WI: The Sun goes under in 1969

Gorrister

Gorrister

As of today, the Sun is the most widely read newspaper in Britain. However, it was not always the lower market tabloid it is now. Launched in 1964 with the intention of representing the radical affluent society, the original Sun did decently for a bit before being befell by a decline in readership as it could not compete with the bigger newspapers in the day. By 1969, it was in financial ruin, and it's ownership was usurped by Rupert Murdoch, the Australian businessman whom we all know and love.

Suppose Murdoch wavered, and the Sun went under instead? Would the Mirror keep its status as the most widely read paper, or would the Mail overtake it? Would Murdoch buy another, smaller paper like the Express? What would be the impact on print journalism and politics? Would tabloid papers be slightly less popular, or would they simply evolve in a different manner?
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Rather than Murdoch pulling out, is there a possibility that his purchase could be blocked? I know some people were campaigning for the government to do so at the time, although that might have been a more fringe view than the impression I got.
 
Gorrister

Gorrister

Thande said:
Rather than Murdoch pulling out, is there a possibility that his purchase could be blocked? I know some people were campaigning for the government to do so at the time, although that might have been a more fringe view than the impression I got.
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Potentially. Wasn't aware that there were people severely opposed to him, even at the time.

There's also the matter of him narrowly winning control of News of the World over Maxwell, but that's another POD entirely.
 

British Republic

Banned
One potential PoD for allowing this to happen could be having the Labour Party "allow" IPC (Which owned both The Daily Herald* and The Mirror after its orginal formation) to fold The Daily Herald into the The Mirror (Which is what IPC wanted to do, which Labour opposed) rather than unsucessfully launch The Daily Herald as The Sun before selling it to Murdoch.*

*Thus ironically the most Anti-Labour "Red Top" Tabloid only came about because the Labour Party refused to allow the paper to be killed of.
 

JohnR

I think part of the reason for the Sun ending up with Murdoch was that he promised the unions that there would be fewer redundancies than Maxwell did (who was planning to run it as an mid-market version of the Mirror). He also promised to keep the Sun as a Labour-supporting paper.
 
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