Insight magazine is 50 years old in 2025. We talk to several well-known players in the ophthalmic and publishing sectors about the impact of the publication in their own lives and careers, and others about the influence it continues to have in a fast-changing industry.
Mr Tony Cosentino knows a great deal about the history of Insight magazine.
That’s because the rise of the publication, which is celebrating 50 years in 2025 as Australia’s leading ophthalmic magazine, matches his own ascent from delivery boy to managing director of BOC Instruments, an important supplier in the sector.
In fact, it was Insight that helped lift his own profile in the industry and set his company on its path to success.
Cosentino was making his first steps into that business in the early 1970s, when Maroubra, NSW, optometrist Mr Ralph Lewis first published Optical World.
A “mail boy” for American Optical, at the time one of the biggest optical companies in the world making its own first steps into the Aussie market, Cosentino would hop on a bus or train to deliver lenses to optometrists around Sydney.
As his own role evolved and Cosentino moved from the mail-room floor to a new lens lab set up in Beaconsfield, NSW, the publication also took a new direction.
In 1975, Mr Neil Forbes, a young sports-loving, jazz trumpet-playing surfer who had trained as an optometrist but saw more interest in the stories behind the storefront, purchased the publication and changed its name to Insight.
“Right from day one he tried to be a journalist more than anything else, and went probing for different stories,” says Cosentino.
“There was a lot of tension in those days between ophthalmology and optometry; American Optical had come in and had disrupted a lot of things.
“There was fixed pricing or handshakes on lab work, but in regards to optometry, there were people setting up their own little co-ops, and it was sort of an exciting time, so lots of news to report.”
Not that everyone was thrilled with the way Forbes went about getting those stories.
“At times there was angst amongst the optometrists, or at board level anyway, because I don’t think they liked the way he reported things,” says Cosentino.
“He enjoyed the fights that he had with the governing bodies.”
Although, they clearly made up.
“He was given an award by ophthalmology for his services and the way that he reported things and the innovation that was happening.”
In much the same approach that current Insight owner Prime Creative Media would take decades later, Forbes used a marketing background to lift the advertising in the publication – then a tabloid-size newspaper – and its profile in the ophthalmic sector.
That in turn helped boost the profiles of many businesses in the sector.
Including Cosentino’s.
He had moved from work in the lab as an optical mechanic and technician to learn optical dispensing and also mechanical engineering. So when American Optical decided to bring its instrument range Down Under, Cosentino became a technician doing installations and repairs and then product manager.
Then, following a series of acquisitions and industry shake-ups, he found himself still standing, firstly as the head of British Optical in Australia but eventually at the top of his own company, BOC Instruments.
The one constant through all of that change and upheaval was an industry publication produced by a sports-loving surfer, self-taught in journalism and practically every other aspect of publishing.
Like it does 50 years on, Insight kept the industry up-to-date on those acquisitions and their implications, but also the waves of innovation beginning to reach Australia’s shores. Contributors like now-retired optometrist Mr Lewis Williams documented key ophthalmic conferences like ODMA Fair, RANZCO Congresses and AUSCRS for several years, with the publication continuing to have a strong presence at these events.
“It reported things like when OPSM first went into optometry, after always being associated with dispensing and ophthalmology,” says Cosentino, “and the big changes, when optometry was able to get into Medibank (now Medicare), because prior to that optometrists had to charge for their consultation.”
Insight was there for Cosentino’s own big changes as well.
When American Optical wanted a national exhibition in 1979, he was tasked with driving a 3.5-ton truck two-thirds of the way around Australia, for 26 events over six weeks displaying the company’s wares to optometrists and ophthalmologists.
It was an unprecedented tour for the industry and Insight covered the trip in the publication, raising the profile of not only American Optical but also Cosentino.
“We got a really, really good response to it,” he says. “It’s one of the things that helped make my name in the optical industry.”
That relationship has continued many decades later. Insight is still covering the news, innovations and goings-on in the ophthalmic sector, and BOC Instruments is still supplying quality equipment and devices to the industry.
In 2020, the magazine marked BOC’s own 100-year milestone and its transition from British Optical to what it is today.
Cosentino says Insight’s own milestone is an impressive feat, and one that continues to benefit the industry.
