If the iPad has shown us anything so far, it’s that print magazines need to up their game. There will always be a place for quality print, in newspaper and magazine, elsewhere there’s a lot of migration to the net.
I’ve been writing a monthly column for the magazine for seven years, and it’s great to hear that they’ve just won the Qantas Media Award for best newsstand magazine in New Zealand, winning ahead of other quality titles like The Listener and North & South. The Qantas Media Award is the most prestigious in New Zealand – and it’s an award across all genres, so it’s a tribute to Gregor’s editorial eye that a rugby magazine has scooped the pool over the very high quality of current affairs, business, design, food and lifestyle magazines published in New Zealand. While Rugby has a head start in the New Zealand consciousness, winning against mainstream titles is a huge achievement.
The judges say that “NZ Rugby World has raised the bar on what a specialist magazine can achieve. The magazine has both flair and reach. It serves its target readership well, but its entertaining writing, combative analysis, humor, clarity and intelligence make it an appealing package to a wider constituency.” That’s how to build Loyalty Beyond Reason.
Over at the Magazine Publishers Association Awards the awards continued for NZ Rugby World – also voted Sports Magazine of the Year, beating out Cut Magazine and New Zealand Boating.
The current issue of the magazine has Captain Incredible Richie McCaw on the cover “Loyal to the End”, a feature on the dark arts of scrummaging, and previews of the forthcoming Tri-Nations tournament between the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies. Above is a 2009 cover featuring Mils Muliaina in haka pose.
Congratulations to Gregor and his team for shining a light on the great, the good, and the up and coming in Rugby around the world.
