James Chessell’s move from the AFR to Joe Aston’s Rampart is another sign of a media landscape being remade. Smaller outlets, subscription models, podcasts, and independent publishers are challenging the power once held by newspapers, radio and television.

The surprise move by the editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review, James Chessell, to Joe Aston’s online media start-up Rampart highlights the structural changes at play in the media industry.

On one level, Chessell is leaving a top job at the Nine media group to join his friend and former AFR columnist for a bold new venture which has already notched up a solid track record after only 18 months.

But the early success of Rampart, whose backers include former Nine Network chief executive David Gyngell and Kerry Packer’s former right-hand financial man, Ashok Jacob, shows how a new breed of media players are emerging, challenging the legacy media of newspapers, radio and television.

These also include a growing independent sector, including P&I, which is garnering increasing attention as a place of independent debate on foreign affairs, political, policy and social issues.

Aston, who carved out a high profile for his skewering of some of the high flyers in Australian business – including former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Perth-based company director and former Qantas chair Richard Goyder, and his pursuit of fund manager Hamish Douglass at the AFR – has continued his unique style at Rampart.

His straight-talking journalism and his video interviews with senior business leaders for Rampart, including with James Packer, Hamish Douglass and Oliver Curtis, have helped his site attract more than 16,000 readers. How many of those are paying customers is not clear, but the business is also attracting high-quality sponsors including BHP.

Rampart recently raised some $2.3 million from investors, valuing the business at $29 million.

The site’s journalists now include high-quality writers such as Ivor Ries, Ben Butler and Amelia McGuire.

In a previous era when legacy media was all-powerful, working at the AFR, as I did in two stints totalling around 12 years, was the pinnacle of being a financial journalist. There was no greater honour than being AFR editor. It was also a powerful platform for those who chose to use it.

The publication has had its share of successful editors, including the inspiring Max Walsh, who challenged the conservative orthodoxy of the then Fairfax family-owned group, and played a major role in the debate over the deregulation of the Australian economy.

He was succeeded by his deputy, the energetic Fred Brenchley, who continued Max’s campaign to open up the Australian economy by removing its protectionist straitjackets, and was a great mentor to many up-and-coming financial journalists, including me.

In more recent times, Michael Stutchbury’s impressive 13-year editorship of the AFR has been another stellar achievement in Australian financial media. Under the workaholic “Stutch”, the AFR was a leading player in the business, economic and foreign affairs debate. But he also oversaw a quantum leap in its business model with an expanding array of newsletters and an impressive conference organisation machine.

Stutch, who left just over two years ago to take over at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), left big shoes to fill.

Chessell has left them after only just over two years in the job.

But these days the media landscape is playing host to an array of ‘start-ups’ and new products, with a range of business models, as readers can access a variety of platforms.

The days when Alan Jones wielded his massive power in Australian politics as a top-ranking radio host now seem long gone. Echoes of that past are now playing out in a Sydney courtroom.

Former Nine breakfast star Karl Stefanovic has recently left to launch his own online talk-show start-up, with the tone and success of his new venture still playing out.

At the same time, KIIS FM radio star Kyle Sandilands, whose contract was ended after a blow-up with his former co-host, has launched his own subscription broadcast talk show, which is available on a streaming app for $99 a year.

His launch has garnered significant publicity from the mainstream media, eager for controversial clickbait content.

While there is now an array of new media products, there is a significant attraction for purveyors of media content in the business and finance sector, given that its readers and listeners are more likely to have higher incomes, with many prepared to pay for timely, high-level intelligence. Advertisers are also prepared to pay more to pitch their brands to a high-income and well-connected audience.

Aston is a savvy operator whose brand of “investigative commentary on Australian business and finance” is being accelerated by an innovative business model.

Subscriptions to Rampart are currently available for $680 a year (more than half the AFR’s annual subscription cost of just over $1,000, which includes online and regular six-day-a-week delivery of the physical paper).

But it also offers a “chairman’s lounge” package of $6,600 a year for an inner circle providing access to off-the-record events with top business leaders, a 12-hour publication lead on every article, as well as “luxury limited edition merchandise” by fashion designer James Perse.

There is history in AFR editors moving to start-ups. Former AFR editor Alan Kohler left that role to go out on his own, in a career which included the founding of Business Spectator, building up a business which was sold to the Murdoch organisation for a reported $30 million in 2012.

The financial media landscape in particular is expanding. Former Sky News executive Kylie Merritt founded Ausbiz TV, an online video service with interviews with business executives and fund managers, in 2019.

A more recent player has been Capital Brief, which was founded in 2023, with founders including former Fairfax Media and Nine executives Chris Janz and David Eisman. It is backed by venture capital firm Shearwater Capital and has John McDuling as its editor-in-chief. Its newsletter is available for $49 a month or $29 a month for an annual subscription.

In the superannuation sector, former AFR wealth editor Aleks Vickovich moved to the Conexus group three years ago as editor-in-chief.

He was recently named as co-chief executive of the group, with founder Colin Tate stepping back from that role.

That group, which also includes a think tank on superannuation and retirement issues, also raises revenue from conferences.

The emergence of conferences – which generate both revenue and content for media organisations, as well as cementing ties between the media organisation and its contacts and advertisers – is an emerging theme of the financial and business media landscape of the past decade.

Then there is a new breed of podcasts.

These days businessman Mark Bouris has a podcast on business and leadership called Straight Talk. Former ASX executives Matthew Gibbs and Max Cunningham also host the Ticker Talk business podcast for the National Stock Exchange, where Cunningham is chief executive.

Alan Kohler has the Money Café business podcast, while former AFR finance journalist Sean Aylmer co-hosts the Fear & Greed podcast and newsletter. The business model in both cases is dependent on advertising.

The traditional world where newspapers, free-to-air television and breakfast radio ruled the media landscape has long gone.

Chessell can be expected to drive the business model for Rampart, expand its connections at the top end of town while also contributing to its journalism.

Not all of the new media offerings will survive, but, in the meantime – let a thousand flowers bloom.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.