Kerry Packer - Australia's Richest Media Baron
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Case Details:
Case Code : LDEN037
Case Length : 15 Pages
Period : 1974-2005
Pub Date : 2006
Teaching Note :Not Available
Organization : Publishing and Broadcasting Limited
Industry : Media
Countries : Australia
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The Initial Years
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Kerry Packer was born on December 17, 1937, in Sydney, Australia. He was the
younger son of Douglas Frank Hewson Packer (Frank), Chairman of the Australian
Consolidated Press (ACP), and Gretel Packer. Packer was sent to a boarding
school at the age of five. He contracted polio at the age of six. During the two
years he was affected with polio, Packer spent his time with a private nurse in
Canberra. When he went back to boarding school at the age of nine, he was way
behind his classmates in studies. Further, he suffered from dyslexia, and was
constantly switched between schools. To add to Packer's woes, his father, whom
he described as a hard taskmaster, frequently admonished him.
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However, even as a boy, Packer's strength was his indomitable willpower - a
willpower so strong that he overcame polio and excelled in sports such as
cricket, golf, boxing, tennis, rugby, and swimming. His greatest regret was
that he was not able to represent his country in any of these sports.
Elaborating on the importance of sport in his life, Packer once said, "My
life was sport. I was academically stupid.
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My method of surviving through school and those sorts of things was sport."8
One of Packer's schools was the Geelong Grammar School, a prestigious
private school in Australia. Packer was not treated well in the school as he
was academically poor and was rough and hefty. But his rough ways and hefty
physique made him school's heavyweight boxing champion in 1956. When Packer
left Geelong at the age of 19, having taken six years to complete a
four-year course, Frank made him join the ACP to learn the nuances of the
newspaper business. However, Frank made no secret of his poor opinion of
Packer and often called him 'Boofhead' (which means fool in Australia). |
While Packer was asked to do menial jobs like cleaning the
printing machines, his elder brother Clyde Packer (Clyde), who had joined two
years earlier, was being groomed to succeed Frank. Packer turned to gambling,
heavy drinking, and smoking which he later stopped. In 1956, when television was
introduced in Australia, Frank established TCN-9. He obtained the Sydney
broadcasting license and became Australia's first broadcaster. In 1960, Frank
bought 62% stake in Melbourne-based television station, GTV-9 and established
Nine Network. The 1960s witnessed intense competition among several family-owned
newspapers - The Daily Mirror (owned by Murdochs), The Sydney Morning (owned by
Fairfaxes) and The Daily Telegraph (owned by Packers). By the early 1970s, The
Daily Telegraph was affected by television and started losing money. Packer
favored selling the newspaper but Frank resisted. Packer told his father that
the future belonged to television and invested money in the television channel.
Excerpts >>
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