“Any professional industry at large should have a form of outlet, to get stories. And an independent voice.
“A lot of the media today is totally different. It seems like there’s LinkedIn and Facebook and all of that, but it’s important that you can still get it as a magazine, read it, put it down and pick it up later on.
“If it’s in a practice, all of the staff can have access to it . . . and I think the magazine itself is still something that is treasured.”
The ophthalmologist
About the same time that Cosentino and Forbes were making their marks in the ophthalmic sector, a young Mr Bill Glasson was taking his first steps of what would become a successful career as an ophthalmologist.
Not that this was front of mind for the then medical student.
“We had a great time in life . . . doing some study and doing enough to pass exams, but basically having a bloody good time at parties.”
When he put down the rum and cokes and finished his studies to eventually become Dr Glasson, it was the days of intracapsular cataract extension, cryoprobes and large stitches.
In pretty quick time the industry was moving to extracapsular cataract extraction and implants, which were not regarded highly at the time.
He recalls the reaction to their use by Cairns eye surgeon Dr Jim Peters.
“He was putting these things called implants in, and the college took a very dim view of it; he nearly got sanctioned for doing a procedure that had no evidence,” says Dr Glasson.
“It was, you know, ‘intraocular lenses are never going to have a future’.”
If change was a constant, so was a magazine keeping Dr Glasson and others up to date with what that change looked like and what it would mean for the sector.
“It sat on the kitchen table, on the theatre tables, on the tearoom tables; it was something you always picked up,” he says.
“It was very informative in terms of what’s new on the market – sort of Insight by name, insight by nature.
“It gave you insight into what was actually happening in the profession, both optometry and ophthalmology.”
As they did with Cosentino, Forbes and his team tracked the rise of the young, up-and-coming Dr Glasson as he ascended to lead the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) – now recognising the value and efficacy of implants – and also the Australian Medical Association, as president.
In those roles he reached out to journalists at Insight, which remains a forum for decision-makers and thought leaders in the ophthalmic sector.
The magazine helped lift his own profile and the work he was doing to a more targeted audience.
That’s important in a sector where change and innovation are near-constant, he says.
“We go to our national meetings and we get lots of presentations from people about, say, a lens or a product – somebody’s selling something,” says Dr Glasson.
“Insight, I think, allows a much more objective approach to what is out there in the market compared with their different products, which is important.”
That information was not easy to find in other mainstream media looking elsewhere for news.
“There’s no other media outlet that we can access that will give us the day-to-day and, in a dynamic way, the changes that are occurring around products and procedures,” he says.
“I think that’s why Insight‘s always been at the leading edge.”
He sees no reason why it shouldn’t remain that way.
“As long as it’s meeting the readers’ needs and people find it relevant to their profession, and it’s providing new information, confirming information, changing ideas.”
The publisher
That will be music to the ears of Mr John Murphy.
Milestones are on his mind as he sits down to talk about Insight’s golden commemoration.
He’s preparing to celebrate his own silver anniversary with wife Tanya, but the chair, former CEO and founder of Prime Creative Media (PCM) is more than happy to also acknowledge the 50th birthday of one of their “babies”.
That baby was already mature when PCM acquired the title in September 2019, one of two publications bundled up in a deal with Gunnamatta Media.
Forbes, his health deteriorating, had sold Insight to Gunnamatta, headed by Mr Coleby Nicholson, just a few years earlier.
Forbes died, aged 76, in January 2019.
At the time of its sale to Nicholson, Forbes hoped Gunnamatta would bring a “newfound energy to Insight and the wider eyecare industry”.
Murphy is proud that PCM has honoured those wishes and kept the publication relevant to the sector and its participants while successfully bringing it into the 21st Century and expanding its reach and impact.
“You need a multi-platform offering,” he says. “You need to provide information as people want to read it and how they want to access it.
“We developed Insight’s online offering and invested in the journalism side of it.
“We’ve got a market that is hungry for more information about these industries, these niches, these specialised industries, and we provide that through our great editorial and these great stories.”
Forbes’ style may have been confrontational at times, especially for the sector’s leading institutions and individuals, and PCM has adapted the magazine to its own style of supporting the industry.
“We talk to our suppliers and the industry as genuine partners,” says Murphy.
