Recent shifts in the Australian tabloid landscape : Fissures and new formations

This chapter analyzes some of the key changes to the Australian tabloid media landscape in the last two decades, focussing in particular on newspapers and television. It notes that one of the largest forces shaping the field in Australia has been the sheer dominance of newspapers owned by News Corp, and therefore, by proxy, Rupert Murdoch and his children. One of that company’s main publications, the Australian, which was once a highly-respected flagship newspaper, has now adopted a largely tabloid strategy, even though it remains broadsheet in format. Its overtly partisan approach has caused major damage to its reputation, and therefore to prospects of long-term financial success. Over the same time frame, tabloid news and current affairs on television has largely disappeared. Whereas the nightly TV ratings were once dominated by tabloid programs like A Current Affair and Today Tonight, a new kind of hybrid television has emerged in its place: one which uses the aesthetics and attention strategies of entertainment to shine a spotlight on topics that were once only the purview of ‘serious’, broadsheet news.