Head of Audience

talkSPORT is the world’s biggest sports radio station, attracting millions of listeners on radio, and millions more online and across our growing social media platforms. From World Cups and European Championships to the Premier League and the Champions League, through to Test cricket and world class boxing, the talkSPORT network is at the heart of the world’s major sporting events - delivering exclusive commentaries, interviews, breaking sports news, unique insight and opinion.

Your role:
We’re seeking a dynamic and experienced digital journalist with a strategic mindset and a track record of driving audience growth to take on a new and pivotal role within the talkSPORT.com team. As Head of Audience, you will be responsible for developing and executing data-driven content strategies to reach new audiences in the UK and US, and finding innovative ways to maximise engagement on the website. You will utilise insights and analytics tools to identify audience trends, preferences and behaviours, and will continually present learnings and best practice guidelines to the editorial team. The role is based in our offices in London Bridge and you will report directly to the Head of Digital.

Day to day you will:

• Develop and implement audience growth strategies to increase website traffic and attract new visitors in the UK and US
• Utilise tools such as Parse.ly, Google Search Console, Newswhip and Dataminr to track trends and data and ensure the editorial team has sufficient insight to produce digital-friendly stories
• Provide best practice guidelines and training to editorial, SEO and social teams 
• Monitor social media analytics to optimise content and boost engagement across various platforms
• Produce data-informed content plans and guidelines for covering major sports events
• Perform competitor analysis and keep up to date with industry trends and emerging technologies to identify new opportunities for audience growth
• Work closely with the talkSPORT.com editor and Head of Digital to ensure key metrics and revenue targets are achieved
• Collaborate with product development and tech teams to optimise website performance and discover opportunities for innovation

What we’re looking for from you: 

• Extensive knowledge of and passion for sport
• Clear understanding of how to drive traffic to websites across various platforms
• Experienced in leveraging data and analytics tools to drive insights and inform decision-making
• Strong understanding of social media platforms and their respective audiences
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and adapt to evolving industry trends
• Organised, efficient and able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously
• Experienced user of content management systems and web analytics platforms

To apply for the position of US Sports Editor, please submit the following:

• An updated CV
• A brief cover letter explaining your interest in the role
• Any examples you have demonstrating your journalism experience and/or sporting knowledge

We are News Broadcasting: Driving digital innovation, our people create award-winning national and local radio and podcasts which are must-listens for millions across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Life sounds good with Virgin Radio - home to Chris Evans at Breakfast and Graham Norton at the weekend. talkSPORT, the world’s biggest sports radio station, delivers the very best live sport and analysis and is truly powered by its millions of fans. Launched in June 2020 Times Radio brings together the peerless journalistic expertise of The Times and The Sunday Times with world-class broadcast talent including John Pienaar, Aasmah Mir and Michael Portillo. In 2022 we launched TalkTV, a major new TV channel available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs, entertainment and sport, with Piers Morgan in a primetime evening show.

Life at News: At News UK our people are our heartbeat - they are the driving force behind our brands and we want to enable people to thrive.  Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like.  Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.  

We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I  strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes.  We also have 11 employee-led networks. 

We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our staff. Some of what we offer includes: 

• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%;
• 25 days holiday and up to 4 volunteering days per year;
• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks;
• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access.
• Private medical insurance covering pre-existing conditions
• Discounted gym memberships, ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual HIIT, yoga and run club classes
• ‘Bikes for Work’ scheme
• Access to wellbeing benefits such as physio/massage and counselling 

We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing. Please let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.  

News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.