Sold
Street press/fashion publisher Oyster mag and 3D World was sold to Destra for $1.75m and $0.5m equity - Destra also owns Central Station Records, Fashion TV and thescene.com.au, and is likely to push these mainly print titles further down the digital/broadcast path they’ve tentatively explored.
The founders, editorial staff and management team of these market-leading youth media mastheads will continue in their current roles.
destra will expand the distribution of 3D World, on a phased basis, as Australia’s national youth street press. We will also continue the expansion of international distribution for Oyster.
It’s another example of the broad consolidation in Australia’s street press scene - Street Press Australia (Drum Media/Inpress), Furst Media (Brag, Beat, Fashion Journal, Stu), Fairfax (XPress Perth) - responding to shifting record company promotional budgets and online incursions into the street press space.
I’ve written for 3D and Oyster, and it’ll be interesting to see where this takes them - especially as far as the writers go (once upon a time poorly paid freelancers could at least sell articles interstate). Equally interesting is the pressure this must place on other independents (Mess + Noise, inthemix.com.au, etc).
