In the first of a to-art series, Nine’s managing director of publishing Tory Maguire sat down with B&T to explain why she is optimistic about the future of journalism, the impact of the ‘Trump bump’ and how a ‘less is more’ approach is paying dividends.
After a tumultuous year, Nine’s managing director of publishing has never been more upbeat about the future of journalism in her seven years at Australia’s largest media company.
Tory Maguire, who heads up a division that includes The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Australian Financial Review and nine.com.au, said that Nine’s publishing arm has never been more match fit in the face of a declining advertising market, shifting media habits, and seismic disruption to media business models from GenAI.
“What gives me optimism is that I believe that journalism at our mastheads is better and stronger now than it has ever been,” she told B&T on the sidelines of a Nine Publishing Breakfast Series near its North Sydney headquarters last week.
“There is an alignment now between achieving your metrics and doing the kind of journalism that journalists want to do—the stuff that gets them out of bed in the morning. For the first time in a really long time, that storytelling is absolutely aligned to the health of the business.”
Maguire strikes an upbeat tone in the wake of one of the most challenging years for Nine and its publishing business.
Last June, Nine cut about 85 staff from its publishing division and had some staff walk out during industrial dispute. More broadly, Nine has undergone a cultural review and leadership overhaul with Matt Stanton taking over as CEO from Mike Sneesby.
Maguire accepts that a “tough” advertising market and the loss of revenue by Meta pulling out of the News Media Bargaining Code, had led the company to make some difficult decisions, but this has not impacted the quality of journalism and subscriptions.
“We have very deliberately dropped the volume of content that we produce in recent years so that the reporters and all the people around them, like the premium content team that does all the beautiful digital storytelling, have time to do it in a really engaged way,” she said.
“We are seeing really strong growth in our subscriber numbers and also revenue. So we are growing both volume and price at the same time and the reason for this is because of the trust that people have in us and the quality of our journalism.”
Nine’s half-yearly report adds weight to Maguire’s notion that a ‘less is more’ approach is working.
Digital subscription revenues across the portfolio grew by 15 per cent year-on-year (excluding news media bargaining revenue from Meta and Google) in the first half of FY25, while the average revenue per subscriber was up by 4 per cent. Print subscriptions remain relatively flat.
Digital advertising revenue declined by 4 per cent and print advertising revenue fell by 14 per cent.
Subscriptions account for 75 per cent of digital revenue and 51 per cent of the overall pie.
“It is a pretty extraordinary result in the middle of a cost of living crisis. I don’t think many publishers anywhere in the world would have delivered that kind of growth,” Maguire added.
“Our subscription growth is holding up our financial results in a really solid way…despite the fact that the ad market has been challenged.”
A ‘Trump bump’
The election of Donald Trump has provided a shot in the arm for Nine’s traffic, particularly as he took office in January.
B&T can reveal that total traffic to US political stories for Nine’s metros (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) in February and March was 145 per cent higher than in the same months following the US election of Joe Biden in 2020. The increase was even higher in subscriber page views (up 410 per cent).
For the AFR, traffic to US politics in these months soared by 980 per cent higher than in the same time following the 2020 election.
In fact, the AFR reached record levels of weekly traffic in February, largely driven by interest in the impact on markets and trade from Trump’s presidency – a trend that is likely to continue in the wake of Trump’s tariffs.
Traffic to Trump-related stories on the metros has only increased month on month since December.
“There has definitely been a Trump bump but it’s probably not as stark as when he was first elected in 2016 because back then Trump came along, was new and shocked everyone,” Maguire said.
“What we are seeing now, when we are actually in a much stronger position with our audiences than we were in 2016, is there has been a growing interest and engagement.”
The federal election, in particular articles about Peter Dutton, is also leading to healthy traffic, but Maguire is mindful not to “overplay it” when it comes to political coverage.
More traffic doesn’t always lead to a rise in advertiser demand, as many publishers found out during coverage of Covid-19, recent conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East, and Trump 2.0.
One advertiser present at the event expressed concerns about placing ads alongside negative news, such as an airline advertising next to an article about an aircrash, but Maguire believes such fears are misplaced.
“What I would say to brands that the most valuable place they can be is around content that people are prepared to pay for. If readers are prepared to part with their hard earned cash during a cost of living crisis to read our journalism, it’s because they’re really invested in it,” she said.
“If they’re putting their ads on social media, they have no control around what kind of content it is appearing beside.”
Later this week, Maguire opens up about the impact of AI and whether she views it as a threat to publishing, as well as how Nine plans to attract younger audiences.
