Our Story
Born inside
Australia's newsrooms.
Master Publisher was founded in 2008 by two developers who had spent the better part of a decade inside Australia's biggest online news organisations. They knew exactly what serious digital publishing required — and they knew that no existing platform came close to delivering it.
The off-the-shelf options were either too simple for complex editorial workflows, too expensive for mid-market publishers, or too generic to handle the specific demands of Australian media: advertising modules, subscriber management, automated newsletters, and the kind of content aggregation that large publishing operations depend on.
So they built Media Publisher — a platform designed from the ground up for organisations that take digital publishing seriously. Not a WordPress fork. Not a headless platform with a generic interface bolted on. A purpose-built solution with 15 years of real-world publishing requirements built in.
Today, Australian organisations across financial services, professional associations, B2B media, and membership sectors run their digital presence on the platform.
“We didn't want to build another publishing platform. We wanted to build the one we always wished existed.”
— Christian Townsend, Digital Strategy
What We Stand For
Our principles
Purpose-built for publishing
We didn't adapt a generic platform. We built Media Publisher from scratch for organisations that take digital publishing seriously — with the complexity, workflows, and scale that requires.
Australian-owned & operated
Our team, our servers, and our support are all based in Australia. No offshore handoffs, no timezone gaps. When you call, you speak to the people who built the platform.
No lock-in, no limits
We don't cap your usage, restrict features by tier, or hold your data hostage. Full platform access is included for every client, always.
Long-term partnerships
Our average client relationship is over 6 years. We're not interested in one-off projects — we want to grow with your organisation and evolve the platform as your needs change.
The People Behind the Platform
Meet the team
Christian brings deep experience in digital publishing and financial services, guiding organisations through complex digital transformation projects. He leads client strategy at Master Publisher, helping publishers of all sizes define their digital roadmap and unlock new revenue opportunities.
James is a senior web developer with experience at Australia's largest media organisations. He brings enterprise-grade engineering rigour to every project — from platform architecture and content migration to integrations and performance optimisation.
Small team.
Big impact.
A senior, hands-on team with deep roots in Australian digital publishing and media. Between us, we have delivered projects ranging from lean startup launches to large-scale enterprise platforms — and we bring that full breadth of experience to every engagement.
We're deliberately small. Not because we can't grow, but because we believe the best work comes from senior people who care deeply about what they're building — not from large teams of generalists.
Every person at Master Publisher has direct client contact. There are no account managers who don't understand the product, and no developers who don't understand the business problems they're solving.
We operate across Sydney and Melbourne, with a distributed working model that has been central to our practice since the company's founding. We engage in person when it matters, and maintain close working relationships with every client throughout the life of each engagement.
Hover over any card to read their story.
Ready to work together?
Let's build something
worth publishing.
Whether you are a startup launching your first digital platform or a large enterprise organisation managing a complex, multi-site publishing operation — we have done it before, and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can best support you.