Seven West storms the east coast while just 20% of The Nightly’s readers live in WA
The Nightly was Seven West Media’s big push east and it appears to be a success, with over half of its 2.84 million unique readers coming from NSW, Canberra, and Victoria.
According to the latest industry-audited IPSOS iris figures, just seven months after launch, The Nightly’s page views jumped 12% to 7.4 million in August, while its unique audience grew by 227,000 in the month, up 8.7% to 2.84 million.
The Nightly is published from Western Australia, by West Australian Newspapers, owned by Seven West Media.
It’s largest audience resides in NSW and Canberra, with more than 31% of readers being from there, with an additional 20% in Victoria. Just over 20% of its readership hails from Western Australia.
SWM already rules that state, with The West Australian being the most-read news publication by some stretch — and, indeed, it was the success of that publication’s digital newspaper that sparked the idea of launching The Nightly into the eastern states.
“One in five people now who say they read the West Australian newspaper — you know, in terms of page one, page four, or five, page 13 — they’re reading it as a digital newspaper on their phone,” Seven’s news boss Anthony De Ceglie explained to Mumbrella in late February, the afternoon before the first edition launched into the world.
“The success of that has grown. Every year, it grows, every day it grows. And I think newspapers all around the world are saying the same thing.
“It means is you can have that newspaper effect, but you’re not printing the product, you’re not distributing the product. Paper costs, alone, have gone up substantially in the last couple of years.
“Technically speaking, it allows you to launch a new newspaper, at relatively low cost.
“And if we were going to do that, it would be interesting to do it on the East Coast.”
Seven months later, the plan is clearly working. As is the plan to launch at night.
Anthony De Ceglie
The inaugural editor of The Nightly, Sarah-Jane Tasker said in a press release announcing the numbers: “Readers are growing increasingly loyal to the nightly news drop.
“It sets the agenda, publishing front pages hours before other newspapers land around the country. It gives readers a clear picture of the day and an insight into the days ahead.”
De Ceglie said similar back in February.
“That idea of waking up in the morning, and reading the newspaper around the kitchen table just doesn’t really exist anymore,” he reasoned.
“You wake up in the morning: your life is chaotic, juggling school runs and daycare, drop offs, and emails, and rushing to get into work. And so, you know, people are reading more at night; they’re trying to get informed more at night, through podcasts, and binge-watching TV shows, and that sort of stuff.
“And so we thought, ‘You know what, it all kind of makes sense.’”
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