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overview
This note covers the Melbourne-based Herald & Weekly
Times group, the publisher and broadcaster acquired by
Rupert Murdoch in 1987.
It covers -
introduction
The Herald & Weekly Times (H&WT)
group traced its origins to the 1840s. At its height in
the 1960s it encompassed
- metropolitan
newspapers in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane
- suburban
and regional newspapers
- magazines
- radio
and television broadcasting
- printing
and distribution interests
and
in terms of influence was a rival of the Fairfax/Syme
groups and Packer family interests.
It survived takeover bids by Rupert Murdoch (son of a
former H&WT chief executive) and Robert Holmes a
Court before succumbing to a second bid by Murdoch.
That bid saw the disposal of print and electronic interests.
development
[under construction]
Lawyer Theodore Fink (1855-1942), associate of land boomer
WL Baillieu and brother of Benjamin Fink, emerged from
the 1890s Melbourne crash with a substantial stake in
Herald & Sportsman Newspapers, founded by JB Halfey.
As chair of Herald & Weekly Times he appointed Keith
Murdoch as editor of the group's flagship daily Herald
in 1920 and was thereafter overshadowed by his protege.
In 1922
Sir Hugh Denison's Sun Newspapers,
based in Sydney, launched the Melbourne morning Sun
News Pictorial. Keith Murdoch and H&WT failed
in a bid to control the Sydney Evening News (reconstructed
as Samuel Bennett Ltd under the control of major Sydney
retailers) and in 1923 Sun launched the Melbourne Evening
Sun. Neither of the Sun papers were successful and
in 1925 they were acquired from the Denison group.
The Herald & Weekly Times extended its interests -
by 1935 it and chief executive Murdoch had stakes in 11
of the 65 Australian commercial radio stations - and enjoyed
a good war. Sybil Nolan's Half
Century of Obscurity (PDF)
notes that in 1942 the H&WT had £835,000 working
capital and £904,000
reserves compared to the Argus &
Australasian Ltd's working capital of £134,000 pounds
and £14,000 reserves, Consolidated
Press' £278,000
and £230,000
reserves and Syme's zero reserves.
In 1957 H&WT acquired Argus
& Australasian Ltd and then
closed the Melbourne Argus, founded in 1846 and
competing with the group's Sun. The company was
purchased from the UK Daily Mirror (spun off
by the Harmsworths in the preceding decade). Acquisition
brought with it a substantial stake in Melbourne television
station GTV, which was sold to Frank Packer
- to the surprise of the Fairfax family - as regulations
prohibited H&WT from a dominant stake in two stations
in a single metropolitan city.
founding fathers
Insights are offered by accounts of Murdoch's father -
Sir Keith - who was chief executive for several years.
He was educated at Camberwell Grammar School, commencing
his career with the Melbourne Age as a correspondent
for the district of Malvern. He attended the London School
of Economics from 1907, returning to the Age
as a staff reporter for two years and becoming political
correspondent for Denison's
Sydney evening Sun in 1912. In 1915 he returned
to London as managing editor of the United Cable Service
run by the Sun and the H&WT's Herald.
He was a war correspondent at Gallipoli, returning to
Australia chief executive of the H&WT .
Murdoch married Elisabeth, daughter of industrialist Rupert
Greene, in 1928 and was knighted in 1933. He was appointed
Trustee of the National Gallery, Victoria in the same
year. He was a controversial Director-General of Information
(a counterpart to John Reith of BBC
fame) from June to December 1940. He was Chairman of Directors
of the H&WT from 1942.
Murdoch was President of the Australian-American Association
(Victorian Section) from 1941 to 1946.
Sir Lloyd Dumas was born in 1891, son of the founder of
the Mt Barker Courier. After a cadetship with
the Bonython family's Adelaide Advertiser he
moved to the Melbourne Argus (becoming chief
of staff in 1921). He was editor of the Sun News-Pictorial
from 1924 to 1927, moving to London as manager of the
Australian Newspapers Cable Service. In 1929 he became
managing editor of the Adelaide Advertiser and
a director of Advertiser Newspapers Ltd. He was Managing
Director from 1938 to 1961 and Chairman of Advertiser
Newspapers Ltd from 1942 to 1967, with directorships of
Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd (1938-67), Australian Associated
Press (1949-1951) and Reuters (1950-1953).
the Argus
The
Melbourne morning daily Argus was founded
in 1846
and for much of its existence was a dominant paper in
that city, rivalling - and often outshining - the increasingly
stodgy and undercapitalised Age after the death
of David Syme.
