The Sun News-Pictorial
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(April 2008) |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | News Limited |
| Language | English |
| Ceased publication | 6 October 1990 |
| City | Melbourne |
| Country | Australia |
| Sister newspapers | The Herald |
| ISSN | 2206-2343 |
The Sun News-Pictorial(known asThe Sun) was a morning dailytabloidnewspaper published inMelbourne,Victoria,from 1922 until its merger in 1990 withThe Heraldto form theHerald-Sun.
The Sun News-Pictorialwas part ofThe Herald and Weekly Timesstable of Melbourne newspapers. For more than fifty years it was the newspaper with the largest circulation inAustralia.[citation needed]In 1930, more than 650,000 copies were sold each day.[1]
Character[edit]
Along with its extensive coverage ofAustralian rules football(for example, it was responsible for the competition that produced the originalVFL/AFLteam songs),The Sun News-Pictorialdistinguished itself with its photography, columns, and cartoons. Its longest-running column was "A Place in the Sun", originally written byKeith Dunstan,founder of theAnti-Football League,and later Graeme "Jacko" Johnstone. The award-winning cartoonistJeff Hookbecame the full-time cartoonist forThe Sun News-Pictorialin 1964.
History[edit]
Origin[edit]
Keith Murdochbecame editor-in-chief ofThe Heraldin January 1921. When the proprietor of theSydney Suntried to break into the Melbourne market in 1922 with the launch ofThe Evening SunandThe Sun News-Pictorial,Murdoch fought a long campaign which eventually resulted in the formation ofThe Herald and Weekly Times(HWT), with the circulation ofThe Heraldup by 50%, taking over the two tabloids in 1925.[2]Murdoch closed the afternoon rivalThe Evening Sun.In 1928, Murdoch became managing director of the HWT, by which timeThe Sun News-Pictorialwas on its way to becoming Australia's highest-selling newspaper.
An early editor who has been given much of the credit for the paper's success wasLloyd Dumas.[3]
Competition[edit]
The Sun News-Pictorial's main competitors were thebroadsheetsThe ArgusandThe Age.The Arguswas a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne, published since 1846 and considered to be the general Australian newspaper of record for this period.[4]Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted aleft-leaning approach in 1949, and after twenty years of financial losses, closed on 19 January 1957.[5]
The other competitor over the life of the newspaper was the moreliberal-mindedThe Age,a daily newspaper that had been published in Melbourne since 1854.David Symebecame sole proprietor of the paper in 1891, and he built it up into Victoria's leading newspaper, soon overtaking its rivalsThe HeraldandThe Argus.
By 1890 it was selling 100,000 copies a day, making it one of the world's most successful newspapers, but Syme's will prevented the sale of any equity in the paper during his sons' lifetimes, which had the unintended consequence of starving the paper of investment capital for 40 years;The Agewas unable to modernise, and gradually lost market share toThe ArgusandThe Sun News-Pictorial,with only its classified advertisement sections keeping the paper profitable.
By the 1940s, the paper's circulation was lower than it had been in 1900, and its political influence had also declined to the extent that while it remained more liberal than the extremely conservativeArgus,it lost much of its distinct political identity.
After David Syme's last surviving son, Oswald Syme, took over the paper, he modernised its appearance and standards of news coverage by removing classified advertisements from the front page and introducing photographs long after other papers had done so. In 1948, realising the paper needed outside the capital, Oswald persuaded the courts to overturn his father's will and floated David Syme and Co. as a public company, selling £400,000 worth of shares to enable a badly needed technical upgrade of the newspaper's production.
The Sun News-Pictorialbecame the highest-circulating daily in Australia, and at times the world, outselling its rivals three to one. One substantial reason for its high level of daily sales was thatThe Sun News-Pictorialoffered a freelife-insurancepolicy to each of those who subscribed for regular daily home delivery of the newspaper (i.e., rather than those who bought it occasionally from street vendors or newsagents), and the insurance policy (valued at somewhere near 12 months' average wages) was current for the duration of that household's subscription.[6]
1990 merger[edit]
The Sun News-Pictorialceased publication on 6 October 1990 and merged with sister evening newspaperThe Heraldto form theHerald-Sun,which contained columns and features from both of its predecessors.[7][8][9]
Notable journalists, columnists, cartoonists and editors[edit]
- Jeff Hook
- Keith Dunstan
- Pat Jarrett,women's editor from 1946 to 1983 (then a consultant)[10]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^May, Natasha (28 May 2023)."Down memory plain: pioneering Melbourne tabloid that highlighted the everyday goes digital".The Guardian.Retrieved28 May2023.
- ^"Here and There".Taralga Echo.NSW. 2 May 1925. p. 1.Retrieved1 January2015– via National Library of Australia.
- ^"Sir Lloyd Dumas to retire".The Canberra Times.9 March 1967. p. 39.Retrieved29 December2014– via National Library of Australia.
- ^Hirst, John; Suter, Geraldine, eds. (2012)."Index to the Melbourne Argus newspaper (for the period 1870–1889)".La Trobe University.Retrieved20 March2015.
- ^So now it's Goodbye.The Argus.19 January 1957. p. 1.
- ^Message to Argus readers from The Sun News-PictorialThe Argus,final edition, 19 January 1957 atTrove
- ^Survivors, only to be swallowed up by their ownThe Canberra Times4 October 1990 page 2
- ^Sydney's Top Papers UniteThe Daily Telegraph4 October 1990 page 1
- ^About UsHerald Sun Sunday
- ^Tate, Audrey,"Patricia Irene (Pat) Jarrett (1911–1990)",Australian Dictionary of Biography,Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,retrieved3 November2023