“It’s about growing individuals, organisations and industries. I think these business-to-business magazines are a vital communication link for people to learn about the industries, but also to give them a platform to grow them.
“It’s all about giving a platform for these providers, these service companies, these manufacturers or dealers in these businesses to sell product, to talk about the latest developments and how they can make a difference to these companies.”
Like other magazines in the PCM stable, Insight gives the industry “a voice to tell their stories”.
Murphy is proud as well that it also supports professional development within the ophthalmic sector, having introduced regular CPD articles and educational pieces.
Forbes would have been proud to see his own baby not only survive but thrive into adulthood and beyond, in a media sector where print can often fail.
At PCM, digital channels are important, but print is still the premier product, says Murphy.
It’s where he started his own career, taking a small Melbourne-based publishing company with one title and effectively one staff member – himself – to become what is believed to be the country’s biggest business-to-business publisher with more than 50 titles, 200 staff and offices across Australia and England.
And he’s hungry for more, right after that anniversary brunch with Tanya.
“We don’t look back too often,” he says. “We’re always looking to ensure that the company survives, ensuring that it keeps delivering and adding value to the industries.
“But when you do have opportunities like this, Insight turning 50, well it is pretty amazing.”
An industry well covered
Mr James Gibbins is a human exclamation point.
The optical dispenser, teacher, and co-founder of the Australasian College of Optical Dispensing (ACOD) with Mr Chedy Kalach is loudly, proudly passionate about his industry and the college’s role within it.
And he’s equally enthusiastic about the legacy of Insight and its contribution to the sector over 50 years.
He has been an avid reader and contributor since he entered the industry in 1983, just a few years after Neil Forbes took the plunge on a then little-known trade title.
He even admits to regularly having the latest copy on his bedside table.
As his own career progressed and he crossed paths with Forbes, he grew to become friends with the magazine’s founder and long-time editor.
“He was, at times, a cantankerous, polarising figure, which is why I quite liked him,” says Gibbins.
His earliest memory of Insight was its Pluvius columns, written by Forbes with a dry and sometimes cutting wit.
“It was his back page,” he says. “It was extremely opinionated, pokey towards optometrists, which I found funny, and very politically aligned to hard, left-wing politics inappropriate for an industry magazine.”
The magazine might not be as provocative as it once was, but Gibbins says that, under current editor Mr Myles Hume, it is no less influential in supporting his work, optical dispensing in general, and the sector as a whole.
“The first couple of years, ACOD didn’t seem to get much traction, but we’ve now got traction,” he says.
“Now, I can visit any tiny, little practice, anywhere in Australia or New Zealand, and I walk in the door and people go, ‘you’re the college guy, aren’t you?’.
“That’s a really privileged, wonderful position that we’ve come to now, and there’s no doubt Insight has helped that along.”
Industry members frequently access the publication’s content in print and online, keen to know more about sector changes and product launches.
“The new frame range is out, it’s going to be there. Then if there’s a technical article along the lines of that product launch – even better.
“It comments on international things. We in our industry, we’re a pretty quiet, sleepy, inward-looking industry compared to others.
“Insight will have international conference information, feedback, what people are doing overseas, etc.”
That access to information, from an independent source that supports the sector, is important, says Gibbins.
It’s why he believes Insight will continue to cover the industry beyond
50 years and be successful.
“We are a smallish industry, but we’re passionate, and the passionate members are going to jump onto media and share,” he says.
“It’s always been there.”
Ms Skye Cappuccio agrees.
“Reaching 50 years in print is a significant achievement in any field,” says the CEO at Optometry Australia.
“It speaks to Insight’s ability to evolve and remain relevant. As the way we share information continues to change, there will always be value in credible, thoughtful journalism that brings people together and keeps the profession informed and inspired.”
Insight publishes regular CPD articles helping optometrists and others advance their clinical and practice knowledge, and build their own profiles and businesses.
“I think that what the great industry media we have in optometry does really well for optometry is it helps keep people up-to-date on things happening across the sector,” she says.
“As the optometry profession continues to grow and refine its role within Australia’s health system, independent, well-informed journalism will remain essential to capturing that progress and helping shape what comes next.
“I think that’s a really important part of people feeling on top of information and connected to their profession and their sector and part of the broader community.”
