Darren Davidson, the editor-in-chief of Storyful, has been appointed to a senior role on The Australian.
Davidson’s new role as director of partnerships for The Australian will have a strong focus on expanding video capability across The Australian’s suite of digital platforms, drawing on his experience at Storyful over the past five years.
He will also appear regularly on Sky News Australia, focusing on media, marketing and business issues.
The role will take on responsibility for generating new revenue streams for The Australian by developing partnership and events programs.
Davidson, who has been based in New York since 2018, will step into the new role in Sydney from September.
The Australian managing director, John Lehmann, said the new role will build on The Australian’s high-calibre events schedule and influential advocacy campaigns, as well as assist in video publishing across the masthead.
The Australian has experienced strong readership growth, with its subscription-based website reaching 4.375 million Australians in June, increasing the audience by 7.3 per cent month on month, according to independent research from Ipsos iris. The average minutes spent on the digital platform per person also grew by 18.2 per cent in June.
Davidson, a former Media editor of The Australian, said: “The Australian has a unique role in the national conversation, breaking the big news stories, offering world-class analysis and opinion and delving deep into all aspects of who we are and our place in the world. I’m excited at the opportunities to help further grow The Australian’s premier position in our media landscape.”
As editor-in-chief of Storyful, Davidson has led a global award-winning team of journalists in New York, London, Dublin and Sydney. In 2019, Davidson also stepped up to lead the News and Video unit, adding sales and revenue to his responsibilities.
Since then, he has worked to retain News and Video’s exceptional client base, win new clients and increase News and Video’s revenue across all regions.
Under Davidson’s leadership, News and Video’s customer base grew by 45 percent and average monthly downloads increased by 58 percent.
All of Storyful’s content is available on a digital platform under a subscription. Storyful operates two businesses; News and Video, and Strategic Intelligence.
News and Video supplies the latest premium breaking news and video content to clients including Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Times of London, NBCUniversal, Sky News, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun, CBS News, ABC News, The New York Times, Reuters, Getty, and Associated Press.
