It has very ably utilised colour printing and its monopolist status to maximise display advertising including the use of multi-page advertorial supplements and loose inserts.

Advertising is frequently accorded priority over news on the front page by means of a four-page wrap-around cover section.

[13] In February 2022, Seven West Media WA chief executive Maryna Fewster announced growth to 4.5 million per month boosted by (potentially duplicated) counts of hits on subsidiary websites including PerthNow, the video program Up Late, morning radio show The West Live, and sundry video packages launched on thewest.com.au.

A newly formed company, West Australian Newspapers Holdings, then purchased the paper from the receivers before being floated in an oversubscribed $185 million public offering.

The new publisher, M. Shenton, remained in place until 26 June 1874. when it was bought by a syndicate who renamed it The Western Australian Times and who in September 1874 increased production to two editions a week.

Initially, delivery of the paper beyond settled areas was problematic, but the growth and development of the rural railway system in the early 1900s facilitated wider circulation.

In September 2015 the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission approved the acquisition of The Sunday Times, which would give Seven West Media a monopoly over major newspapers in the state.

[29] In 1933, The West Australian moved to the purpose-built Newspaper House on St Georges Terrace in Perth.

Newspaper House was vacated in the mid-1980s for the ill-fated "Westralia Square" redevelopment which was completed in 2012 under the name Brookfield Place.

[30] At various stages in its history, the newspaper had a periodicals division that has published calendars,[31] gardening books,[32][33] and collections of historical photographs.

[36] On 27 May 2022, as part the National Reconciliation Week, the paper under the title of Marawar Boodjara, published a special wraparound where the front cover was written bilingually in the local Indigenous language of the area, Noongar and English.

[55] In February 2005 former Australian Labor prime minister Bob Hawke labelled the paper "a disgrace to reasonable objective journalism".

Armstrong responded by saying he "could not give a fat rat's arse" about Mr McGinty's comments and was then virulently attacked by premier Alan Carpenter, whose government the paper continued to denigrate until its defeat at the 2008 election.

[58][59] On 8 December 2014 the management of West Australian Newspapers announced that printed editions of The West Australian would no longer be available in retail outlets located north of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, including towns such as Derby, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Wyndham and Kununurra, due to the expense of transporting and delivering printed newspapers.