Yaffa Media is one of Australia’s largest independent media companies and has remained an independent operation with significant growth and diversification over the past 100 years.
The company’s founder, David Yaffa, was a salesman for an importing company in Sydney with entrepreneurial ideas. In 1920, aged 27, he went to the USA where he secured the Australian agency for the Underwood Photo Service, and on his return set up a small office in Pitt Street. More travel and more agency deals followed, and soon he was controlling Australasian distribution of not just photographs but also comics, news articles and feature writing from major publishers in the US and UK.
Through perseverance and wearing out plenty of shoe leather he established personal friendships and close business relationships with newspaper industry leaders in Australia and overseas. Keith Murdoch, chairman of the Herald & Weekly Times and father of Rupert Murdoch, issued this tribute: “For 25 years I have known Dave Yaffa as a kindly, busy, progressive man, with plenty of pluck for adventurous business.” And from Frank Packer of Consolidated Press: “Mr Yaffa was in all ways a man and a friend to be proud of. His ability and business acumen were recognised by all working newspaper executives of Australia, England and America. No-one had ever before occupied his unique position in Australian journalism and commanded the wide respect he did.”
From the early 1920s onwards newspaper pages across the country published photographs with the credit line YAFFA on them. Many were what would be called stock images today, particularly photographs used in advertisements, but as technology improved photos were sent by cable, and with instant transmission they were in great demand for use alongside the latest news stories. Some newspapers were slow to adapt to the new technology and did not establish early connections with news services overseas. This left an opening for David Yaffa who on his early trips to America and Britain established links with overseas news services. Soon syndicated news stories also carried the credit line YAFFA.
Comics, too, were big business. Yaffa imported the first American comic strip into Australia, The Clancy Kids by Percy Crosby, and went on to syndicate a multitude of famous comic strips including Popeye, Blondie, Mandrake, Speed Gordon, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Dick Tracy, Superman, Dagwood, Orphan Annie and Henry The Little King. Hearst-owned King Features Inc of New York was one of Yaffa’s largest clients with licensed comics in nearly every newspaper in Australasia.
In 1928 David Yaffa launched Newspaper News, a monthly trade publication that enabled him to stay even closer to his newspaper friends and clients. It was only the second publication in the world of its kind. Locally it covered news and features about Australasian media, advertisers, advertising agencies and printing technology. Making use of its international connections, it also published the latest international developments sourced from the company’s cable news services in its New York and London offices. And in addition to overseas news it often published quirky side stories such as the one about a journalist who was knocked over by a bus and wrote his own obituary as he lay dying on the footpath. Talk about gutter journalism!
The newspaper industry was all powerful before the war. When the 100th issue of Newspaper News was published in 1936 the Prime Minister Joseph Lyons sent a congratulatory letter to Newspaper News, which published it on the front page. The letter was flattering, almost sycophantic, about newspapers, and included this statement: “It would be superfluous of me to say much about the public service that newspapers perform: the readers of ‘Newspaper News’ probably know more about this than I do. I do know, however, that the task of governing a continent, difficult as it is, would be very much more difficult without the help of the Press.”
In 1940 David Yaffa bought a newspaper press from the Sydney Morning Herald and converted it to four colour printing. The press was installed in the basement of the Warwick Building along with binding and stereotype departments, a loading dock and a crane. With an emphasis now on printing, a new subsidiary, Rotary Colorprint, was set up. Among the first publications printed by Rotary under licence were the Pacific editions of Reader’s Digest, Time magazine and the first Phantom comics. The ABC Weekly magazine and the Australian Army newspaper were amongst the earliest local titles printed.
To complement the newspaper printing operation an additional letterpress printing facility was set up at Crane Place at Circular Quay. This included sheet-fed presses and four linotype (hot metal typesetting) machines. Altogether there were about 30 staff at Crane Place including machinists, compositors and proof readers.
In the early 1950s Rotary printed the comic sections for the weekend newspapers plus standalone King Features comics including Blondie, Dagwood, Archie, Phantom Ranger, Lois, The Shadow, The Invisible Man, Flash Gordon, Beetle Bailey, Mandrake, Jungle Jim, Felix the Cat, Denis the Menace and so on, and Cleveland Westerns. These were followed in the ‘60s and later by booklets of crosswords, puzzles and horoscopes and a succession of ‘pulp fiction’ products – detective stories, action stories, ‘true confessions’ and a host of titillating and risque titles such as Daring Men’s Stories, Adventure For Men, Modern Men and Real Experiences. Different times – the presses had to be kept busy somehow!
In 1962 the company was given notice to vacate the Warwick Building, which was to be demolished for the construction of Australia Square. New premises were found at Butt Street, Surry Hills, where all the office staff and both printing facilities could be accommodated.
By the turn of the century printing technology was marching on and plateless printing was the way of the future. On top of this, much of the machinery at Rotary Colorprint was reaching the end of its life. Eventually there was a clear choice – upgrade most of equipment at great cost or get out of the printing business. Pragmatism won the day and the company closed operations in August 2005.
For more than 30 years the company owned just one publication, Newspaper News. That all changed as David Yaffa Jnr assembled a stable of business and consumer magazines. In the 1960s he purchased eight magazines and launched none; in the 1970s he purchased eight more magazines and launched one. Right from the start the magazines were a mixture of business titles (trade magazines) and special interest titles (consumer magazines). This mix is unique – no other publishing company in Australia covers both categories, they are either publishers of business magazines or publishers of consumer magazines.
