The Nightly is Australia’s fastest-growing news brand according to June IPSOS iris audience data

Readership of Australia’s nascent digital-only national newspaper has surged for the third consecutive month, with official industry data revealing The Nightly now has a unique monthly audience of 2.3 million readers.

The industry-audited IPSOS iris figures for June show an extraordinary 24 per cent leap in audience for thenightly.com.au, up from 1.86 million the previous month.

The Nightly, which published for the first time in the final week of February, is now Australia’s fastest-growing news brand. The audience has grown a remarkable 163 per cent since its first IPSOS iris-recorded month of March. From an audience of zero at launch, The Nightly last month also recorded 4.99 million page views.

The Nightly is a unique masthead, a revival of the afternoon newspaper but published digitally at thenightly.com.au each weeknight at 6pm AEST.

The majority of the audience for The Nightly, published by Seven West Media’s WAN, is based in NSW and Victoria, and younger, with 56 per cent of its audience under 55.

The newspaper has quickly established a reputation as an impactful voice in national affairs, exposing for the first time serious friction and misgivings within the leadership ranks of the Albanese Government and was also the first to report on industry unease about the secretive so-called Nature Positive laws being worked up by green activists in Canberra.

Aside from its core team of reporters, The Nightly draws on Seven News journalists around Australia and overseas correspondents, renowned international brands, The Economist, The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as London’s Daily Mail newspaper.

The tie-ins give readers unrivalled access to the best journalism in America ahead of the upcoming US elections, the demise of Joe Biden and the Lazarus-like revival of Donald Trump.

Editor Sarah-Jane Tasker said the support from readers had been mind-blowing.

“The feedback we are getting is readers are loving The Nightly’s fresh voice, its no-nonsense journalism and forthright opinion,” she said.

“Readers are clearly enjoying getting ahead of the news through an afternoon paper delivered directly into their inbox every evening — they love the bold front pages, and the clean, modern designs, both of our digital edition and our website.”

Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore said: “We have created a news brand, an entirely new national product, and accumulated a monthly audience of 2.3 million in four months, that is a sensational result.

“Already we have an audience 90 per cent the size of The Australian Financial Review and 65 per cent the size of The Australian.

“There has never been a new media brand launch quite like it, and we are only just getting started.”

Source: Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement Service, June 2024, News Category, Brand group. Age 14+, PC/laptop, smartphone, tablet, text only, Audience (000s), Page Views (MM).