Amid ongoing turmoil for Seven, with defamation cases deluxe and an incoming CEO who has declared he doesn’t “even drink coffee”, the network’s new venture The Nightly has largely passed under the radar since launching to much fanfare almost two months ago.
Helmed by The West Australian’s Anthony De Ceglie and Sarah-Jane Tasker, The Nightly promised it would fight for “common sense, mainstream middle and working class economic conservatism”, with its debut editorial claiming “on almost every issue, extremist fringes have hijacked respectful and meaningful debate”.
Questions of the utility of yet another news site in an already crowded market — especially one that appears to be pitched at the same audience that is already being served by a number of Seven’s other outlets — soon arose, with The Australian Financial Review reporting the new publication had put a number of noses “seriously out of joint in Sydney, where there is a feeling that precious resources are being diverted to something that many expect will fail”.
De Ceglie, speaking on the Unmade podcast, said that the publication was already profitable for year one, and he expected that to continue through to its second year.
“Hand on heart, I can say that we’re already profitable,” he said.
De Ceglie said that The Nightly’s business model of producing a digital replica of a newspaper, without the costs involved in physical print, provided “really interesting” opportunities from a financial perspective, and hadn’t impacted Seven West’s bottom line.
Since the launch of the online-only paper, Seven West’s stock price has dropped marginally to 20 cents a share, having tanked six cents in mid-February after the release of the company’s disappointing half-year results.
De Ceglie also disputed the AFR’s reporting that The Nightly had sparked divisions within the company, saying it had been a “very harmonious experience” and pointing to the fact that some of the outlet’s “most high profile writers” were from around the Seven group.
While The Nightly has drawn heavily on Seven talent, it has also poached from News Corp, where De Ceglie previously worked for more than 11 years. He was an editor Perth’s Sunday Times (now PerthNow) until it was sold by News Limited to Seven West in 2016. After that, he spent almost three years at The Daily Telegraph before moving to The West Australian in January 2019.
Former News Corp employees Christopher Dore, Kristin Shorten and Wenlei Ma headline the News Corp converts, while Crikey is aware of at least three journalists who have moved to The Nightly directly from News Corp in recent weeks.
De Ceglie has also attempted to poach young talent — a Crikey exclusive revealed earlier this year he had attempted to recruit 16-year-old Leo Puglisi, who heads 6 News.
The Nightly’s claim that it has stood up for mainstream, working-class conservatism will be one that takes time to play out. Some of its early front pages have included labelling US President Joe Biden a “grumpy old man”, brewing “grounds for concern” over a “China-linked cafe” in Canberra, and the “BIG problems with new green laws”. Other front pages have included a portrait of an actor from the early 2000s named Holly Valance, captioned “Let them eat woke”. The Nightly lauded the one-time Neighbours star as a “lightning rod” after she declared she would never return to Australia (having married UK billionaire Nick Candy) owing to it having “really gone big on woke stuff”.
One rival publication editor told Crikey they were “still not sure what The Nightly is supposed to be”.
“Non-clickbait journalism might look appealing but I can’t see them taking off any time soon,” they said.
Ipsos rankings for Australian news websites in the month of March are due imminently — at last count, 7News ranked fifth, while The West Australian ranked 11th. While De Ceglie claims The Nightly has not cannibalised other mastheads in regards to Seven West’s bottom line, the release of the Ipsos results will test whether the same is true for audiences.
