About South Burnett Times

South Burnett Times

The South Burnett Times is an online newspaper published in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia, and owned by News Corp Australia — the digital successor to a print title with more than a century of history. It began life in 1910 in the town of Wondai, moved to Kingaroy in 1971, and for decades was the bi-weekly print newspaper of the South Burnett — published on Tuesdays and Fridays — before ceasing print editions on 26 June 2020 and becoming a digital-only publication. It serves one of Queensland's most agriculturally diverse regions: peanuts, navy beans, wine grapes, cattle, timber and grain.

Overview

Kingaroy is the commercial centre of the South Burnett, set in the foothills of the Bunya Mountains about 210 kilometres north-west of Brisbane. It is famous as the peanut capital of Australia — the district grows the bulk of the nation's peanuts — and as the home town of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland's longest-serving premier, whose political base was the South Burnett. The district's wineries around Moffatdale, the Bunya Mountains' rainforest, and the farming towns of Wondai, Murgon and Nanango complete a region of unusual agricultural diversity. The South Burnett Times has been the district's paper since 1910, though for its first six decades it was published in Wondai, 40 kilometres to the north. As the only bi-weekly newspaper dedicated to the area, it kept the agriculturally diverse South Burnett abreast of change as it happened.

History

Wondai, 1910

The South Burnett Times commenced publication in 1910 in Wondai, owned by the Wondai Newspaper Company. Wondai, then a growing railway town, was the paper's home for its first six decades. In July 1921 it was sold to a new company, the South Burnett Newspaper Printing Company, which retained J. C. Thompson as manager — the sale was reported in the Bundaberg Mail of 22 July 1921, a copy of which survives in the National Library's digitised collection. The paper served the Wondai district through the interwar years, the Depression and the postwar expansion of the South Burnett's agriculture, recording the district's transformation from scrub to farmland.

Move to Kingaroy, 1971

From 6 October 1971 the paper was published in Kingaroy, the larger and growing commercial centre of the district. The move reflected the region's shifting gravity: Kingaroy's peanut silos, its bacon factories, its wine industry and its role as the service town for the surrounding shires. The printing press was eventually removed from the Kingaroy building in Haly Street, though reporters and office staff remained — a familiar pattern in the provincial press, where the journalism stayed local even as the printing moved to regional centres.

In the mid-1990s APN News and Media purchased the South Burnett Times — along with its sister publications the Central & North Burnett Times, the Biggenden Weekly, the Western Times and the Blackall Leader — from the Collyer family. Ownership then passed to News Corp when it bought the regional media division of APN News and Media for $36.6 million in 2016. Along with many other regional Australian newspapers owned by News Corp, the paper ceased print editions in June 2020 and became an online-only publication; the last print edition appeared on Friday, 26 June 2020.

The end of print in Kingaroy prompted a community response. Within weeks of News Corp's announcement, plans were reported for a new independent print title to launch in Kingaroy to fill the void — an early sign of the wave of independent papers that sprang up across regional Australia in 2020. Star News Group's South Burnett Today emerged as the district's independent print voice, while the Times continued digitally within the News Corp network.

Content

In its print era the Tuesday edition focused on weekend event and sport reporting and carried an extensive trades and services directory, while the Friday edition showcased local events, arts and entertainment, and included a property guide, a motoring section and the Rural Weekly Southern edition. Beyond the news pages, the paper performed the traditional roles of the country bi-weekly: the record of births, deaths and marriages; the school fetes and show results; the letters page where district arguments were conducted in public; and the classifieds through which the South Burnett bought and sold. The content mix reflected the district's agricultural character: peanut and navy bean harvests, the cattle sales, wine industry news, and the rural shows that punctuate the South Burnett year.

The paper has documented the district's landmark stories. When Kingaroy unveiled its Big Peanut in Lions Park in November 2021 — a 13-metre monument to the town's signature crop, four years in the making — the Times covered the campaign and the unveiling, as it had the town's other great causes. The campaign for the Big Peanut began in 2017, and the Times followed it from a community fundraising idea to the finished landmark, a steel-and-fibreglass peanut that joined Australia's famous Big Things. Courts, council affairs, health, education, community events and the achievements of local schools and sporting clubs rounded out the offering.

Coverage and Audience

The Times serves Kingaroy and the South Burnett region: the town itself, the surrounding peanut and grain farms, the wine country around the Bunya foothills, and the smaller centres of the district. The South Burnett is one of Queensland's great food bowls — peanuts, navy beans, wine grapes, citrus, cattle, timber and grain — and the paper has chronicled the district's agricultural cycles for more than a century: the harvests, the droughts, the commodity prices, the shows. Kingaroy's heritage-listed peanut silos, among the largest structures of their kind in Australia, stand as monuments to the industry the paper has covered since 1910. Its audience spans farming families, agribusiness workers, the town's professionals and tradies, the wine and tourism operators of the Bunya foothills, and the retirees drawn to the district's climate. Specific current readership figures are not publicly confirmed.

Ownership

The South Burnett Times is owned by News Corp Australia, the Australian arm of the global News Corp group, within its Queensland regional portfolio. Its ownership lineage runs from the Wondai Newspaper Company and the South Burnett Newspaper Printing Company through the Collyer family, APN News and Media and the 2016 News Corp acquisition of APN's regional division.

Digital Presence

The newspaper continues online as a digital-only masthead — its site, southburnetttimes.com.au, carried the paper's journalism in the digital era — within the News Corp subscription framework. It maintains social media channels for breaking news and reader engagement, where farming news, weather events and community issues drive discussion. The paper's journalism continues to be cited as the record of the district: its reporting on the Big Peanut campaign and unveiling was referenced in the town's own historical accounts. The paper's archive, stretching back to 1910, documents more than a century of the South Burnett: the rise of the peanut industry, the wars, the droughts, and the life of the towns that service one of Queensland's great food bowls. From the Wondai Newspaper Company's first editions through the Thompson, Collyer, APN and News Corp eras, the masthead has survived the consolidation of the provincial press, the removal of its own printing press, and the end of print itself — a run of more than 110 years that makes it one of the enduring titles of inland Queensland journalism.