A NEW national tabloid mining publication has hit the streets, or mines as it were, with the launch last week of Simon Hadfield’s newest arrival, The Australian Mining Times.
The new publication, with a starting print-run of 8,000 copies, aims to target exploration and junior resource companies in the industry, as well as suppliers.
Haydn Black, who previously wrote for the Gold Gazette and the Mining Gazette, has stepped in as editor of the Resource Information Unit publication.
“The current focus of other publications is on the stock exchange end or the boardroom end,” RIU chief executive officer Simon Hadfield said.
“This new publication will deal with the working end of mining.
“While we do cover that in the existing publications, we tend to focus more on the large companies.”
In a unique move, Mr Hadfield is taking the new publication onto mine sites and in mining towns in a bid to gain access to the estimated 81,000 employees Australia wide directly tied to the mining sector and earning an average of $70,000.
In terms of timing, Mr Hadfield said he felt that optimism among miners and investors in the sector was higher than it had been in previous years.
RIU currently publishes three products – the Gold Gazette, the Minerals Gazette and the Oil and Gas Gazette.
The highly competitive local oil and gas publishing market has had a string of casualties.
Most recently, Aspermont closed down Oil and Gas News, but still retains a strong hold on the market through the Australian Mining Monthly, while Energy Publications also maintains a market share.
Mr Hadfield has been a long-standing Perth publisher. He came to prominence during the mid-1980s with the merger of a number of Community Newspapers, which was publicly floated in 1986 to become the Community Newspaper Group. Community has since moved on and is jointly controlled by Western Australian Newspaper Holdings and News Corporation.
