Seven West Media Limited (SWM) is a large Australian diversified media business, with substantial broadcast assets, a leading digital news site, 7NEWS, and a premium streaming platform, 7plus. In 2021, 7NEWS identified an opportunity to redesign and expand its Entertainment and Lifestyle content verticals to better differentiate 7NEWS’s offering by leveraging the company’s extensive Entertainment and Lifestyle broadcast assets.

In a 2022 partnership with Google, 7NEWS seized the opportunity to grow its loyal and engaged Entertainment and Lifestyle audience by developing show pages that display news content aligned to the network’s tentpole programs like SAS Australia, Home & Away and Dancing with the Stars. By redesigning these content verticals to encourage increased content production of related articles and video-based content, the project also helped bring together different arms of the business to create a multidisciplinary team that is now responsible for the unified approach in content development across all channels, from broadcast to social media.

SWM is always looking to drive synergies and referrals across their media assets, and the results of this project have been immense. The increased production of content from the 7NEWS Entertainment and Lifestyle team has aligned with broadcast tentpole programming to capitalize on the marketing and promotion of hugely televised shows in Australia, leading to a 29% decrease in bounce rates in 7NEWS Entertainment and Lifestyle, with users reading more content per session. SWM has also seen a 10% increase in audience from all age demographics, and a 142% increase in unique audiences to 7NEWS programs. Page views have doubled to 200% YoY, and in referral traffic from 7NEWS to 7plus via show and article page referral links increased by 600% YoY.