| "The daily habit of successful people" | |
 Cover of theAustralian Financial Review on 20 October 2010 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Compact |
| Owner | Nine Entertainment |
| Founder | John Fairfax & Sons |
| Publisher | Nine Publishing |
| Editor-in-chief | James Chessell[1] |
| Editor | Cosima Marriner[1] |
| Deputy editor | Jessica Gardner (news) and Kylar Loussikian (business)[1] |
| Associate editor | Jeremy Sammut (opinion)[1] |
| Photo editor | Daniel Adams[1] |
| Founded | 16 August 1951 (1951-08-16) |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Sydney,New South Wales |
| Country | Australia |
| Circulation | Mon–Fri: 47,200 Sat: 56,100[2] |
| ISSN | 0404-2018 (print) 1444-9900 (web) |
| OCLC number | 1131035760 |
| Website | www |
TheAustralian Financial Review (AFR) is an Australiancompactdaily newspaper with a focus on business, politics and economic affairs. The newspaper is based inSydney,New South Wales, and has been published continuously since its founding in 1951. It is currently owned byNine Entertainment. TheAFR is published in tabloid format six times a week, and provides 24/7 coverage through its website and mobile app. In November 2019, theAFR reached 2.647 million Australians through both print and digital mediums according to Mumbrella.[3]
TheAustralian Financial Review started as a print-onlyweekly newspaper in 1951, before changing to abi-weekly in 1961, and adaily newspaper in 1963. The paper now publishes multiplemagazines and a supplementary weekend paper, which was launched in 1995. In that same year, theAFR website was also released, which helped to expand its readership base across all media.[4] TheAFR, along with most ofFairfax Media, was purchased by Nine Entertainment in 2018.[5]
TheAustralian Financial Review newspaper started as a weekly publication in 1951, published byJohn Fairfax & Sons. The paper's main objective was to inform the Australian public on business life and news.[6]
In 1961, theAFR converted to a bi-weekly, and then established itself as the first daily newspaper by 1963.[7] Despite other newspapers claiming the title of the first daily national paper, Maxwell Newton was the editor in charge of taking theFinancial Review from a bi-weekly to the first daily national paper.[8] During 1961–62, theAFR's primary competitor was TheAustralian Financial Times, which was in operation for less than 12 months. In the 1960s and 1970s, theAFR developed a strong readership amongst a specialist business audience due to its neutral stance on domestic government policies.[6] In the 1970s, despite theAFR's reputation as a national business daily, many saw it as the primary competitor forThe Australian given its high proportion of readers in theAB demographic.[8]
In 1995, Fairfax launched theAustralian Financial ReviewMagazine in response to its growing readership across a wide-ranging audience.[9] The magazine was published to cover topics other than business includingleisure,politics,travel,sports,fashion, and other peripheral topics.[10] In December 2019, the magazine recorded an average issue readership of 326,000.[11] Since its launch in 1995, theAFR Magazine has won the 'Best Newspaper Inserted Magazine' (2013-2019), 'Newspaper Inserted Brand of the Year' (2019) and Mumbrella's 'Special Issue of the Year' (2019).[9]
The magazine's founding was followed by the launch of theAFR's website in the same year, which started as a free online source of financial news.[12]
In 1997, theAFR launched itsWeekend Edition which extended the paper's publications into the weekend, with an explicit focus of targeting the growing readership base by providing news articles outside of the traditional finance setting.[9]
In 2016, theAFR launched mobile and iPad compatible applications to provide its digital subscribers more accessibility to its news platform. This was aimed at allowing cross-platform accessibility without having to download two separate applications across different device platforms.[13] The application carries similar features to the website including sections such as: Street Talk and Rear Window. The product management team decided to revamp the app due to the wide uptake of smartphones in the Australian market, and to improve their user-interface experience. The UTS Business School was the launch partner for the app, providing logistical advice on the app's delivery.[14] The app's subscription price is included in the 'all premium digital subscription' bundle.
