Australian Women's Weekly
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| Australian Women's Weekly | |
 Aug 2006 cover of AWW: "Liz Hayes" |
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|---|---|
| Publisher: | Australian Consolidated Press |
| Language | Australian English |
| Editor | Deborah Thomas |
| Year founded | 1933 |
| Country | Australia |
The Australian Women's Weekly, published by Australian Consolidated Press (part of PBL), is a monthly women's magazine published in Australia and sold mainly in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, it is commonly known as "The Weekly".
Note that unlike its overseas counterparts, women is in the plural, and the magazine comes out monthly, not weekly.
It typically contains feature articles about the modern Australian woman, as it has done over the past 70 years (since 1933, started by Frank Warnecke). The magazine started, as the name implies, as a weekly publication.
In May 1980, the magazine began publishing a TV guide insert, to rival stand-alone TV listing publications such as TV Week. The insert was initially titled only Your Free TV Magazine, but later re-titled TV World. The following year, the format of TV World changed from a free insert in the main Women's Weekly magazine, to being integrated into the magazine itself and also pioneered the "zip out" TV listings. The TV World section then became TV And Entertainment World in 1982.
In 1982 it was decided to change the publication to a monthly format, but retained the original Weekly in its title, for reasons of familiarity and also The Australian Women's Monthly just didn't have the same ring to it. The final weekly edition was dated December 15, 1982 and the first monthly edition dated January, 1983. The change to the monthly format also brought to an end the TV And Entertainment World section.
In June 1983, the Weekly celebrated its 50th anniversary of publication.
It is usually 240 pages long and printed on A4 glossy paper. As of 2006 it costs AUD$6.20 in a supermarket, and is slightly less expensive on the subscription, at $69.95 for twelve issues.
The current editor is Deborah Thomas, who has this position since 2000. Other editors of the Weekly have included Ita Buttrose and Jennifer Rowe.
The Women's Weekly in any era was and is known for its cookbooks, which are sold in supermarkets and newsagents. Recently these have become of a smaller format than they were formerly, and contain many multicultural and forward-thinking recipes.
Some Weekly columnists include Patter (Pat McDermott), Robin Barker (author of The Mighty Toddler), Jackie (gardening), Lee Tulloch (writes an expatriate column).
The Weekly is also known for its monthly fiction and it has recently started a book club, parallel to Oprah's book club.
In the 1990's, PBL launched "Women's Weekly's" in Malaysia and Singapore. These follow the AWW's style, and contain largely local content. These magazines thrived, and continue today (2005).
