Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia's Newspaper Empires by Sally Young

Author:Sally Young [NewSouth Publishing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: social science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781742244471
Google: wq2LDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: NewSouth
Published: 2019-03-01T20:23:30.401213+00:00

An important year for Packer

By 1939, Packer had been in partnership with Associated Newspapers in Consolidated Press for three years. He was in charge of the high circulation Women’s Weekly, which had shifted to glamorous colour in December 1936, courtesy of a highly advanced printing press purchased from the United States. Through the invigorated Daily Telegraph, Packer was also enjoying the influence that came with being able to have a daily say on news and politics. But the paper still remained a difficult one to make money from because the Sydney Morning Herald had such a strong grip on the classified advertising market. In an attempt to make its own classifieds more enticing, the Daily Telegraph had started a competition where readers had to find false ads embedded in its classified section. When this did not help matters much, Frank went to Fairfax & Sons and again bluffed a rival into helping him. Packer told Fairfax that Consolidated Press was in serious financial trouble and he was thinking of selling the Daily Telegraph to the HWT. Frank wanted to increase the cover price of the Daily Telegraph and he needed the Sydney Morning Herald to raise their price as well. Not wanting the HWT to gain a foothold in the Sydney market, Henderson and Fairfax agreed.89 This price-fixing deal seems to be yet another example of Packer’s cunning as it seems unlikely that Consolidated was ever really in serious talks with the HWT.90

At the end of the 1930s, Packer was securing his grip on his assets. As part of this, he drove out a potential ownership rival by getting rid of Warnecke, the talented journalist and driving force behind the Women’s Weekly. Packer was still mixing with high society, and wining and dining with political and commercial heavy-weights. A sign of his growing influence in the newspaper industry came in November 1939, when he was elected president of the ANC. He was only thirty-three years old, the youngest proprietor of importance at the table. He was not liked by other newspaper owners and executives, including Keith Murdoch, Lloyd Dumas, and Geoffrey Syme of The Age.91 Packer’s presidency did not last long. He resigned in May 1940, in protest at what he felt was a lack of support from other proprietors when the Menzies government planned to allow a newsprint licence for a new Sydney afternoon newspaper (Chapter 15).92 Packer was difficult, unpredictable and isolationist, but the other proprietors could no longer ignore him.

Only a few days after Packer was elected to the industry leadership post, he boldly launched a new paper, at a time when most owners would no longer take the risk. The cosy deal Packer had struck with Associated Newspapers in 1936 had required that he wait three years before starting a Sunday paper. That had now expired. Packer had used the time to consolidate his finances. He wanted a Sunday edition in order to minimise his idle printing capacity. This was becoming crucial to economic viability. Packer also wanted a slice of the lucrative Sunday advertising market, and one advertiser in particular.

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