Three of the magazines acquired in the 1960s are still published: the business magazine Packaging News and the consumer magazines Australian Flying and Sporting Shooter. The one magazine launched in the 1970s, Guns Australia, survived in a fashion, being merged with Sporting Shooter. The other seven are no longer published. Of the 56 titles published by the company since 1960 only 16 survive in print. The stable reached its zenith in 2003 with 37 magazines.
Over the years with its business titles the Yaffa Group published the market leader or significant magazine in more than 20 industries including packaging, food manufacturing, advertising, shooting, photography, air conditioning, panelbeating, boating/sailing, fishing, dance, aviation, textiles/fashion, defence, sports goods, stationery, hospital management and club management. With special interest magazines it published leading titles about flying, fishing, cycling, photography, shooting, dance, sailing, walking, health, woodworking, skiing and scuba diving.
David Yaffa Jnr’s career with the company spanned 57 years from 1955 to 2012. As proprietor he built the company into the largest independent specialist publishing group in Australia. His father would not recognise the company as it is today. The syndication business, the backbone of the company before the war, no longer operates. The printing company, the major contributor to the company’s coffers in the generation after the war, no longer operates. The world changed, and the company had to change with it.
During his time with the company DY presided over the expansion of its printing operations, initiated its major move into magazine publishing, assembled a stable of more than 30 magazines and oversaw diversifications into events and digital media.
“David Yaffa was a proprietor with a true feel for the media,” stated AdNews in its obituary in 2018. “He was in it for the long haul. He spent a lifetime building up the business his way, through trial and error, virtually single-handed. His greatest business achievement was the development of his father’s business into a significant force in Australian publishing. Few companies in Australia remain in private hands after nearly a century.
“While he was single-minded and demanding, he was not the stereotypical, ruthless media proprietor. He was polite and fair and would treat his staff with respect if they did their jobs well. For those on the editorial side it was gratifying that the content of the magazine came first. In theory a good product attracted readers, and good readership numbers attracted advertisers. More revenue could then be allocated to improving the product further. Consequently he backed his good editors and let them get on with the job without interference.”
All four of DY’s children have worked in the company at one time or another. Tracy is managing director, Max was a sales manager on business magazines for many years, Guy worked briefly in the marine group of magazines in the 1990s, and James was publisher of AdNews before his current role of running the bicycling classics events. Tracy’s daughter Lucy is the company’s marketing and events manager. The company is now owned by Tracy and James.
In 2015 the Yaffa Publishing Group was rebranded as Yaffa Media. “We are no longer magazine publishers,” managing director Tracy Yaffa told the staff at the launch function. “We are creators of engaging media. Our inspired content is consumed on different platforms. We are experts in our diverse fields and a trusted and valued source in this new world. Our magazines are now brands across print, digital, apps, conferences and social media. We must continue to strive to achieve or maintain market leadership in each of our targeted segments.”
One of the company’s earlier diversifications was the move into events with the purchase of the events company Two de Force, in 2007. Award programs and other events for Yaffa magazines could then be handled in-house by Two de Force. Since then the company has developed in many other ways to help clients achieve their marketing aims. The list now includes conferences, exhibitions, product launches, competitions, awards, podcasts, videos, roundtables, moderating and hosting. Magazines that can be extended into these areas are the ones that have survived; magazines that have not been able to offer such additional marketing opportunities are unlikely to survive. As Tracy explains: “Our strategy became one of going deep into the industries we served – in each industry we aim to be number one, be relevant and reimagine what we can produce for them. Now there’s a suite of things we can do very easily, whether it’s a conference, a breakfast, an awards program, an online entry campaign or a white paper. We can do all these things and offer them up for each industry.”
This has required a long list of additional skills from the editorial and production staff. The editors continue to co-ordinate content – just as they did in the old days of printed magazines – but now they need to get out of the office, be comfortable on stage at conferences and events, create podcasts and videos, and generally be the face of the publication as well as coordinate editorial support. Now they are professional communicators, conference agenda leaders and keynote speakers, and the presence of the editor driving the content package sweetens the deal.
The staff mix within the company has also changed dramatically. Fewer print production staff are required, but the company now has its own website building platform and can re-skin and build websites using its own staff of web builders and graphic web designers.
“We have more dedicated marketing staff than we had before, more events staff, and we have different and more independent digital design people,” says Tracy. “The mix has completely changed. We have to make sure that our sponsors and our partners get commercial value. So with the programs we put together it almost has an ad agency feel about it.”
Lucy Yaffa, marketing director of Yaffa Media and a fourth generation member of the family, says it’s near impossible to predict how the company will change in the future, but it’s clear that technology will continue to transform how content is created, distributed and consumed.
“As we look into the future, one constant at the core of our business is the people and their communities,” she says. “From photography to packaging we will continue to connect with and serve the needs of each community. The nature of these connections will inevitably change as we explore new platforms and ways to connect.
“While we may not have the same access to resources as larger companies, our agility puts us in a strong position to navigate the future. We can implement changes quickly without the need for lengthy approval processes. In addition, we are open to taking risks and exploring new ideas for connecting with our communities.
“I’m incredibly proud being the fourth generation in a business which has successfully adapted and evolved over the past 100 years,” she says. “And I’m excited about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for Yaffa Media.”