How specialised categories are on the rise with Total News

By Trent Thomas
Published Mediaweek

Jakeb Waddell and Vanessa Lyons talk the power of sport

Late last year, ThinkNewsBrands along with Roy Morgan revealed that three-quarters (77%) of Australians aged over 14 years read the news each week, with six in 10 paying to access written content.

The figures in the report also showed that readers are consistently engaged across multiple sources of news content to satisfy diverse interests, with three in five news audiences reading three or more categories in addition to general, breaking news content. The most popular categories after General News (94%) are Property (67%), Sport (60%), Lifestyle & Health (57%), Entertainment & Culture (51%), and Business & Finance (47%).

At the Publishing & News101 learning event hosted by ThinkNewsBrands and the IMAA, Vanessa Lyons, CEO of ThinkNewsBrands, said that the new total news metric is changing the way that industry insiders are looking at readership, especially when it comes to categories such as sport.

Jakeb Waddell, sports editor of The West Australian and The Sunday Times, said that the innovation he has seen in both the news publishing sector and the sports category has been incredible.