Pressure of Truth
The news, with the spin made visible.
Outlet profile

The Nightly (Australia)

Australian center-right

Owned bySouthern Cross Media Group (formed January 2026 by merger of Seven West Media and Southern Cross Media/SCA); effectively controlled by billionaire media magnate Kerry Stokes
FundingFree digital publication with no subscription paywall; funded primarily by advertising; platform developed in partnership with Google
On the administrationmixed

Background

The Nightly launched on February 26, 2024, as a free weekday digital newspaper created by Kerry Stokes' Seven West Media with development support from Google. Stokes, a billionaire who also controls Channel 7 and The West Australian newspaper, trademarked the name in November 2023 and positioned the outlet to compete with News Corp's The Australian and Nine's Australian Financial Review. Its founding editorial declared a mission to champion 'common sense, mainstream middle & working class economic conservatism,' setting a clear right-of-center tone from the start. Early backers included mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, then-Senator Chris Ellison, and Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page — all figures associated with Australia's conservative political sphere. Anthony De Ceglie served as its first editor-in-chief; in August 2024 he was succeeded by Christopher Dore, the former editor-in-chief of News Corp's The Australian, deepening the outlet's conservative editorial lineage. The Nightly grew quickly, reaching around 2.84 million monthly readers by September 2024 and approximately 3 million by early 2026, entirely on an ad-supported model with no paywall. In January 2026, Seven West Media merged with Southern Cross Media to form Southern Cross Media Group, making The Nightly part of one of Australia's largest diversified media companies spanning television, radio, print, and digital.

Sources

  1. The Nightly - Wikipedia
  2. The Nightly: Kerry Stokes launches new online newspaper - Crikey
  3. Launch day for The Nightly: Seven West Media's new daily paper aimed at mainstream middle - Mediaweek
  4. SEVEN and SOUTHERN CROSS AUSTEREO merger officially complete - TV Blackbox
  5. Seven West's The Nightly news audience hits 2.75m in first year - Mi3
  6. Christopher Dore becomes editor-in-chief WA Newspapers, The Nightly - AdNews
  7. Southern Cross Media's proposed acquisition of Seven West Media not opposed by ACCC

Profile compiled 2026-07-06; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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