The Mercury (Hobart)

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Front page of Mercury on 1 January 2008
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid

Owner	News Corporation
Editor	Garry Bailey
Founded	1854
Political allegiance	Conservative
Headquarters	93 Macquarie Street, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 7000

Website: www.news.com.au/mercury/

The Mercury is a daily newspaper, published in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, by Davies Brothers Pty Ltd, part of News Limited and News Corporation. The weekend issues of the paper are called Mercury on Saturday and Sunday Tasmanian.

1 History
2 Future
3 Circulation
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] History

The newspaper was started on July 5, 1854 by John Davies, then published twice weekly and known as the Hobarton Mercury. It rapidly expanded, absorbing its rivals, and became a daily newspaper in 1858 under the lengthy title The Hobart Town Daily Mercury. In 1860 the masthead was reduced to The Mercury and in 2006 it was further shortened to simply Mercury.

After Davies' retirement in 1871, the business was carried on by his sons John George Davies and Charles Ellis Davies who later traded as Davies Brothers Ltd. John Davies died on June 11, 1872, aged 58. The company remained in the family's hands until 1988, when it was taken over by News Corporation.

Other Tasmanian titles published by the company are the weekly rural newspaper Tasmanian Country, the weekly regional newspaper The Gazette, and the monthly travel magazine Treasure Island.

At various stages in its history there have been limited experiments with regional papers - such as the The Westerner which succeeded the West Coast Miner in 1979 to serve the West Coast until its demise in 1995 - as well as suburban newspapers for the Hobart market, which appeared in various guises from 1966 until 1998. In November 2006 the company launched what it called a "newspaper in a newspaper" the Kingborough Times which appears monthly within the Sunday Tasmanian. This was followed in June 2007 by the Northern Times with news from Hobart's northern suburbs.

Since November 2001 the Editor of the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian has been Garry Bailey.^[1] The Online Editor is Phillip Young.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Future

In July 2007 News Corporation approved a new $31 million press centre for Davies Brothers Pty Ltd, publisher of the Mercury and the Sunday Tasmanian. It will include the installation of the latest full-colour press.^[2]

Davies Brothers will develop the centre at Technopark, north of Hobart. It will replace the 35-year-old press housed in the Argyle St wing of the company's city site. All other operations of the newspaper group will continue to be based in the heart of the city at 93 Macquarie St.

[edit] Circulation

As of September 2007 the Mercury reported its Monday-Friday circulation as 46,140 with readership of 125,000 and its Saturday circulation as 61,023 with readership of 147,000. The Sunday Tasmanian reports circulation of 59,858 with readership of 139,000.^[3]