Mi3 Podcast: Where audiences have shifted post-Covid

Editors at The Age, The Australian, The Herald and The West Australian on where audiences have shifted post-Covid – and the rich pools advertisers should be fishing in

In the middle of a global pandemic, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age watched lifestyle content numbers boom. They dropped the quantity and boosted the quality of non-news content, embraced newsletters, and it paid off in spades. “The top of the homepage can be so grim,” Executive Editor Tory Maguire says. “But if we present [other content] properly to our audience, they’re really engaging with it.”

The Australian’s editor, Michelle Gunn, saw the same. “People yearned for lifestyle content, rich storytelling, stories which took them away,” she says.

The West Australian saw a surge in readers, but also for its late TV show and morning radio audiences. “Some of the numbers we were seeing during live streaming of press conferences would rival traditional TV and traditional radio,” says Editor in Chief Anthony De Ceglie.

All of which presents advertisers with new options now Australia is opening up.