| Type | Public (ASX - FXJ) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1841 |
| Headquarters | One Darling Island Road Pyrmont Sydney, Australia |
| Key people |
Greg Hywood, CEO |
| Products | Newspapers Radio Magazines Internet |
| Revenue | A$2.6 billion (28-Jun-2009) |
| Employees | 8,979 (30/06/2009)[1] |
| Website | www.fxj.com.au |
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John Fairfax Holdings. However, the family lost control of the company in December 1990. The group's Chairman is Roger Corbett and the Chief Executive Officer is Greg Hywood.[2] As of May 2008 Fairfax Media had a market capitalisation of over A$5 billion.[3] By September 2011 this had fallen by more than 60 per cent to less than A$2 billion.
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John Fairfax purchased the Sydney Morning Herald in 1841.[4] Several generations of the Fairfax family continued to control the company.
The Australian Financial Review was founded in 1951. In that decade, Fairfax started two television stations, ATN and QTQ. Fairfax began expanding in the 1960s, acquiring, among others, The Age, The Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercury. In 1979, Rupert Murdoch attempted to take over rival The Herald and Weekly Times. Due to the costs of defending the takeover, Fairfax sold its television properties, including the Seven Network. In 1988, Fairfax sold its magazines (including Woman's Day, People, Dolly, and Good Housekeeping) to Australian Consolidated Press, and discontinued its Sydney afternoon tabloid The Sun, transferring some of its content and the sponsorship of the City to Surf to its new Sunday tabloid The Sun-Herald which also replaced the broadsheet Sunday Herald.
In 1987 Warwick Fairfax, then aged 26, controversially bought out his family's holdings in the company by borrowing heavily. He successfully took it over but on 10 December 1990 the company collapsed and a receiver was appointed,[5] with company debts of A$1.7 billion.[4] By 1993, the company was re-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and the two biggest shareholders of John Fairfax Holdings were the Canadian newspaper magnate, Conrad Black and his Hollinger Group with 25%, and the Australian media mogul, Kerry Packer and his publicly-listed company, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited with 15%. Due to Australian government concerns over media consolidation that limited any single foreign shareholder holding more than 25% interest in national and metropolitan newspapers,[6] after intense lobbying for the right to increase his stake, Black conceeded defeat in 1996,[7][8][9] selling his holding to the New Zealand corporate "raider" Brierley Investments, that was ultimately subject ot the same restrictions.[5]
In April 2003, Fairfax acquired New Zealand's Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), owners of many of New Zealand's highest-profile newspapers. In July 2005, Fairfax acquired the RSVP dating site for A$38 million.[10] In August 2005, Fairfax's general classifieds site created in March 2004, Cracker.com.au consistently exceeded 500,000 unique visitors a month. In December 2005, Fairfax acquired Stayz Pty Ltd[11] for A$12M.
In August 2005, Fairfax ended its 16 month search for a new Chief Executive Officer with David Kirk, a former Rugby Union World Cup winning captain of the New Zealand All Blacks being appointed to replace departing CEO Fred Hilmer. David Kirk got the job ahead of Fairfax COO Brian Evans (former head of Fairfax New Zealand) and Doug Flynn, who took the top job at UK Pest control company Rentokil after negotiations with Fairfax broke off. In March 2006, Fairfax acquired New Zealand auction website Trademe.co.nz for NZ$700M. On 4 March 2006, it was announced that Fairfax would purchase The Border Mail newspaper in Albury-Wodonga for A$162 million. In October 2006, speculation began to grow that the company would be bought out and split up after the passage of changes to Australian media laws. Rival media company News Limited purchased a 7.5% stake in the company at this time, with the stated aim of keeping Fairfax in one piece.
On 7 December 2006, John Fairfax Holdings and Rural Press announced the beginning of their merger proceedings. Once merged, the new entity formed a publishing company worth A$9 billion and resulted in regaining control of The Canberra Times (which it owned in the 1980s), and through John B. Fairfax of Rural Press, saw the return of the Fairfax family to the company board. The company also gained a number of other regional newspapers, radio stations and websites; plus agricultural publications in various countries. On 12 January 2007, John Fairfax Holdings changed its name to Fairfax Media.[12]
On 7 March 2007, Fairfax Media announced a new website for Brisbane, called the Brisbane Times. The website initially employed 14 journalists and was an attempt by Fairfax to break into the South East Queensland market. On 20 March 2007 Fairfax Media launched a new business website, BusinessDay.com.au that aggregated feeds from the other news vehicles in the Fairfax stable as well as "from the world's most respected news sources". It featured breaking news updated "every 15 minutes". Also in 2007 Fairfax Media bought the radio assets of Southern Cross Broadcasting. Macquarie Media Group purchased Southern Cross for A$1.35 billion and onsold these assets to the Fairfax Group.[13]
On 26 August 2007, Kirk and Deputy CEO Brian McCarthy announced that 550 staff would be cut as part of a "business improvement" programme. The staff reductions would take place in both Australia and New Zealand, with the latter country bearing the brunt of the cuts, with 160 full-time employees losing their jobs.[14] On 5 December, David Kirk tendered his resignation, and on 10 December Brian McCarthy (former Rural Press CEO) was appointed as CEO. A new campaign, "Fair Go, Fairfax: Don't discount journalism",[15] was launched by the MEAA in protest to the cuts arguing that the jobs losses will affect "quality journalism".
