Cleo was an Australian monthly women's magazine. The magazine was founded in 1972 in Australia; the Australia and New Zealand editions were discontinued in February 2016. Aimed at an older audience than the teenage-focused Australian magazine Dolly, Cleo was published by Bauer Media Group in Sydney and was known for its Cleo Bachelor of the Year award. In June 2020, Cleo was acquired by the Sydney investment firm Mercury Capital.
Cleo was founded by Ita Buttrose, and Kerry Packer (heir to Australian Consolidated Press). The magazine was modelled off of Cosmopolitan following ACP's loss of the bid for an Australian licence.
The magazine was a monthly publication, published twelve times per year.
Editors EditorStart yearEnd yearRef.Ita Buttrose1972Lisa Wilkinson1984Deborah Thomas19971999Sarah Oakes20082010Gemma Crisp20102012Sharri Markson20132013Lucy E. Cousins20142016
History
Early years Cleo launched in November 1972, under the direction of Ita Buttrose and Kerry Packer. The magazine was modelled off of the American women's magazine Cosmopolitan, following ACP's loss of the Australian licence to rival Fairfax Media.
Cleo became one of Australia's most iconic titles due to its mix of provocative content, including the first nude male centerfold with Jack Thompson as "Mate of the Month" (following American Cosmopolitan's nude centerfold of Burt Reynolds six months' earlier) and detailed sex advice. Article topics included group sex, contraception, "happy hookers" and sexually provocative tips such as "How to be a sexy housekeeper." Short-form literary content was also included, with the first issue running a short story by Norman Mailer.
In the original promotional video for Cleo, Buttrose observes "the rapidly changing personality of the Australian woman." Cleo emerged in an era of social and political change, with readers looking for something other than recipes, knitting tips and coverage of royal births and weddings that the main women's magazines (notablyThe Australian Women's Weekly) focused on.
In two days, 105,000 copies of the first issue were sold and by the end of its first year circulation reached 200,000. When the magazine conducted the first national readership survey in 1974, figures revealed that 30 percent of Australian women aged between 13 and 24 read Cleo every month.
Cleo, feminism, and the sexual revolution
Feminism Through Cleo, feminism became a part of women's everyday lives and of their identity.
Ita Buttrose and her staff were committed to many of the ideas of women's and sexual liberation. However, Cleo'''s editorial agenda was that of liberal rather than radical feminism. In her first editorial letter, Buttrose described who she thought the Cleo reader was: "You're an intelligent woman who's interested in everything that's going on, the type of person who wants a great deal more out of life. Like us, certain aspects of Women's Lib appeal to you but you're not aggressive about it." (1972).
The feminist tone and ideas proliferated on the pages of Cleo throughout the 1970s. Every month, there were feature articles covering issues including: the work/life balance, the pressure to get married and raise a family, abortion, contraception, women's education, domestic violence and rape. "The celebrities Cleo chose to interview were women who had succeeded in politics, business and culture. There were also discussions of the Women's Liberation Movement itself, with writers for and against".
Ordinary, every-day women gained knowledge and understanding of feminism through the pages of Cleo. The magazine helped create the feminist public sphere, opening doors for discussions about new ideas which modern women treat as mainstream today.
Sexual revolution Cleo pushed boundaries in mainstream publishing with candid articles on topics ranging from sex toys, fantasies and orgasms, to lesbianism and contraception. "We wrote about sex as if we had discovered it", recalls Buttrose.Cleo was the first Australian women's magazine to feature non-frontal nude male centrefolds in 1972, with Jack Thompson, a prominent Australian actor at the time, the magazine's first Mate of the Month. What Buttrose thought would be a light hearted, one-off feature became an essential component of what made Cleo so popular. Other mates were Alby Mangels, Eric Oldfield, Peter Blasina and the band Skyhooks. The centrefold feature was discontinued in 1985, the last being a bare-chested picture of Mel Gibson.
University of Sydney media academic Megan Le Masurier interprets the centerfold phenomenon as an incentive for popular feminist desire. The centerfold attempted to reverse the dominant tradition of representing men as viewers, and women as viewed. The representation of the male nude "offered women the chance to imagine themselves as active sexual agents, quite capable of holding the gaze". The naked man was a reminder that women could, and should, enjoy sex, and reaffirmed their right to talk about sex.
Under Bauer Media and closure In October 2012, multinational publisher Bauer Media purchased Australian magazine publisher ACP, which controls titles ranging from Cleo magazine to The Australian Women's Weekly This change of ownership meant drastic changes for the staff and readers of Cleo magazine.
The editorial staff of Cleo and Dolly would be merged, reducing the staff size by half and appointing a single Editor-in-Chief for both magazines. This was presented as a move to unite the two magazines under a "young women's lifestyles division". Observers argue that these two magazines are in fact not directed at the same generalised market. Where Dolly targets teenage girls, Cleo focuses on an older group, women in their twenties and thirties. Bauer Media also now uses "content translated from Bauer's youth titles Joy and Bravo which the publishing house produce in Germany", reducing the amount of original Australian content across the magazines, but reducing the cost of producing issues across their titles.
