THE SPINOFF

An entertaining and informative source of commentary on everything from pop culture to politics, The Spinoff is slowly building a small-ish media empire as it takes on more staff and new challenges.

While big media players consider mergers and adapt their offers, The Spinoff proves there’s still a slice of the audience to go around if the (editorial and sponsored) content is good, and some money available from brands who want to bask in its reflected glow by funding its various sections. Cool, funny and fearless, The Spinoff keeps its audience up to date with everything from the power rankings of reality TV stars to politics and investigations, into where World’s clothes are really made, and what the Auckland International Film Festival really is. And while it didn’t quite win everything at the 2018 Voyager Awards Media Awards - as its follow-up headline suggested - its writers did take home six awards, including Best Artwork/graphics (Toby Morris); Feature Writing - Arts, Entertainment and Lifestyle (Simon Wilson) and Feature Writing - Best First-person Essay or Features (Peter Wells). It’s been growing from strength to strength since its launch in 2014, with a recent addition being Ātea, a dedicated Māori perspectives section at the heart of the website, and the announcement of The Spinoff TV coming to Three at the end of the month. Moving to TV is the next obvious step as evidenced by similar international outfits, Viceland and Young Turks, who opened their offerings from print and radio respectively. Kiwi audiences, and the media community, will be eager to see how The Spinoff takes on this next move.