It used to be the Empire's paper of record, and one of the most prestigious in the world (if fairly stuffy, conservative and Conservative). Now, sadly, it's a shadow of its former self. The Murdoch years have seen its journalism, and its reputation, slowly fall. It's now positioned somewhere between the Daily Mail and the Telegraph (which itself seems to have lost much of its quality coverage over the past 20 years).
Murdoch's grip is slipping. He failed to turn the last Federal election, and has failed with about five State elections despite publishing huge amounts of rabid nonsense about the party he was trying to get out and massive support for the party he was trying to get in. He used to have a very high success rate getting the party he wanted in, but in the last few years he seems less and less effective.
Part of his issue is all his stuff has gone so far right with Sky News (especially 'After Dark' shows) and the tabloids (which also basically includes The Australian now), similar to how Fox News in the US went. But it seems that while he is pulling in a number of crazies, it's seemingly nowhere as big a proportion of the population as in the US. So more people seem to be switching off than getting pulled in (thankfully).
Murdoch's empire is fading fast in Australia. The Australian, Foxtel, the print papers are all on their last legs. Their streaming offering Binge is laughably bad - it's only 1080p and works on barely any devices. They could well be done here too.
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