Australia Media: Newspapers and Magazines

Australia has a wide range of media although a few big companies (Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Kerry Packer's Consolidated Press being the best-known) own an awful lot of what there is to read and watch.

The ownership of media enterprises is closely monitored by the Federal government, and foreign ownership is limited to 15%. The laws regarding cross-media ownership are also tight, and both laws have led to recent clashes between the government and interested parties, particularly Canadian Conrad Black and Australian Kerry Packer over their level of ownership of the Fairfax group.

Each major city tends to have at least one important daily, often backed up by a tabloid and also by evening papers. The Fairfax group's Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age are two of the most important dailies. There's also the Australian, a Murdoch-owned paper and the country's only, national daily. The Australian Financial Review is the country's business daily.

Weekly newspapers and magazines include an Australian edition of Time and a combined edition of the Australian news magazine the Bulletin and Newsweek. The Guardian Weekly is widely available and good for international news.

The Independent is a monthly magazine which explores current social and lifestyle issues in depth, while the Business Review Weekly does the same with business matters on a weekly basis.

Good outdoor and adventure magazines include WiZd and Outdoor Australia, published quarterly, and Rock, published monthly. Magazines from the UK and USA are also available, but usually with a delay of a month or so.