The Age

The Age is a liberal Australian daily newspaper in broadsheet format that will appear in Melbourne since 1854. The Age was founded by two businessmen, brothers John and Henry Cooke, who relocated in the 1840s from New Zealand to Melbourne. The first edition of The Age was published on 17 October 1854.

The circulation of weekday average of 202 100 copies and reached 291,000 copies on Saturday. The edition of the Sunday appearing The Sunday Age is 228 600. According to The Age case, the range is from Monday to Friday average of 699,000, Saturdays and Sundays 919,000 697,000 readers.

History

The company of two businessmen was originally not successful and they had the newspaper almost 2 years later, in June 1856 already resell. At an auction, the journalist Ebenezer Syme and also born in Scotland ironmonger James McEwan bought the newspaper for £ 2000. The first issue under the new owners appeared on 17 June 1856. Ebenezer Syme, however, was soon elected to the Parliament of the State of Victoria and his brother David Syme took over more and more control over the newspaper. With the death of his brother in 1860 he was finally Managing Director and Editor in Chief, a title which he himself, however strictly refused and remained there until his death in 1908. It is due to that The Age was the leading newspaper in Victoria. The rest soon surpassed that of its competitors The Herald and The Argus. In 1899, they had already reached 120,000 copies per day.

After the death of David Syme his sons took over the leadership of the newspaper. Herbert Syme was managing director and his brother Geoffrey chief editor. Under their control, The Age was conservative, so we resisted until the Second World War, the trend on the front page reprint photos. Since it was forbidden David Symes sons by testamentary disposition, the shares of the newspaper to sell in order to raise new capital for the necessary modernization, took both the political influence, as well as the circulation figures from at this time.

After the death of Herbert took over in 1942 Oswald, the last son of David Syme, the line of the newspaper. He performed the overdue modernization of the newspaper and watched the coverage and the appearance of the usual at this time standards. This was possible because a court at the instigation picked up the last will of David Syme. This allows Oswald, shares in the company to sell and to procure such new capital to invest in new equipment. With this intent was listed on the Stock Exchange David Symes & Co.. Until his retirement in 1964, The Age recovered financially - also favored by the fact that the competitor The Argus was discontinued in 1957. Already at that time the John Fairfax Holding tried to take over the owner, among other things the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age the first time.

Ranald Macdonald, grandson and successor of Oswald Symes, introduced a lot of innovations, such as the Sunday and evening editions, and stood with Graham Perkin first time a chief editor from outside the family. Perkin transformed the ultra-conservative newspaper into a left liberal media that refused for example, the death penalty and racism themed. In the election campaign of 1972, The Age, the Australian Labor Party supported under Gough Whitlam.

Between 1966 and 1983, Fairfax became successively David Syme and Co. The name of the reorganized Fairfax subsidiary and thus the long-standing Eigentümerfamiie disappeared in 1999 with the name change to The Age Company Ltd..

In January 1995, The Age was the first Australian newspaper, which published their articles on the Internet.

On June 18, 2012 Fairfax Media announced as Fairfax Holdings has been operating since several years, that the The Age appropriate format to appear in tabloid format, so the a classic tabloid in March 2013. Also, the sister newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald is to be converted as well. The website of The Age is to be at least partly charged. On the same day the closure of the two largest printing group in the Melbourne Tullamarine and Sydney's Chullora in June 2013 and the dismissal of 1,900 employees within the next three years were announced by Fairfax Media. These are related to the progressive collapse of the traditional financing model for print media in the Internet age.