Nine has admitted it is struggling to monetise its online presence, despite having just last week launched news content specifically for Facebook.
The revelations come on the back of Nine’s explosive investigation into Crown Casino’s links to Asian crime gangs.
The stories were widely circulated across Nine’s various mastheads and television programs, including current affairs program 60 Minutes.
As well as appearing as part of linear programming and on catch-up services, the 50-minute exposé was sent live on the 60 Minutes YouTube channel.
The video now has close to 1,000,000 hits on the Google-owned video service, which equates to more views than it received live on the network and on catch-up combined.
But despite the online success, Nine has since confessed it has struggled to monetise the viral video.
“We have found ways to be able to monetise some of our content on the platform but it does still have its challenges,” Nine managing director of partnerships Lizzie Young told the Sydney Morning Herald.
While Nine did not provide any details of how much money it generates from the 1,000,000 subscriber strong 60 Minutes YouTube channel, the Influencer Marketing Hub YouTube marketing calculator estimated the Crown video would have earned the company $1,680.
The same calculator estimates Nine has earned $682,804 from the YouTube channel and it makes $312 per video.
Young said the network and Google are “working together” to find more lucrative outcomes for online videos.
The struggles come just a week after Nine announced it had signed an agreement with Facebook, which now sees Sylvia Jeffries lead an 8pm bulletin made specifically for Facebook Watch.
While some questioned Facebook’s motives for the agreement due to the recent ACCC report, others have raised eyebrows at how networks like Nine will monetise the online programming.
A similar initiative in the US which saw CNN put news content onto Facebook Watch was recently culled after just a year, with the network opting to share the program via its app instead
