Fairfax Media’s decision to cancel the popular Michael Leunig calendar has been overturned at the 11th hour after a “passionate response” from readers of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.
On Thursday a Fairfax company spokesman confirmed the calendar would not be published in 2015 but did not say why.
Leunig told Guardian Australia he had been informed via email from a marketing executive that there would be no calendar this year.
But within hours of the story being published and hundreds of angry posts on Facebook the senior editorial teams of the two papers had the decision reversed.
Sources said the commercial side of the business had taken the decision without asking the editors, who believed the calendars were an important part of the Christmas tradition.
Fairfax told readers the good news on their Facebook pages on Thursday night.
Under the headline “Michael Leunig 2015 calendar lives!” they wrote: “Lovers of Leunig calendars can rest assured it will be available through the normal channels with the SMH and The Age – theage.com.au later this year. Calendars aren’t normally known to drive passionate responses – Leunig calendars do – so we are pleased it lives on.”
