The HWT's newspaper interests date back to 1840 and the launch of
The Port Phillip Herald. The company publishes the morning daily
tabloid Herald Sun, which was created in 1990 from a
merger of the company's morning tabloid paper,
The Sun News-Pictorial, with its afternoon
broadsheet paper,
The Herald.
The Herald had a 150-year history, and
The Sun News-Pictorial a 68-year history, in Melbourne. The HWT had bought
The Sun News-Pictorial in 1925. The HWT also publishes
The Weekly Times, aimed at farmers and rural businesses. The HWT bought a controlling stake in
The Advertiser of
Adelaide in 1929. From 1929 until 1987, HWT owned and operated Melbourne radio station
3DB. In 1929, 3DB along with
3UZ participated in experimental television broadcasts using the
Radiovision system.
The Advertiser took a stake in
The News two years later.
The News was sold in 1949. The HWT bought
The West Australian in 1969. By 1986
Queensland Press was the largest shareholder of HWT which was targeted for a takeover by the media tycoon
Rupert Murdoch in the course of the big media shake-up of 1986/87, which was enabled by the Australian Federal Government under Prime Minister
Bob Hawke to curry favour with the nation's major media and their owners in order to foster its re-election chances in the
1987 Australian federal election. In the end, some major assets of HWT were divided up between Murdoch's rival
Robert Holmes à Court. Holmes à Court agreed to drop his $1.4 billion bid for the Melbourne-based Herald and Weekly Times in return for the right to buy its two Perth newspapers,
The West Australian and its afternoon counterpart,
The Daily News, as well as the Melbourne television station of Channel 7,
HSV-7. Murdoch in turn acquired
Queensland Press in January 1987 via his family company Cruden Investments for $700 million. ==See also==