inc. (as announced 2 weeks ago), we are extremely excited about where this will take us in the Australian market. Working hand in hand with Discovery, GOLFTV and PGATour.com only enhances our brand and dramatically increases our total reach in Australia. We look forward to bringing you some exciting initiatives shortly around this.

At no stage was Australian Golf Digest approached for comment for this article nor were we contacted regarding it in general. We believe in the best in quality journalism and checking facts. After all, that is the business we are in. Inside Golf did eventually acknowledge that the statement was not correct and has somewhat reluctantly retracted these two statements.

We would also like to clarify some inaccuracies being published in the market.

1. READERSHIP

The current media metric used by ALL leading magazines and newspapers in Australia is EMMA Readership.(www.emma.com.au). This news media industry-accredited print readership survey is conducted by Ipsos and fused with Nielsen’s Digital Panel currency data. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Australian Financial Reviewand Herald Sun, to name just a few, subscribe and use this service. It’s the industry standard.

Australian Golf Digest and Golf Australia magazines are regularly audited by Ipsos/EMMA and our readership numbers are open to scrutiny.

At Australian Golf Digest we believe the golf industry and advertisers deserve up-to-date and accurate data.

Other readership surveys are not a true and current measure of readership numbers. Such surveys include:

• Sports Marketing Surveys’ ‘Independent Golf Consumer Survey’

According to ASIC records, Sports Marketing Surveys ceased trading (ASIC Register) in 2015 and we have been informed directly that the Sports Marketing Surveys did not carry out any independent Golf Consumer Surveys in 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2018 as claimed.

• Golf Research Australia independent survey.

This survey has not been conducted since 2010, according to owner and industry expert Jeff Blunden.

At Australian Golf Digest we believe the golf industry and advertisers deserve up to date and accurate data.

2. FACEBOOK/SOCIAL MEDIA

Like many businesses in Australia, Australian Golf Digest invests part of our marketing budget towards social media.

Australian Golf Digest now has more than 74,400 followers on Facebook, which is 3.5 times bigger than Inside Golf (with 20,650) and 4.9 times larger than Golf Australia magazine (with 15,200)

We will happily show our back-end engagement at any time to anyone in an open forum and challenge other publications to do the same. We are happy to place the engagement of our pages side by side against the market.

We have nothing to hide or embellish here.

Facebook classifies an engagement as a like, share or comment about a post or story. By way of comparison please see below the engagement during the last two majors, The Masters and the PGA Championships.

These are the respective engagements on the following magazine’s pages during those Major weeks [1]:

Australian Golf Digest is proud of the fact that we are the go-to source for golf news and information nationally.

3. QANTAS CLUBS / FREE vs PAID DISTRIBUTION

Any publisher can apply and simply pay to get their publication into the Qantas Club. It is a simple process. You apply, are accepted and pay a monthly/annual fee and in you go. Australian Golf Digest does it targeting business and first-class passengers.

Australian Golf Digest also sells our magazine at newsagents and supermarkets nationally and since people actually pay for our product (RRP: $10.00), we give a decent commission to the newsagent. That is, after all, their business model.

This is the same for when our magazine is sold through pro shops – we pay them for every copy sold. We don’t believe in asking for free distribution as we know many advertisers in golf magazines and newspapers compete directly with the local pro shop. Golf clubs and public courses find it difficult enough to compete with the off course stores as it is, and we feel that it’s only fair to the wider golf industry that we pay the clubs for this service that they are providing.

With only 36%* of members of clubs regularly buying golf equipment from their pro shop, it would be unfair to ask them to conduct this service for no financial return.

During the past four plus years, Australian Golf Digest has set out to engage the Australian golfer in whichever medium they wish to engage us (magazine, online, video and social media), and we’ll continue to do so.

Media is ever evolving, especially in the past 10 years. We know our product and have confidence in where we sit in the golf media landscape and look forward to the next stage with the Discovery, GOLTV, Golf Digest partnership.

Print is very much at the forefront of this model BUT with the rise of digital, broadcast video on demand and social media we simply won’t ignore the new mediums and will continue to lead the way in this.

Australian Golf Digest is committed to the changing landscape and committed to open and transparent dialogue about numbers with its advertisers and the market in general.

We challenge others to do the same.

Sincerely,

The Australian Golf Digest team

[1] Figures taken from Facebook Analytics on (29^thMay 2019 )