Newspapers in Australia

Nearly all major metropolitan newspapers are owned either by News Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, or Nine Entertainment Co., with notable exceptions including The West Australian and The Sunday Times in Perth, and The Canberra Times in the nation's capital city.

The Tasmanian and Port Dalrymple Advertiser founded in Launceston in 1825 was the first provincial newspaper in Australia.

[4] Early newspapers tended to consist of four pages and generally appeared one or two days a week.

They initially featured wood-engravings and toward the end of the nineteenth century black and white photographs began to appear.

The newspaper occupy the space of all literature, and stop the channels of information from all other sources; by far the largest class derive no information from any other quarter ...[6]These sentiments were echoed by Richard Twopeny in Town Life in Australia (1883): This is essentially the land of newspapers.

The proportion of the population who can afford to purchase and subscribe to newspapers is ten times as large as in England; hence the number of sheets issued is comparatively much greater.

[7]This national obsession with newspapers continued into the 20th century so that historian Ken Inglis could note in 1962 that: Australians are more intensely addicted to daily newspapers than almost all other people in the world ... We buy more than 40 papers a day per 100 of population.

[13][14][15] In response, the Australian government provided financial support for regional media outlets.