Sun News-Pictorial

''The Sun News-Pictorial'' (known as ''The Sun'') was a morning daily tabloid newspaper published in Melbourne, Victoria, from 1922 until its merger in 1990 with '' The Herald'' to form the ''Herald-Sun''.

''The Sun News-Pictorial'' was part of The Herald and Weekly Times stable of Melbourne newspapers. For more than fifty years it was the newspaper with the largest circulation in Australia.

Character

Along with its extensive coverage of Australian rules football (for example, it was responsible for the competition that produced the original VFL/AFL team songs) ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' distinguished itself with its photography, columns and cartoons. Its longest-running column was ''A Place in the Sun'', originally written by Keith Dunstan—founder of the Anti-Football League—and later Graeme "Jacko" Johnstone. The award-winning cartoonist Jeff Hook became the full-time cartoonist for ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' in 1964.

History

Origin

Keith Murdoch became editor-in-chief of '' The Herald'' in January 1921. When the proprietor of the '' Sydney Sun'' tried to break into the Melbourne market in 1922 with the launch of ''The Evening Sun'' and ''The Sun News-Pictorial'', Murdoch fought a long campaign which eventually resulted in The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT), with the circulation of ''The Herald'' up by 50%, taking over the two tabloids in 1925. Murdoch closed the afternoon rival ''The Evening Sun''. In 1928, Murdoch became managing director of the HWT, by which time ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' was 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, was Lloyd Dumas.

Competition

''The Sun News-Pictorial'''s main competitors were the broadsheets '' The Argus'' and ''The Age''. ''The Argus'' was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne, published since 1846 and considered to be the general Australian newspaper of record for this period. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left-leaning approach from 1949, and after twenty years of financial losses, closed on 19 January 1957.

The other competitor over the life of the newspaper was the more liberal-minded ''The Age'', a daily newspaper that had been published in Melbourne since 1854. David Syme became sole proprietor of the paper in 1891, and he built it up into Victoria's leading newspaper, soon overtaking its rivals ''The Herald'' and ''The 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 Age'' was unable to modernise, and gradually lost market share to ''The Argus'' and ''The 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 conservative ''Argus'', it lost much of its distinct political identity.

After David Syme's last surviving son, Oswald Syme, took over the paper, he modernised the paper's 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 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-Pictorial'' became the highest-circulating daily in Australia, and at times the world, outselling its rivals three to one. One very substantial reason for its high level of daily sales was that ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' offered a free life-insurance policy to each of those who subscribed for regular daily home delivery of the newspaper (i.e., rather than those who bought it spasmodically 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.

1990 merger

''The Sun News-Pictorial'' ceased publication on 6 October 1990 and merged with sister evening newspaper '' The Herald'' to form the ''Herald-Sun'', which contained columns and features from both of its predecessors.About Us
Herald Sun Sunday

Notable journalists, columnists, cartoonists and editors

* Jeff Hook
* Keith Dunstan

See also

* List of newspapers in Australia

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sun News Pictorial, The
Publications established in 1922
Publications disestablished in 1990
Defunct newspapers published in Melbourne
1922 establishments in Australia
Daily newspapers published in Australia
1990 disestablishments in Australia