Covering everything from house prices to horoscopes, The Oz is the newest dedicated youth media title to join the Australian media landscape. Having launched on April 27th this year, the title is published by The Australian.
Mediaweek spoke to Elyse Popplewell, editor of The Oz, about what the launch has been like and what comes next.
Despite the publication being so new, Popplewell says that the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We’ve heard from people all over the country in all different industries who are saying that they’re loving The Oz, that they’re surprised by The Oz, and people saying that they perhaps wouldn’t read The Australian, but they are reading The Oz.
“I have just been so stoked by the response and the support both within News Corp Australia and from readers as well. I know that we’re onto something really special here, and I’m really excited about it.”
The youth market is particularly difficult to crack, and The Oz isn’t the first title to cater to Australia’s young readers. For Popplewell, the difference lies in the fact that The Oz can bounce off its parent company.
“We inherit the genes of rigorous journalism from The Australian, but we get to package it up in an entirely new way – we get to address new audiences in a way that The Australian perhaps wouldn’t.”
As the dust settles on the 2022 federal election, Popplewell says that covering politics for a youth audience means appealing to people with a wide variety of background knowledge.
“There are some people who love politics because it’s theatre for them, and there are a lot of people who are disengaged. Then there are a lot of people who really care about politics, because they care about what’s in their pay packet, or if they can afford a house, or how their university fees will be going up or down.
“There are so many ways that people engage with politics that isn’t traditional politicking, and that’s exactly where we’re coming in because politics does matter to everyone. Maybe people don’t know the ins and the outs of the different parties and their platforms, but that’s what we’re here for.”
Outside of politics, there is one topic in particular that is really resonating with readers of The Oz.
“We have had enormously positive feedback towards some of our careers and money content,” says Popplewell. “We’re giving really practical advice. We’ve got everything from Help! My colleagues keep calling us ‘family’, to how do you broach the conversation of a mental health day with your boss, to how to make money while you’re sleeping. This content is definitely our best performing content at the moment, it’s filling a gap in the market.”
As The Oz finds its feet in the Australian media landscape, Popplewell says that there are a number of commercial opportunities opening up.
“We’ve been getting a lot of interest from brands wanting to work with us, and our sales team are ready to talk. We chose not to launch with a partner because this is a totally new user experience, and we wanted people to become familiar with that and to build our audience before we opened for business. But we’re ready to talk now, so that whole other section of our business is about to kick in which is really exciting.”
As for what the rest of 2022 holds?
“It’s really, really exciting,” says Popplewell. “We’re only just beginning and we have so many plans that we’ve cooked up, you’re going to see them rolled out over the next couple of months.
“We’re really holding different industries that people don’t give the time of day to up to the light, but this audience certainly deserves that and that’s what we’ll be doing.”