Julia Zaetta: Outspoken, witty, mercurial, and very Italian

By AdNews | 14 November 2013
 
Julia Zaetta

Magazines are all about people’s passions, which is why they attract passionate people. And one of the most passionate is Julia Zaetta, this year's Australian Magazine Awards Hall of Fame inductee.

Outspoken, witty, mercurial and very Italian, she will always be associated in people’s minds with Better Homes and Gardens, where she is doing her third stint as editor-in-chief. However, she has worked for more than a dozen magazines, including three major launches, and worked in TV, events and radio. Primarily, though, she is a champion of magazines.

Her first job as a magazine journalist was for Australian Home Journal, sister magazine to House & Garden. The magazine was part of the KG Murray Group but when ACP bought the company she was retrenched after six months.

It was the best thing that could have happened to her. She took a subbing job at Woman’s Own, published by Sungravure, the magazine arm of Fairfax. And while there it was suggested she might approach the ‘new’ homemaker magazine across the Harbour.

She was asked to provide a story about readymade kitchens for the new title, Better Homes and Gardens. For the six pages of text and photos she was offered $100 a page and refused it initially because she thought it was too much. It was five times more than her weekly wage. But she soon joined as shopping editor, then decorating editor and finally editor in 1982.

Since its launch in supermarkets with its stablemate Family Circle, BHG with its service journalism has always been a big seller. It now has the second-highest paid circulation in Australia, gaining ground on The Australian Women’s Weekly.

Like all good editors, Zaetta loves her readers, describing them as an army of do-ers. An annual event for her, she went to the AFL Grand Final this year with her son Gianni, and as she always does she looked around the MCG at the 100,000 faces and was again amazed and humbled to think that three or four times that enormous number of people bought the magazine each month. And over 20 times that read it.

She has worked for a long list of media owners. In her times at BHG the magazine has been owned by The New York Times Magazine Group, Adelaide Advertiser Magazines, News Limited, Murdoch Magazines and Pacific Magazines.

After Southdown Press boss Matt Handbury joined Advertiser Magazines in 1987, life became even more exciting. The media industry was in the midst of an unprecedented ownership upheaval, triggered by the break-up of the Herald & Weekly Times Group. Advertiser Magazines became Murdoch Magazines, with Handbury as the ultimate hands-on owner. “Working for Matt was extraordinary and unforgettable,” she says. “He pushed everyone to their limits all the time.”

She moved from BHG to take on the launch of New Woman in 1989 – one of Australia’s most anticipated magazine launches. She guided it effectively through the gender politics minefield by making it more about women’s independence than feminist dogma.

After two years on New Woman and five months maternity leave it was back to Murdoch Mags and BHG, and Better Homes and Gardens TV. The program was an instant success and remained in the Seven Network’s top 10 rating programs for 15 years. As well as rating well on air, it was highly effective in driving print sales, with viewers rushing to buy copies of the magazine to undertake projects they had seen on TV.

Next followed five years as editor of Family Circle, working on the relaunch in print and the launch of the daily TV program.

Then, out of the blue, an invitation from Tim Trumper at ACP. Would she like to be editor-in-chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly? An offer she couldn’t refuse. And a job she loved.

From there she went to Horwitz Publications to drive the launch of Gardens & Outdoor Living, followed by a tenure at NRMA as editor of Open Road.

Finally, completing the circle, she returned to BHG at Pacific Magazines in 2001, working across print, TV, website and radio. Plus project work including being launch editor-in-chief for Diabetic Living and reinventing Family Circle.

So what drives her? Apart from loving her readers, she also says she loves her advertisers. But she says she’ll do whatever it takes to increase circulation. “I’ll push to the limits and beyond, I won’t stop – I have to make my magazines the best. I just adore them!”

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