Another Australian music magazine closes, appoints liquidator

Australian classical music and arts magazine Limelight has closed up shop days before it was to publish its March edition.

The Australian reported that staff has been terminated and liquidators brought in.

Limelight’s demise comes in the wake of Rolling Stone Australia’s publisher going into administration and experimental art & music publication Real Time announcing it would cease “regular publishing” in 2018 after 25 years.

Limelight began in 1976 as part of the ABC set-up, with the title ABC Radio 24 Hours.

In 2003 the ABC rebranded it and in 2006 licensed to independent publisher Haymarket Media Group.

In 2014, the ABC sold it to Arts Illuminated Pty. Ltd.

However the technological changes in the magazine industry and resultant drop in ad revenue saw Arts Illuminated “donate” it to a newly established not-for-profit company Arts Initiative Australia last August for ten years.

At the time publisher Andrew Batt-Rawden said the move brought certainty to the title.

He explained, “Because the publication is now owned by a charitable organisation, the licence agreement to any publisher, now or in the future, will have caveats such as editorial integrity, profit margins being used for arts journalism, and the knowledge that there is another layer of governance with a trustworthy board that have the interests of the arts at heart.”

He emphasised, “It is no secret that the media and arts sectors are facing perilous times.”

* Sydney-based youth title publisher Seventh Street Media announced that its street weekly Brag will from March become a monthly and expand coverage of the arts – particularly local cinema – short fiction, illustrations, and longform political content.