ACP television station, TCN-9 Sydney was the first station in Australia to go to air, launched in 1956, by an announcement from Bruce Gyngell “Good evening, and welcome to television”.
In 1960, it purchased GTV-9 Melbourne to form the first television network in Australia, the National Television Network - later to become The Nine Network. In 1987, Kerry Packer sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond, who then expanded the network to include QTQ-9 Brisbane and STW-9 Perth. Packer later bought the network back for half of what he sold it for in 1990.
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited was formed in 1994, from the merger of The Nine Network Australia and Australian Consolidated Press. In 1999, Crown Limited was merged into PBL, and the online division of PBL, ecorp was floated on the ASX. ecorp was later privatised and delisted from the Stock Exchange.
In 2002, PBL entered a deal with Prime Television, giving it an effective 50% stake in Prime NZ. In 2004, PBL purchased the Burswood Casino in Perth, and a 50% stake in Hoyts Cinemas, along with West Australian Newspapers. Hoyts was previously owned by the Packer private company; Consolidated Press Holdings Ltd. It also sold Papua New Guinea’s only television network, EM-TV to Fiji Television.
On October 18, 2006, James Packer announced the sell-off of 50% of PBL’s media interests for A$4.5 billion to focus on its gambling business. The sell-off includes Nine Network and its 50 per cent interest in NineMSN.
PBL is currently involved in two casino projects in Macau: the $260 million Crown Macau and the $1.4 billion City of Dreams. The projects are joint ventures with Melco, a Macau company. In March 2006, PBL announced that it had spent US$900 million (A$1.2 billion) to purchase a casino sub-concession from Wynn Resorts that would give the Melco-PBL joint venture the right to conduct casino operations. PBL’s commitment to these ventures is the biggest investment by an Australian company in the PRC to date. In May 2007, PBL announced that it would split into two companies, Crown and Consolidated Media Holdings.