Nine has announced it will look to grow new revenue streams with a podcasting strategy built around leveraging many of its existing brands across news, sports and lifestyle in the audio realm.
Launched under the umbrella of 9Podcasts, Nine began with an initial roll-out of three weekly brands: the Sweet Spot, a relationship-based weekly podcast which started on the back of Married at First Sight; an NRL podcast, Six Tackles With Gus, hosted by Phil Gould and James Bracey; and a news and current affairs podcast, The Way It Is, hosted by journalists Leila McKinnon and Neil Breen.
Nine managing director Amanda Laing said the network’s commercial goal has been to expand and leverage its content expertise into new areas for the business.
“We see the clear potential for Nine to provide our audiences with additional reasons and opportunities to engage with us for longer and in more meaningful ways,” she said. “That has been at the heart of our podcasting strategy.
“Nine is a brand synonymous with news and sport, so we want to feature our talent and build on brands such as Nine News and Wide World of Sports in a way that is complementary to what we are already doing. 9Podcasts will leverage our television and digital reach in news, sport and entertainment and develop a new revenue stream in audio.”
9Podcasts is hosted on the nine.com.au websites (including 9Honey), and is also available on iTunes, with Nine looking to roll out other podcasts that complement and extend its key content areas, brands and talent, over the course of the year.
Helen McCabe, head of lifestyle for nine.com.au, said it was heartening to see the growth in the relationship podcast Sweet Spot, hosted by journalist Katharine Feeney, which has seen numbers for download increase each week on the back of the success of Nine’s flagship romance reality show, Married at First Sight.
“The Sweet Spot podcast has shown us there is real potential to close the loop and have a complementary offering across all media,” McCabe said.
“With something like Married at First Sight,we have audiences who are tuning in to watch the show, reading recaps and news stories around the participants on 9Honey, and then downloading the podcast to listen to the experts exploring the relationship issues raised in the program.”
