Nine is doubling down on deep-dive journalism, officially launching a Longform Current Affairs and Investigations Unit to drive premium reporting across both broadcast and digital. The new arm is being helmed by Kirsty Thomson, the veteran producer already steering 60 Minutes, who now expands her remit to lead longform strategy network-wide.
The unit is already out of the gate with The Brief, a digital-first investigative brand that soft-launched earlier this year and has since rolled out sharp reporting on everything from the Clare Nowland investigation to Chinese warships in Australian waters. Beyond digital, the team has quietly delivered ten one-hour documentaries and is now ramping up collaborations with Stan, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age.
The new division is a cornerstone of Nine’s broader News Transformation initiative, which also includes a push to open up the network’s deep news archive for future storytelling. Fiona Dear, Director of News and Current Affairs, is positioning the expansion as a calculated move to stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly competitive space. Network 10 recently announced similar longform ambitions, putting pressure on legacy news brands to scale up or fall behind.
While the remit includes both national and international stories, the play here is clearly brand equity—leveraging the trust and reach of 60 Minutes to supercharge Nine’s premium non-fiction slate across platforms.
