From August 31st News Corp will be replacing its lifestyle lift-out HiberNation with a new digital destination and eight-page print lift-out focusing on lifestyle to form the company’s third editorial pillar after news and sport, titled Smart Daily.
The lift-out will aim to help readers live a better and smarter life using content generated by experts in areas such as:
• Money advice and cost of living
• Mental health and wellness
• Entertainment – what to watch, read and listen to
• Food and recipes
• Puzzles and trivia with The Shark – Brydon Coverdale from Network 7s The Chase Australia
• Parenting advice
• Pets
• Savvy shopping – great deals and advice
Columnists will include Edwina Bartholomew writing about life as a new working mum, Joe Hilderbrand’s weekly view on TV and entertainment and Serina Bird who anchors a new section called Savvy Shopper designed to help people find the best grocery and shopping deals on offer. Smart Daily will also house News Corp experts such as Sophie Elsworth and Anthony Keane writing about money, cost of living and finance. For food content, Smart Daily will tap into partnerships with Taste, delicious. and Australia’s Best Recipes.
Mediaweek spoke with editor Louise Roberts about the change who said that HiberNation was a response to how their readers where copping with lockdown and based on feedback from readers was time for an evolution.
“With winter ending it seemed the perfect time to pivot to a new lifestyle publication. While also bearing in mind Victoria is in lockdown so everything is through that lens as well.”
“We live in a new world where social distancing and being very vigilant about your health is now our regular lives.”
“Content in Smart Daily is very audience-led and they let us know what they want help with. Cost of living is a key issue with people having lost their job, or worried about job security, or working four days a week. “
Before the change was made News Corp conducted audience research to find out what their audience concerns were and combined this with what topics were trending with their readers in their internal system.
“We noticed there was a lot of searches around how do I manage my budget, what do I do if I lost my job, how can I feed my family cheaply but healthy. Also, how do I cope with things like my kids are stressed how do I reassure them and I am not sleeping well how do I get a good nights sleep. We will be helping people navigate that.”
Roberts said that News Corp’s readers want to get the most out of life despite the current state of the world and Smart Daily tries to help readers to accomplish that.
“With restrictions around the country changing besides Victoria, we thought we should move our lifestyle content more towards that space. Keeping HiberNation going forever was never the plan. It was more a point in time to change our content to help our readers, and our research suggests our readers now need help with the next stage of their lives.”
Roberts said that a lot of the inspiration for both HiberNation and Smart Daily is that everyone has experienced the same thing.
“Often you report on a story from afar but now we have lived these changes with them and been through this together and now it is a bit of an evolution with this new section.”
In addition to the daily lift-out, an extra four-page Smart guide will be published regularly featuring themes around specific topics, ranging from superannuation to camping and caravanning, spring gardening to pets.
