Otago Daily Times history

The Otago Colonist which had previously been a weekly responded by becoming a daily in July 1862.

In January 1863 the ODT halved its price to threepence (3d).

In 1864 the ODT was successfully sued by the New Zealand Banking Corporation for libel after it had claimed that it was not a legally constituted joint stock bank.

With Vogel beginning his political career, the partners sold a majority shareholding in the business in March 1865 to a number of prominent Dunedin citizens on the condition that they were kept on as manager and editor respectively.

Cutten terminated his partnership with Vogel after three years, and in 1866 Vogel sold the ODT on condition he remained as editor.

Murison and Bathgate also had political interests which may have entered into the decision to dispense with Vogel's services in April 1868.

In his writ Barton accused him of obtaining a copy of a report that a reporter had sent by telegraph on a speech by William Stafford in April 1870 and allowing it to be used for political purposes.

Following the conclusion of the case in 1871 Barton resigned and was succeeded as editor by William Murison.

In January 1874 the Guardian Printing and Publishing Company began publishing the weekly Southern Mercury which was edited by Vincent Pyke.

Despite Reed and Fenwick's best efforts the finances of the Otago Guardian continued to deteriorate and it took little more than a year's experience for Reed by 1877 to come to share Fenwick's view that Dunedin was not able to support two daily morning newspapers, theirs and the Otago Daily Times.

Later that year Fenwick also became a partner in the Evening News which was later closed in 1878.

Following repairs, the business moved back into the premises and stayed there until they moved to a new building at the corner of Dowling and Burlington Streets at the foot of Bell Hill in 1879.

Prior to the commencement of the First World War the cost of imported newsprint, was £12 a ton (landed). As the war progressed freight cost began to increase and contracts became more onerous which forced the ODT to increase its price to 1½d, the first price increase since 1881.

In 1909 Fenwick handed the editorship of the newspaper to James Hutchison.

1916, Vivian Walsh obtains New Zealand’s first pilot’s certificate

While William Easton succeeded him as manager in 1919, Fenwick remained managing director of the Otago Daily Times until his death.

Central Otago News Limited was consequently formed in 1948 and managed by Geoff Stevens.

Allied Press Ltd was born in 1975 of the merger between two of the oldest newspaper companies in New Zealand, the Otago Daily Times Ltd and the Evening Star Company Ltd.

Since 1976 the ODT, still independently owned by Allied Press, has been Dunedin’s only daily newspaper.

On 5 January 1998 the ODT published for the first time on a new Goss International printing press; on the same day it introduced a new masthead reading simply "Otago Daily Times", marking Otago's 150th anniversary year of Pākehā settlement.