Channel Nine is taking a significant step into the artificial intelligence era after striking a major media partnership.
The broadcaster has reached an agreement with US technology giant Microsoft that will give its Copilot AI platform access to news content from several Nine publishing titles, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review.
Under the arrangement, Microsoft’s AI assistant Copilot will be built into products such as Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, The Australian Financial Review reported on Saturday.
According to the publication, Copilot will be able to show users excerpts, headlines and summaries designed to send readers back to the mastheads for the full articles.
Access to the complete stories will still require readers to hold a subscription.
The financial terms of the deal have not been publicly disclosed, though the AFR estimates the agreement is worth “under $25 million a year”.
Channel Nine is pushing further into artificial intelligence with a significant new media agreement
Microsoft Australia and New Zealand president Jane Livesey said the partnership represented a positive development for the future of journalism.
‘AI is transforming the way Australians connect with information, and access to trustworthy sources has never mattered more,’ Livesey told the AFR.
‘Forward-thinking partnerships like this show how technology and media companies can work together to ensure a thriving future for Australian journalism.’
The move comes amid a ‘major restructure’ at Nine, with news that 20 more jobs are set to be cut next year in the news division, after 50 axings last year.
In late April, executive director of news and current affairs Fiona Dear warned all TV news staff would be affected, with every role facing changes, retraining or a title change.
The overhaul will dramatically simplify the newsroom structure, cutting more than 100 separate job titles across news and current affairs down to just nine broader roles.
Under the new model, staff will be grouped into multi-skilled positions such as story editor, digital story editor, rundown editor and multimedia journalist.
Staff affected by the cuts will be offered voluntary redundancies, with the Sydney and Canberra newsrooms to be hit first.
President of Microsoft in Australia and New Zealand, Jane Livesey, said the move was a win for the future of journalism. Pictured: Channel Nine star Ally Langdon
The move comes amid a ‘major restructure’ at Nine, with news that 20 more jobs are set to be cut next year in the news division, after 50 axings last year. Pictured: Nine star Sarah Abo
Dear said the job cuts are being driven by the replacement of outdated technology in TV newsrooms.
‘We are in the midst of a bold and ambitious multi-year transformation program that will differentiate Nine news and current affairs from our competitors and entrench us as a global news leader,’ she said.
‘This represents the largest investment in Nine news and current affairs in decades, with new technology, systems and workflows revolutionising the way we produce and deliver news.’
To add salt to the wound, workers heard of the job cuts while caterers served them ‘sushi and sandwiches’ to soften the blow, according to the Herald Sun.
‘Morale isn’t good at the moment. The ratings have been shaky lately, too, with the race tightening up with Channel 7,’ one Nine insider said.
‘We got sushi and sandwiches while receiving the news that 20 of our colleagues were being made redundant,’ said another Nine employee.
In November, Channel Nine announced 50 roles within the streaming and broadcast division would be cut and teams merged.
Nine’s head of streaming and broadcast Amanda Laing said at the time she could not rule out further redundancies.
‘That is a delicate dance. If you cut too deeply on the cost, you will injure the things that are required to drive the revenue,’ she said.
‘It’s not just a matter of, “Can we get more juice out of the fruit?”‘
‘It’s actually about growth. It’s about true growth, growing the subscribers, growing the revenue, growing the EBITDA contribution from these businesses.’