In late 2011, John B. Fairfax and his family investment company, Marinya Media, sold their remaining 9.7% stake in Fairfax Media for A$189 million. The sale came after an earlier dispute between John B. Fairfax and Chairman of the Fairfax Media board, Ron Walker, that led to the very public departure of Walker. Continued poor performance of Fairfax Media in light of changing news services was cited as one of the reasons for the sale of Marinya Media's interests in Fairfax. John B. Fairfax has earlier stood down from the Fairfax board and his son, Nick Fairfax, was reported to be discussing his future with the rest of the company board.[16][17][18][19]
Fairfax publishes the second most circulated daily papers in both Melbourne and Sydney, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald respectively. It also publishes a daily business tabloid, The Australian Financial Review.
Fairfax also owns papers in major regional centres, including the Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong), The Newcastle Herald (Newcastle), The Border Mail (Albury-Wodonga) and The Warrnambool Standard, (Warrnambool). In addition, its subsidiary Fairfax Community Newspapers publishes 35 community newspapers serving suburban Victoria and New South Wales.
As a result of its Rural Press acquisition, Fairfax has taken control of many newspapers including The Canberra Times and The Land.
Fairfax publishes a number of magazines, such as the(sydney)magazine, theage(melbourne)magazine and Good Weekend, which are distributed with their newspapers. In addition, the company publishes business-centred magazines including BRW, AFR Smart Investor, AFR Magazine, AFR Boss, CFO Australia, MIS (magazine) and Asset (Magazine).
Fairfax owns a profitable Australian online subsidiary, Fairfax Digital which was once known as the F2 Network. Fairfax publishes web editions of most of its newspaper titles, as well as digital only news sites in South-East Queensland as the Brisbane Times; and in Western Australia as WA Today. Both The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald produce a limited amount of video content, which is only available online. Fairfax websites have non-exclusive licensing deals to replay video content from broadcaster Network Ten.
Rural Press owns a range of similar classifieds and local newspaper websites.
On 11 July 2007, Fairfax Media acquired the former radio assets of Southern Cross Broadcasting (on-sold from Macquarie Media Group's purchase of SCB): 2UE Sydney, 3AW and Magic 1278 Melbourne, 4BC and 4BH Brisbane, and 6PR and 96fm Perth. Graham Mott will continue in his role as general manager of the broadcast radio group under Fairfax. Mott indicated at the time of the acquisition that national syndication of programming (such as that of the since-retired John Laws) would largely be replaced on the network with more localised syndication at a state level.[20]
Fairfax also acquired Satellite Music Australia (SMA) as part of the SCB deal, who provide music channels to retailers, as well as Foxtel and Austar[21] (where it is branded AIR). MyTalk Datacasting Channel was officially purchased from Southern Cross Broadcasting on 5 November 2007,[22] and ceased broadcasting on 25 February 2008.
Fairfax Syndication manages the commercial licensing and distribution of text, photographic and multimedia content to media companies and commercial clients worldwide. Fairfax Syndication has enabled instant online licensing and has developed a customised syndication application ‘API’ that allows existing and future syndication clients access to real-time content from multiple websites for immediate use on other platforms. The division also represents their image library and photo syndication service containing over 16 million images.
In March 2009, the CEO of Fairfax New Zealand became Allen Williams.
Fairfax New Zealand News (FNZ)
On 1 September 2011 Fairfax New Zealand announced the launch of Fairfax New Zealand News (FNZ) partly as a response to the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) closure but also reflects Fairfax's drive to improve its journalism.
In New Zealand, its subsidiary Fairfax New Zealand Limited publishes a stable of papers formerly owned by Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), including The Dominion Post in Wellington, The Christchurch Press in Christchurch, The Sunday Star-Times and Suburban Newspapers in Auckland. Fairfax also own over 60 community newspapers.
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In NZ, Fairfax's websites form the Stuff.co.nz portal. Sites include News, Employment, Property, Personals and Shopping. Fairfax also owns the Cuisine website as part of its ownership of the magazine of the same name.[24]
Fairfax acquired a number of US agricultural publications from Rural Press on 8 May 2007. The head of Fairfax Media's agricultural division and the one who instigated this buy up is Michael Blommley.
Farm Progress magazines[25]
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