The 2025 Nine Upfront was delivered with confidence and a touch of class, albeit less razzle dazzle than prior years.
Nine can give themselves a competitive edge if they manage to pull off all these announcements. With media investment continuing to be squeezed, it was a strong statement of intent from Nine, showcasing their extensive reach across multiple channels, and ability to deliver performance across their network. It’s great to see them understand the demand of the market and advertisers, and respond by investing in more ad tech, partnerships, content and more importantly measurement. Combined with ease of trading via 9galaxy+, Nine is really backing their network strength with MMM studies, to not only prove performance, but also demonstrate how they can compete with global media giants.
There was a strong line up of announcements after announcements, with each precisely targeted to address the needs of marketers, including content, platforms, partnerships, growth and return on advertising investment that will be independently measured.
Nine were clear that they understand and have the arsenal to measure advertising effectiveness, especially across the depth of Nine’s network, extending across Total TV, audio, and publishing.
Chief Marketing Officer, Liana Dubois, reminded the audience of Nine’s overall network strength and success this year despite the challenging marketplace, adding clarity that Nines 2024 total TV audience is up 9%; Linear +6% and On demand at +40%.
Content remains the stable of the network with recap of the Olympic success across July to September and New and Returning programs coming in 2025, along with key personalities joining the team. This includes a significant suite of Sport across Stan Sport and Nine with Melbourne Cup, tennis majors, and Lions Rugby tour. For general entertainment, they focused on 2 new prime time programs, the Golden Bachelor and The Floor.
Across the Network, they’re able to reach 95% of Australians and has over 22M identified audiences.
Nine announced further opportunities with additional Fast Channels with their BBC partnership and launching the Good Food app for foodies and the lifestyle sector.
Digital Commercial Director, Nick Young, professionally asked the very excited crowd to take their seats before making some huge announcements revealing a rebuilt tech stack, new tech partners, CPD to reach 22M IDs with their Adobe partnership, ease of targeting and greater opportunities to reach intender audience as they expand 9Tribe segments
Stand Sport will begin to accept advertising in 2025 and expand on the success of 9Galaxy to encompass total TV, yes, including Linear Prime peak airtime. The ability to activate across platforms, devices, audience with a single CPM, guaranteed audience delivery and NO make goods is a massive game changer.
They saved the best for last which I was personally impressed when Chief Sales Officer, Michael Stephenson, took to stage and made some stellar announcements, promising those in the room, watching the live stream and for advertisers that as a network, they will be the first to be held 100% accountable with 3rd party measurement to prove effective ROI announcing partnerships with Mutinex and Analytic Partners.
