A Note from The Industry Observer

Five years ago we launched an online publication for all of you. It was created for people in the music industry, for those on the sidelines, and for those who hadn’t yet gotten their foot in the door. We called it The Industry Observer. On the weekend, we merged The Industry Observer into Australia’s longest-running music trade publication, The Music Network.

It’s no secret that I’m a fierce lover of The Music Network. It’s where I got my start, it’s where the industry took a chance on me, and it’s where I discovered all the things I love about the Australian music scene. The Brag Media’s acquisition of it earlier this year felt like a homecoming.

Naturally, the conversation around a TMN/TIO merger had been happening long before the acquisition, but now feels like the perfect time to make it official.

In truth, I never saw TMN as a competitor to TIO – Jake Challenor and I had even collaborated on a few stories for both titles in the past. Will I be sad to see a title I co-founded folded into TMN? Absolutely not. TIO served its purpose as an observer that championed, advocated for, and held to account the workers and companies within it. TMN has the same ethos, and diluting that vision is counter productive.

We had a ball publishing TIO for you though. We launched it on International Women’s Day (not a fluke) in 2017, and have published 19,874 articles and 162 podcasts since.

We’ve covered everything from a breakdown of costs to book the world’s biggest bands to Denis Handlin’s exit. We published stories about how many millions Gotye has turned down over the years, the failure of the Sony MiniDisc, the countless scams that threaten our industry, and how COVID brought this industry to its knees. Our stories challenged both you and us on a daily basis.

Now, with TIO’s archival content featuring permanently on TMN, TMN’s long-standing and respected history can continue. TIO is now firmly part of TMN’s spirit, so you may notice a new pep in its step. And with Jake Challenor, Lars Brandle, Vivienne Kelly and Christie Eliezer at the helm, the Australian music industry has never had a more robust, talented team of investigative trade journalists working at one publication. I’m so pumped for this brand new phase of The Music Network.