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The Spinoff cracks the code for young audiences
The Spinoff’s early success with its Now You Know series highlights a scalable model for engaging young audiences.
Funded by NZ On Air, Now You Know is the media company’s new social-first news explainer series. In just two and a half months, it has already earned over 2.5 million views across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Shorts.
The core audience for the series is the 18-24 demographic, making up to 70% of total viewership. However, this group has traditionally been difficult for news brands to reach.
Humour, hooks, pace
To mark this milestone, The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold opens discussions about its success, featuring head of audience Anna Rawhiti-Connell, Now You Know host Robbie Nicol and founder Duncan Greive.
“The industry sometimes talks about young audiences like they’re an exotic species, expecting them to conform to traditional news consumption habits,” says Rawhiti-Connell.
“Our approach with Now You Know was to respect the platform and the audience. We found that when you deliver high-quality, fact-based journalism in a format that feels authentic to social video – using humour, hooks and pace – they don’t just consume it, they engage with it deeply.”
A strategy for youth
Total watch time across the series to date is over 750,000 minutes.
Now You Know operates on a high-velocity production model, blending serious reporting with creative, comedy-informed storytelling. This combination allows the team to tackle both highly topical issues and complex concepts, successfully maintaining audience attention, says Robbie Nicol.
Rawhiti-Connell adds that the success shows The Spinoff’s brand equity and audience engagement can expand to new platforms, fostering trust and goodwill with diverse audiences.