TheAustralian Financial Review has grown its product offerings since its beginnings as afinancenewsroom. It has consistently been well received by the journalism sector as one of the most high-quality newsrooms across Australia.[15] Since the 2000s, theAFR has launchedBOSS (magazine for business leadership and strategy) and theSophisticated Traveller magazine. In 2019, theAustralian Financial Review recorded double-digit subscriber growth, as it continued to market its newspaper as the driver of Australian business-people's success and ambitions.[3] In 2020, due to the newspaper company's expansion efforts across different readership bases, theAFR reached 2.647m Australians a month.[3]
TheAFR first introduced itspaywall in 2006, charging online users to view its articles – a payment model that had not yet been utilised by any other Australian newspaper firm.[16] The switch to a paywall was done because the newspaper company thought it could further monetise its niche business audience who could afford it.[17] Following this change, theAFR continued to adjust the pricing of its subscription due to low subscriber growth.[18]
In 2011, it newly introduced a freemium paywall in which only a small portion of articles were free. It has been noted that theAFR's website locks approximately 86% of its online content behind a paywall, higher than its closest competitor theNational Business Review.[18] This was aimed at increasing its digital readership which in 2011 amounted to 6,000 subscribers.[19] In addition, it was later determined that theAFR's failures in attracting online subscribers was due to its paywall being too expensive. Its 2012 price of $59 AUD was notably higher than other international mastheads, includingThe New York Times which was priced at $37.84 AUD.[18] As a result, theAFR has since lowered its digital subscription price to $29.50 AUD.
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The mega-cap deal that sawNine Entertainment andFairfax Media merge was inspired by initial chats between Hugh Marks (Nine CEO) and Nick Falloon (Fairfax chairman).[20] The pair discussed how the two companies' assets could synergise, improve efficiencies, save costs and increase scale. During the lead up to the merger, there were a few roadblocks. In 2016, the proposed merger was not feasible due to government legislation surrounding media ownership.[21] In addition, Nine Entertainment's board believed that itsshare price wasundervalued and thus wanted to delay any acquisition until its fair value had been reflected. Amongst the delays in talks between the two parties, Fairfax had other suitors includingprivate equity groupsTPG Capital andHellman & Friedman, which ended up walking away from the table.[22]
In 2018, Nine Entertainment's board re-entered into talks with Fairfax of a potentialmerger after its share price had jumped following an upbeat earnings report.[23] The proposed structure of the takeover was 0.3627 Nine shares plus $0.025 AUD per Fairfax share, composing acash plusscrip deal. This represented a 21.9% takeover premium to Fairfax's last close, and valued Fairfax at $2313.8mm AUD.[5] Once the deal was made, it was reported that Fairfax's portfolio newspapers, including theAFR, would maintain independence from Nine's media groups. As part of the proposed deal, Hugh Marks took over corporate control of the combined group with Fairfax CEO,Greg Hywood, stepping down.
The combined entity in 2018 was forecasted to have approximately 6,000 employees (inclusive of all the duplicate roles made redundant), major resources across all media types including print, TV, radio and online; and $3 billion in revenue.[20]
The proposed merger was also put under review by theAustralian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) on antitrust measures.[24] It was announced in November 2018 that the ACCC would not oppose the merger. The investigation looked at the merger's impact on the online news industry's competition and involved contacting numerous stakeholders. It was noted that the merger would most likely reduce competition in the domestic media market, but that it was not in breach of theCompetition and Consumer Act. The main point of divergence between the two business' assets was that Nine Entertainment's news assets provided mass market news coverage whereas Fairfax Media's news assets provided more specialist coverage.[25]
Despite the ACCC's ruling, there were a few stakeholders who voiced their concerns about the merger's impact on the Australian media industry's competitive landscape.[24] Union groups such as the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and the Journalists' union warned the ACCC that the mega-cap takeover would threaten the editorial independence of Fairfax Media's portfolio newspaper companies. Former prime minister Paul Keating also voiced his criticisms labelling the ACCC's decision as "appalling", considering that a more concentrated media industry would reduce coverage of city-specific political issues.[26]
