Feathers Ruffled in Snooty Suburb

Double Bay is one of Sydney's snootiest suburbs with it's pleasant tree lined shopping precincts and cafes. Perfect for star spotting on a lazy afternoon. It's often referred to as an Antipodean Rodeo Drive.

Just 2 years ago a small local newspaper called Latte Life sprang into life and took on the big guns of the Eastern Suburbs, like the Fairfax Media owned Wentworth Courier one of the world's most advertising sodden publications.

With a small staff Latte Life has uncovered a major scandal right under the noses of some of Australia's major retailers : a 'pop-up' shop that appeared not long ago and which is brazenly selling a range of counterfeit goods. And who was the intrepid investigator who uncovered this major scandal : a 17 year old junior office staffer.

Read Latte Life here.

Emerald City Update #4

ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S top publicists, Roxy Jacenko of Sweaty Betty fame threw a swish bash in her Woollahra home last night to launch her first book Strictly Confidential.

Roxy

Roxy seems to have a best-seller on her hands going by some of the reviews:

‘Think of it as The Devil Wears Prada meets the PR industry … ‘
’It’s a riveting read with lots of humour and plenty of real-life characters who are so thinly disguised as to be almost see-through…’
‘As well as providing all of this saucy intrigue, Jacenko manages to write with lots of humour so Strictly Confidential is an entertaining read.’
-  Ros Reines, The Sunday Telegraph (high praise indeed from Ros !)

‘If you like gossip, designer clothes and handbags, you’ll love this story.’
- Vittoria Bon, Sunday Telegraph  and Hobart Mercury

‘… it’s a faced-paced, enjoyable read that offers the right amount of escapism and a juicy insight into the world of Sydney celebrity.’
- Lizzie Stafford, Sunday Mail, U on Sunday

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Snooki from Jersey Shore

Ruby

The talk is that Roxy's vivacious sister Ruby Jacenko may soon start work as a scribe on the increasingly successful Latte Life newspaper that is distributed around Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

Does Latte Life have the staid Wentworth Courier that has coasted on it's market dominance for so long, worried ?. You bet your life. For the first time in living memory the Wenty has appeared over the Christmas break-a slim version-when they never usually bother


# The Yanks strike again :  Many readers may recall when the TV show Baywatch was on it's last legs and they convinced the then NSW premier Bob Carr to invest in the series by funding filming on Sydney''s Northern Beaches (much to the chagrin of locals as film crews trod and trampled the delicate undergrowth ).

A handful of local actors were employed plus the late Rene Rivkin appeared in some episodes before the producers, wads of taxpayers cash in  hand decamped to see out Baywatch's last days in Hawaii.

Now the ghastly US reality show Jersey Shore is threatening to descend upon  Queensland's Gold Coast and the local burghers have fallen hook line and sinker. It could be a marriage made in Heaven!


##  KYLE SANDILANDS is stumbling from advertiser woe to woe as they flee his radio show (why did he think he could viciously insult a News Ltd journalist and get away with it ?).

Jenny Craig stepped into the breach when Holden and others fled depriving he and Jackie O's radio show of up to $8M in revenues.
Now after thousands of complaints Jenny Craig have fled as well.

But is Jackie O planning to do a bunk ?. An insider tells the Shuttle that while publicly supporting Sandilands, Jackie is privately fuming over the dramas and has been spotted in secret talks with a rival radio network. Although she is contracted to 2DAYFM our legal expert tells us Kyle's actions are enough To break her present contract. Watch this space !.
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When Two Tribes Go To War

A publishing battle is brewing in the exclusive confines of chic Double Bay as a new publication-Latte Life finds itself in the firing line of the established Wentworth Courier.


The Courier, published for over 70 years has always jealously guarded it's Eastern Suburbs market with a near monopoly on the rivers of gold in classified  and real estate advertising.

Each week the Courier thuds on resident's doorsteps with pages packed with glossy adverts for everything from an affordable Cloveley bungalow to harbour side mansions selling for tens of millions of dollars.

Latte Life  burst on the scene 3 months ago when publisher Jane King decided that Double Bay needed it's own publication concentrating on the cafe life of the fashionable suburb. Jane believes The Bay has been neglected and that the Courier has gone in too top heavy promoting  the giant Westfield shopping centre in Bondi Junction which she believes is strangling business in the village type atmosphere of Double Bay.

"I was brought up in England and always loved High Streets and village shopping centres" says Jane. "I spotted a gap in the market with Latte Life and the response has been fantastic".

Now columnists on Latte Life have suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of job offers from rival publiciations . It seems there maybe even more publications opening up in the area.

Goldberg :"30 years too late"

'Mr Double Bay' Graeme Goldberg , owner of Dee Bees one of the Bay's most popular restaurants has just started to write a column for Latte Life about the happenings in the area. With his impeccable show business connections it was a smart move on the part of Latte Life. Two days after his first column appeared  Goldberg found 3 representatives from an unamed rival magazine  in his cafe. They offered him a n increase in pay if he shifted to them to write a column.

Goldberg said "they were 30 years too late.  The Courier has always been very supportive of me and I love the new Latte Life but that's how long I've run businesses around here and suddenly I'm in demand everywhere !"
Other advertisers in Latte Life have found themselves approached by media salesmen suggesting better advert rates could be had with another publication if they wished to move their custom.

Over ten years ago the Courier had it's dominance of the area challenged when 20 real estate agents formed a syndicate and published the weekly Eastern Express with pages packed with classifieds. Soon both were  in an advertising price war. But a court challenge  from the Express and a claim of 'predatory pricing' against the Wentworth Courier finished off the challenger. The Eastern Express lost the case and were landed with the debilitating legal costs.

Jane says she isn't worried. "I don't have real estate advertising or take escort service classifieds so I'm not really competing for the bulk of  the Courier's advertisers. And hopefully some competition will make the Courier up it's anti"

She plans to branch out with Latte Life and it's cheery mix of social snaps, gossipy stories and interviews with famous locals with it's present 20,000 copies a month and increase the paper's circulation area to outlying suburbs and take on the Courier with it's 50,000 weekly copies.

The market-Sydney's ritzy Eastern Suburbs contains the biggest concentration of Australia's wealthiest citizens along with a huge swathe of  young professionals, wealthy retirees, gays and lesbians and those working in the arts and the movie industry. It's a marketer's dream target so much so that  the London School of Economics once used the Wentworth Courier in it's lectures to students as an example of a newspaper that was perfectly pitched to reach a specific audience.

There could be room for a third newspaper and locals would be the winners. Looks like an interesting battle  ahead.