The Bulletin - Later Era

Later Era

In 1961 The Bulletin was sold to the press magnate Sir Frank Packer, who installed Donald Horne as editor. The paper was radically modernised, most of the writers were replaced, and "Australia for the White Man" disappeared from the masthead. Under the Packer family The Bulletin remained politically conservative, but rejoined the political and journalistic mainstream, as a well-edited magazine (modelled on Time) of political and business news and commentary, with occasional forays into literature as a gesture to its past.

The Packer family tolerated the magazine's unprofitability for the prestige of publishing Australia's oldest magazine. They published it "in conjunction with" Newsweek, which was usually found as a separate section within the magazine.

Online, The Bulletin (http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au) existed in another form, publishing articles from the magazine as well as content exclusive to the web, photo galleries, an archive of past covers and a blogging site known as The Bullring.

The Bulletin Magazine also founded the Smart 100 Award. The Smart 100 identified, with the help of respected judges in each field, the smartest, most innovative and most creative people working in the areas of business, ICT, science, art, sport, society, education, health, environment and agriculture.

On 24 January 2008, ACP Magazines announced they had ceased publishing the magazine. Reasons given included that circulation had declined to 57,000 compared with sales figures in the order of 100,000 during the 1990s and that despite some of ACP's best resources being poured into the magazine including a dynamic ad sales team the magazine was no longer profitable. The loss in readership was attributed to readers preferring the internet for current affairs.