In the 1960s and 1970s, the AFR developed a strong readership amongst a specialist business audience due to its neutral stance on domestic government policies.
[5] In the 1970s, despite the AFR's reputation as a national business daily, many saw it as the primary competitor for The Australian given its high proportion of readers in the AB demographic.
[8] The magazine's founding was followed by the launch of the AFR's website in the same year, which started as a free online source of financial news.
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.
[2] The AFR first introduced its paywall in 2006, charging online users to view its articles – a payment model that had not yet been utilised by any other Australian newspaper firm.
It has been noted that the AFR's website locks approximately 86% of its online content behind a paywall, higher than its closest competitor the National Business Review.
[20] In addition, Nine Entertainment's board believed that its share price was undervalued 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 including private equity groups TPG Capital and Hellman & Friedman, which ended up walking away from the table.
[21] In 2018, Nine Entertainment's board re-entered into talks with Fairfax of a potential merger after its share price had jumped following an upbeat earnings report.
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.
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.
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.
[34] During 1975 to 1983, when The Australian widely articulated its political stance on conservative liberalism, it had been noted that the AFR also promoted neo-liberalism through its news coverage and editorials, exerting influence on the business sphere of Australia and its elitist readership base.
Therefore, during the 2000s, following the financial market failures and economic downturn of the 1990s, the AFR's reporting focus steered more towards business investigative journalism, scrutinising big corporations, government power and corruption.
This afforded the AFR'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.
[37] In November 2023, the AFR joined with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Paper Trail Media [de] and 69 media partners including Distributed Denial of Secrets and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and more than 270 journalists in 55 countries and territories[38][39] to produce the 'Cyprus Confidential' report on the financial network which supports the regime of Vladimir 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.
[40][41] Government officials including Cyprus president Nikos Christodoulides[42] and European lawmakers[43] began responding to the investigation's findings in less than 24 hours,[44] calling for reforms and launching probes.