Hello and Farewell !

Sad news with the announcement that Hello magazine founder Eduardo Sánchez Junco has passed away at age 67.

Eduardo

Eduardo, a charming and friendly Spaniard began the glorious mag in 1988 after inheriting his father's publishing business and was adored by the Hello staff who turned the glossy magazine-that never wrote a harsh word about anyone- into the celebrity bible. Celebrities queue to have their weddings, home life or houses featured in Hello.

The Social Shuttle knows. Apart being a regular contributor we had 2 fortnightly pages in Hello for 2 years as the image of Australia rose on the international arena after the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the amazing success of actors like Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe and TV shows like Neighbours, Anything from Oz was deemed just classy enough to feature in the glossy pages. And doors of influence flew open. 

Working with tSS was the London based expatriate social scribe John Rendell who found recent fame in the Christian The Lion saga.

Nicky Haslam

John Rendell & Glen Marie Frost

Rendell was eventually replaced on Hello by British writer and interior designer Nicky Haslam who appeared at events clad in black leather and featuring heavy eye-liner. Ten years earlier Haslam would have turfed himself out of one of his own smart cocktail parties.

Hello pays in British pounds which once meant it parlayed into two and half times plus in Aussie dollars. Not so much now. Nice work if you can get it.

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There is hope though. 

The owner of Hello's rival OK!, Richard 'Dirty' Desmond ( as he was dubbed by the British satirical magazine Private Eye) has just purchased the British TV station Channel Five and plans to go all celebrity, according to his PR Max Clifford. OK! is a Hello rip-off but it has done extremely well especially in Australia.

Desmond

 Desmond made his money with soft-core porn magazines like Peaches and Reader's Wives before going slightly up market and purchasing the UK Daily Express and the Daily Star. TSS isn't complaining either as we regularly sell snippets and photographs to his publications. 

But are there enough 'celebrities' to go around ?. Expect exciting new  reality TV shows and insights into Jordon and Peter Andre's lives. No we still don't know what they do but re-call there was once a charming Aussie singer called Peter Andre who left these shores about 15 years ago to seek fame in the UK.

Where is all this leading to with the New Media ?. That is the question. An indication- the last photograph we sold to Hello was featured once again in their Chinese edition. It was an exclusive pic of Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendi- as shown on here. When the residuals arrived the princely sum we received  was $4.15!