Golden girls O’Callaghan and Titmus the most-watched session of Nine’s Olympics success

Australia’s golden girls Mollie O’Callaghan and Ariarne Titmus featured in the most-watched session of the Paris Olympics on Nine, as the company reached record audiences and drove $160 million in revenue across the two weeks, according to its chief executive.

Qualifying for the women’s 200m freestyle semi-finals on the evening of day two was the most-watched session, with a national total TV reach (broadcast and streaming) of 5.74 million and an average audience of 2.32 million. In total, Nine’s Olympics coverage across free-to-air and digital streaming reached 19.5 million Australians or about three in four of the population. Nine is the owner of this masthead.

Mollie O’Callaghan (gold) and Ariarne Titmus (silver) after the women’s 200m freestyle final at the world championships.Credit: Getty Images

Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby said the two-week event had been a success on every metric. The company had exceeded its advertising revenue targets, now totalling more than $140 million ahead of the Paralympics, which start on August 28.

Subscriptions to Nine-owned streaming service Stan Sport had risen by more than 50 per cent, Sneesby said, taking the total revenue derived from the event to more than $160 million.

“If you combine what we expect to write in that advertising number with Stan Sport subscriber numbers, a combination of advertising and subscriber revenue now is expected to be over $160 million,” he said.

“It has been a fantastic outcome. We made a commitment to deliver the Games in a way that they’ve never been delivered before with reach across all our platforms, but very importantly, we made a commitment to do that in a way that was profitable and delivering on the financial aspects, both in terms of revenue and the cost of production.”

Nine’s initial outlay of $305 million last year for the rights to all Olympic events through to the 2032 Brisbane Games has been the subject of criticism. In July, the company announced up to 200 job cuts, combined with a strike over a pay deal in the publishing division, which houses this masthead.

While Nine does not break out individual subscriber figures for Stan Sport, Sneesby said sign-ups to the premium streaming service were also above initial targets.

“Stan Sport has traditionally been driven by rugby, UEFA Champions League, and by tennis grand slams, so this single event of the Olympic Games, with the Paralympics to come, has lifted that sub base by over 50 per cent in a very short space of time. It’s certainly exceeded the expectation that we’d set in terms of sub numbers,” Sneesby said.

“What we have demonstrated is that where we have a partnership with a sporting rights holder or a sporting body, our ability to amplify the audience across platforms is certainly something we have great success in.”

The event’s success gave the company confidence to invest further going forward, he said, be that in content, sport, journalism or other future opportunities to drive audiences.

Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby.Credit: Janie Barrett

Sneesby said it was too early to comment on whether it would have a positive impact on the looming NRL rights negotiations, in which Nine is expected to compete for the free and paid component. However, it showed the company could amplify the audience of a sporting partnership across a number of platforms, he said.

The company said Stan obtained its highest viewing day ever since the launch of Stan Sport in early 2021.

Nine’s publishing titles, including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, nine.com.au and the Wide World of Sports, recorded 214.6 million page views and 77.4 million visits in the 17-day stretch from July 25 to August 12.

A five-day strike by journalists threatened to derail coverage from the mastheads at the beginning of the event, with media attention focusing on the contrasting images of Sneesby carrying the Olympic torch in Paris in the lead-up celebrations.

Sneesby said that was a commitment he had made on invitation from the IOC almost 12 months ago and standard practice for a media company chief executive at the outset of a new rights deal. He said he had been engaged each day with the ongoing negotiations with staff led by “the right leader”, publishing boss Tory Maguire.

“I certainly did not know that that would coincide with the industrial action that was taking place,” he said.

“Certainly, to do the right thing in terms of those commitments to the IOC, to want to represent the thousands of people across Nine who had put in so much hard work was certainly the right thing to do.

“I’m certainly grateful for everyone who contributed to the continuity through that process, and I’m also glad that we reached an outcome that is positive for all stakeholders.

“As much as I wasn’t the public face of those negotiations, I was very much engaged, very much focused on getting the right outcomes for those people who are represented by the union, as I am always, as a chief executive, looking after the interest of our staff whether they’re part of a union or not.”

Nine’s first week of Olympics coverage delivered the highest national total television reach since VOZ records began in 2021, reaching 17.5 million Australians. Week two was the second highest, reaching 16.6 million. The coverage reached an average audience of 9.9 million each day.

Reach represents any viewer who accessed the program for at least one minute on broadcast television or 15 seconds on broadcast video on demand, in this case, 9Now.

Nine will deliver its full-year financial results on August 28.

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