In 1933, reacting to competition from the H&WT, it
launched to the Melbourne Evening Star. That
paper was not a success and closed in 1936. The Argus
enjoyed better fortune with investments in radio and television,
eg as a participant in the General Telecasters Victoria
(GTV) consortium.
In 1949 it was acquired by the UK Daily Mirror company,
recently spun off by the Harmsworth
family and centred on the Daily Mirror. The Argus
successfully moved to the left, with increased circulation
and apparently improved profits. The Mirror contemplated
a merger between its Australian interests and those of
Sir Keith Murdoch, with the latter having a dominant stake
in a chain that would rival the H&WT.
In 1957
the Mirror - now under the direction of the zany Cecil
King - offloaded the Argus to H&WT, which
used the presses and other assets but closed the paper
in the same year. Its stake in GTV-9 was sold to Sir Arthur
Warner's Electronic Industries, acquired by UK manufacturer
Pye in 1960. Pye sold its 62% stake in GTV-9 to Frank
Packer for £3.76 million,
forming the basis of the Nine network.
Studies
There has been no recent major study of the H&WT group.
Arguably Sir Keith Murdoch has yet to receive the biography
that he deserves. Scholars are perforce reliant on the
entry in volume 10 of the Australian Dictionary of
Biography (Melbourne: Melbourne Uni Press), the reverential
Keith Murdoch: Founder of a Media Empire (Sydney:
HarperCollins 2003) by RM Younger and the shorter In
Search of Keith Murdoch (Macmillan: South Melbourne
1980) by Desmond Zwar which arguably understates Keith's
war with the Packers and Fairfaxes
and overstates the relationship with Northcliffe.
Critic John Hetherington in Australians: 9 Profiles
(Melbourne: Cheshire 1960) sniffed that Sir Keith
never
wavered in his purpose of grasping the best apples in
the tree for himself; he often did this with the aid
of other men who were sometimes hypnotised into believing
that they would be rewarded with a share of the apples,
only to find, when the division was made, that Murdoch
had all the juiciest and rosiest pieces of fruit while
they - if they were lucky - had the yellowed and rotting
windfalls
A
perspective on that comment is provided by Don Garden's
Theodore Fink: A Talent For Ubiquity (Carlton:
Melbourne Uni Press 1998) on the land boomer and Herald
& Weekly Times chairman. For the Baillieus see in
particular Michael Cannon's The Land Boomers
(Melbourne: Macmillan 1986)
For the Adelaide Advertiser see 125 years
of The Advertiser (Adelaide: Advertiser Newspapers
1983) compiled by Peter Lord - a standard coprporate celebration
and The Story of a Full Life (Melbourne: Sun
Books 1969) by former CEO Sir Lloyd Dumas.
There has been no major study of Gordon & Gotch, the
newspaper, book and magazine distributor active in Australia
and New Zealand. Denis Cryle's 1996 paper
Culture and Commerce: Gordon & Gotch Ltd in Australia
1890-1940 is suggestive.
For the Mirror's involvement with the Argus see
Ruth Dudley Edwards' persuasive Newspapermen: Hugh
Cudlipp, Cecil Harmsworth King & the Glory Days of
Fleet Street (London: Secker & Warburg 2003)
and Cecil King's Strictly Personal (London: Weidenfeld
& Nicolson 1969). Jim Usher edited The Argus:
Life and Death of a Newspaper (Melbourne: Australian
Scholarly Publishing 2007), a collection of reminiscences.
Insights on the News takeover are provided in Media
Mayhem: Playing with the Big Boys in Media (Melbourne:
Brolga 2005) by former H&WT chief executive John D'Arcy.
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