In 2013, new editor Sharri Markson announced there would be no mention of sex on the cover of Cleo. More than 40 years after revamping women's magazines with male centrefolds, it was the first time that sex had not been used as a selling point. The move came as a result of research conducted by the magazine which revealed a conservative streak among Generation Y readers – Cleos largest audience demographic – most of whom still live at home. As Markson explained: "They are embarrassed to be sitting at home with their parents reading a magazine which has the word 'orgasm' in bold print on the cover". In the pages of Cleo, all the racy content of the earlier, more progressive era was replaced with celebrity news and fashion, beauty and fitness tips.
Cleo Fitness launched in 2014, later ceasing publication.
In 2014, Lucy Cousins was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Bauer's newly merged Dolly and Cleo magazines. Cousins was previously employed as Deputy Editor at Bauer's Women's Fitness magazine.
Cousins said of Cleo magazine:
"CLEO magazine is and has always been a bible of all things fashion, beauty and celebrity for young Australian women. And now we've added travel, lifestyle, music and the new CLEO man section. We have attitude and aren't afraid to push the boundaries."
Past editors' opinions on Bauer's changes Mia Freedman: "Like most Australian women, Dolly and Cleo in particular were my lifeblood growing up and sparked my love of women's media back in the 80s and 90s. [I'm] frustrated and disappointed at the lack of business foresight that has brought those titles to this point. One of the reasons I left magazines was because I was so tired of trying to get my bosses to understand that Armageddon was coming in the form of online. I knew the young women's market was the most vulnerable. But nobody would listen so I left and started Mamamia...Publishers didn't realise they were content producers, they kept acting like magazine makers"
Lisa Wilkinson on Twitter: "Very sad to hear news that Dolly & Cleo magazines are merging, with expected losses of half the staff. End of an era. And a personal one." Wilkinson believes that it will take "somebody who is an incredibly smart magazine editor and someone who understands the subtle but very important differences that are going to have to exist between those two magazines" to ensure the survival of both Dolly and Cleo magazines.
Readership figures 2013–14 It appears that Bauer's changes did not improve the continuing drop in circulation of Cleo magazine. Cleo suffered a steady decline in circulation due to changes in the way media was consumed and the failure of publishers in the 1990s and 2000s (decade) to follow their readers online. Statistics showed Cleo suffered a 28.2% drop between September 2013 and September 2014, with a readership size of 173,000 in September 2014.
Bauer Media however argued that it experienced a 100% increase in "social media growth" in that time period, suggesting that indeed the reason why readership figures fell was due to the movement from print media to the online world of blogs, forums and Facebook. They also stated that the best that Bauer Media could do to ensure the continuation of Australian magazines like Cleo was to minimise its production costs and hope that it can catch up with digital media.
Closure and IP acquisition On 20 January 2016, Bauer Media Group confirmed that Cleo magazine would close in Australia after more than 40 years of publication, with the final issue being March, on sale 22 February.ABC 20 January 2016 Cleo magazine's final cover, for the March edition, would feature Jesinta Campbell.
The international editions in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand were unaffected by the closure. The Indonesian edition ceased publication in 2017, followed in 2020 by the closure of the Malaysian and Singaporean editions. The Thai edition is still operating, however, now digital only.
In June 2020, Cleo was acquired by the Sydney investment firm Mercury Capital as part of its acquisition of several of Bauer Media's former Australian and New Zealand titles.
International editions Cleo Singapore was launched in 1994, Cleo Malaysia in 1995, Cleo Thailand launched in 1997, and Cleo Indonesia was launched in 2007 as an international license under the Femina Group. A South African edition was also briefly published from 2007.
Cleo Singapore (1994–2020) Cleo Malaysia (1995–2020) Cleo New Zealand (1995–2016) Cleo Thailand (1997–present) Cleo Indonesia (2007–2017) Cleo South Africa (2007–?)
Noteworthy editors
Ita Buttrose
Ita Buttrose started as a copy girl at the Australian Women's Weekly, she quickly became a cadet journalist at The Daily Telegraph and its sister newspaper Sunday Telegraph before taking over as women's editor at the age of 23. Buttrose would go on to become the first female Editor-in-Chief of these two newspapers and the first woman appointed to the board position with News Limited.
Her arguably most well known role began in 1972, as the founding editor of Cleo magazine where she achieved such great success that it led to a promotion in 1975, editing the Packers' flagship magazine at the time, the Australian Women's Weekly. She subsequently became editor-in-chief of both publications.
Buttrose played an important role in shaping women's identity in the 1970s through the pages of Cleo. She had the talent and conviction to take advantage of this period of social and political change, with new ideas about sexual freedom, female independence and gender equality heavily promoted in her magazine.
Despite scepticism from Sir Frank Packer, the Publisher, Buttrose's hunch that Cleo would appeal to modern Australian women proved to be right, with the magazine becoming the top selling monthly women's title and elevating Buttrose to the status of a feminist icon and magazine queen.