In October 2022, Nine announced that it would discontinue printing theFinancial Review in Tasmania, with copies to instead be flown in from Melbourne on the following day.[27] The decision was subsequently reversed.[28]
In May 2024, printed editions of theFinancial Review were discontinued in Western Australia, which Nine attributed to an increase in printing costs by its competitor Seven West Media, the owners of the only suitable printing press in Western Australia.[29]
Within the AFR's daily newspaper, regularly scheduled sections include:[30]
Across the AFR group, the team does not only publish newspapers. Its range of operations is listed below:
TheFinancial Review Rich List aims to compile an annual ranking of the wealthiest Australian citizens. The list was first published in theBRW Magazine in 1984.[34] Since its beginnings, the compilation of the list and its publishing have been taken over by theAFR, now being published annually in theAustralian Financial Review Magazine and on theafr.com. Along with the names of the richest people, the list explicates the person or family's net worth and provides a short summary on the business activities and sector they are engaged in. The valuations are conducted by utilising a mix of publicly available information and private consultations. In 2019, the cut-off for making the Rich List was $472m AUD. In 2020, the cut-off was raised to $540m AUD.[35]
During 1975 to 1983, whenThe Australian widely articulated its political stance onconservativeliberalism, it had been noted that theAFR also promotedneo-liberalism through its news coverage and editorials, exerting influence on the business sphere of Australia and its elitist readership base.[36] The newspaper has also been labelled as one of the propagators of radical liberalism during the 1970s–80s, shaping the policy debate surrounding market deregulation at that time.[36] This was in line with the overarching political stance of all Fairfax Holdings owned newspapers, includingThe Sydney Morning Herald, which in the 1970s was also right-leaning in its political views.[37]
In the wake of the1987 stock market crash, the Australian news media sector was blamed for overlooking corporate corruption and wrongdoings, while publishing mainly favourable news articles handed to them from corporate PR teams.[7] Also during this time,The National Times which was Australia's leading financial investigative journalism newspaper, shut down after the stock market crash. Therefore, during the 2000s, following the financial market failures and economic downturn of the 1990s, theAFR's reporting focus steered more towards business investigative journalism, scrutinising big corporations, government power and corruption.[7] This was viewed as theAFR making reparations for its lack of scrutiny over the corporate sector in the lead-up to the stock market crash.[citation needed]
One major factor that allowed theAFR to undertake deep corporate investigations was that it did not need advertising revenue to stay afloat – its cover price was sufficient. On the other hand, all other daily mastheads needed company advertising to stay profitable. This afforded theAFR's editors the flexibility to pursue and publish news articles that shed a negative light on major companies without needing to be concerned about its financial impacts.
During the controversial 2013 tax debate regarding taxes for "extraordinary" profits generated by mining companies, major mastheads from regions with high mining interests had almost fourfold the number of negative articles compared to positive articles.The Australian, the biggest national daily, had a large number of both positive and negative articles, but had a limited number of neutral articles. Out of all the daily mastheads, theAFR published the most articles surrounding the tax debate and also the most number of neutral articles.[38]
| Election | Endorsement | |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Coalition | |
| 2013 | Coalition | |
| 2016 | Coalition | |
| 2019 | Coalition | |
| 2022 | Coalition | |
| 2025 | Coalition | |
In November 2023, the AFR joined with theInternational Consortium of Investigative Journalists,Paper Trail Media [de] and 69 media partners includingDistributed Denial of Secrets and theOrganized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and more than 270 journalists in 55 countries and territories[39][40] to produce the 'Cyprus Confidential' report on the financial network which supports the regime ofVladimir Putin, mostly with connections to Cyprus, and showed Cyprus to have strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned.[41][42] Government officials including Cyprus presidentNikos Christodoulides[43] and European lawmakers[44] began responding to the investigation's findings in less than 24 hours,[43] calling for reforms and launching probes.[45][46]
AFR has won the "Gold Lizzy" for Best Title at "The Lizzies", aka the IT Journalism Awards, many times, including in 2019,[47] 2021,[48] and 2022.[49] It has also won in other categories, including Best Business Coverage.[50][47][48]
The country's pre-eminent business column was born during a long lunch in Melbourne in the mid-1970s.
