For a time in the late 1970s-early 1980s, I was working at Leader Newspapers as it merged with the Progress Press group.

The merger brought more problems than anticipated solutions. The amalgamated group soon split, with the demerged Leader adding three suburban newspapers (Progress Press, Chadstone Progress, Waverley Gazette) to its collection, and the reconstituted Progress Press focusing more on commercial printing.

The Progress Press group started in early 1946 with a four-page newspaper, the official organ of the Ashburton Progress Association, edited by a Mrs Figgis. Driving force of the Association was Charlie Pearson, and he was joined in 1950 by Herald journalist Charles Holloway.

Quoted in the 50-year souvenir published on March 12, 1996, Mr Holloway said: “They told me when I went to Progress Press that the Camberwell Council was dead, but I didn’t agree – and I covered their meetings for 27 years.”

Ken Heyes became Assistant Manager in 1958, later becoming Manager and part-owner, then Chairman of the group. His son Geoff, and one of his daughters, Jenny, bought the Alexandra and Eildon Standard weekly newspaper.

Under Ken Heyes’s leadership, Progress Press grew from a single newspaper to one of the largest commercial printing organisations in Australia. It was taken over by Rupert Murdoch News organisation.

The opening of the Chadstone Shopping Centre saw the birth of the Chadstone Progress newspaper which at one time had a circulation of more than 100,000.

The strength of Progress Press evaporated in the early 1990s when Eric Beecher’s Text Media established the Melbourne Weekly glossy colour magazine which became more attractive to real estate advertisers.

The Progress Leader newspaper ceased its print edition in April 2020 when News Corp closed dozens of titles across Australia.