The Herald and Weekly Times

Jan 26, 2022

AFR Classic | There were three failed attempts to take on the Financial Review, the last was in August 1987, and even its backers doubted whether their punt would succeed, as Elisabeth Sterel reported. Elisabeth Sterel Share Business Daily, the fledgling national financial newspaper, closed yesterday after the failure of desperate last-minute attempts to find a new backer. The editor, Mr Michael Gill, told the staff of 90 yesterday morning that the paper, which had been on the streets for only six weeks, would not be published from today for “practical reasons”. Those reasons are financial. The paper’s joint venture partner, News Corporation Ltd, which had already committed $6 million to the project, was unwilling to inject further funds. The paper had to find a new backer this week or close down immediately if it was to have sufficient funds left to meet its financial commitments, particularly paying off staff. Up until yesterday morning, Mr Gill was still canvassing possible backers to take News Corporation’s 40 per cent holding. In recent days they included Sally Aw Sian, the publisher of Sing Tao Newspapers, Alan Bond , Kerry Packer , and the Peter Isaacson publishing group. It is understood Mr Gill made preliminary approaches to Mr Robert Holmes a Court, but that News was unhappy about its share going to him. Circulation failure Advertisement The imminent closure of the paper has been a daily rumour in media circles for several weeks as the paper had failed to sell anywhere near the 50,000 daily circulation it had promised advertisers. In recent weeks it had averaged daily sales of less than 10,000. Mr Rupert Murdoch “inherited” Business Daily when he took over the Herald and Weekly Times at the end of last year. He was known to be unhappy with the arrangement where News Corporation, after injecting most of the capital, held only 40 per cent of stock, and only 20 per cent of voting shares. The journalist “founders” held the balance, with Mr Gill himself believed to hold 30 per cent. This gave Mr Gill the right of veto over changes to the memorandum and articles of association which are said to require 75 per cent approval. ‘Never very confident of the paper’ While Mr Gill claimed last night that News Corporation “was never very confident of the market for the paper”, the chief executive of the Herald and Weekly Times, Mr John D’Arcy, who first took the Business Daily proposition to the previous Herald & Weekly Times board before the News Corporation takeover, said he had liked the Business Daily concept but it had clearly failed to find a niche in the market. “It is a bit sad,” he said. “I think it’s a good newspaper. But when we entered the joint venture, there is no doubt that everyone was taking a punt. “It was a punt that did not come off. We are sorry it did not work out better.” Mr D’Arcy said the decision to close the paper had not been taken by News Corporation but by the board of Australian Newspaper Publishing, the joint venture company. Advertisement Directors of the board are former BHP strategist David Adam (chairman), Michael Gill, News appointee Julian Clarke, publisher David Fallick, and journalist Peter Gill (no relation). Targeting the Financial Review Mr D’Arcy added that News Corporation would be “sympathetic” to the plight of the journalists thrown out of work by the closure of the paper. It is understood that none of the prospective backers approached by Mr Gill was interested in the paper in its current format, and that Mr Gill had not wanted it changed. Business Daily had hoped to fill what it perceived to be a hole in the market not served by other financial media. Clearly targeting The Australian Financial Review, it promised a paper with bigger pictures, shorter stories, in a “reader-friendly” tabloid format to appeal to a broader, less specialist market. Many business readers were doubtful, however, of a newspaper that appeared to over-simplify and shorten reports of business and financial events. “We wondered why they were leaving things out, it made us uneasy,” said one businessman last night. Media buyers for a number of advertising agencies said Business Daily had simply failed to take on the major competitor in the field, the Financial Review, in any real way. Advertisement Managing director of Mitchell and Partners in Melbourne, Mr Harold Mitchell, conceded that while Business Daily had given readers what it had promised, “clearly they got it very wrong”. Advertisers had been given cast-iron guarantees of a 50,000 daily circulation after undertaking exhaustive feasibility studies, or rebates in space if the paper failed to reach its target. But there would now be no rebates as there was no longer a paper, Mr Mitchell said. He pointed out that the advertising industry paid for bills monthly on the 15th day, which meant that most Business Daily advertisers would be up to date with payments and have little to hold back against the rebate promise. Note: Michael Gill became editor-in-chief of the Financial Review Group from 1998 to 2011. The Fairfax company’s move to launch The Australian Financial Review in August 1951 was prompted by plans backed by business publisher Sir Norman Rydge to start a weekly business newspaper. The Packer family’s Consolidated Press produced a short-lived rival, the Financial Times in 1961, encouraging the Financial Review to publish twice-weekly before going daily in 1963. Save