Amanda Laing Leaves Nine After Just 18 Months As Major TV And Streaming Restructure Unfolds

Amanda Laing Departs Nine As The Media Giant Rethinks Its TV And Streaming Structure

Days After Selling Nine’s 2027 Vision, Amanda Laing Is Leaving The Company

Amanda Laing is leaving Nine Entertainment after approximately 18 months back at the Australian media group, bringing an unexpectedly short end to the tenure of the executive responsible for some of its most important television and streaming assets.

Multiple Australian media reports on Thursday, September 24, said Laing, Nine’s Managing Director of Streaming and Broadcast, is departing as the company restructures the operation she has been leading. Her responsibilities have included Channel 9, free streaming service 9Now and subscription platform Stan.

The timing is particularly striking.

Only days earlier, Laing was publicly promoting Nine’s future at its 2027 Upfront, where the company pitched advertisers on a strategy designed to make its television, streaming, publishing and other media properties work more closely together.

On September 21, Nine itself published commentary from Laing describing Stan’s place within the Australian streaming market and arguing that premium content remained central to the company’s ability to attract audiences and advertisers.

Now the executive helping to sell that future is leaving.

Why Is Amanda Laing Leaving Nine?

The clearest explanation currently available is restructuring.

Reports citing Nine sources have linked Laing’s departure to another reorganisation of the company’s television and streaming operations. Nine had not, at the time of the earliest reports, publicly detailed the full new management structure or announced who would assume Laing’s responsibilities.

B&T reported that Laing’s departure was part of a wider restructure and, citing anonymous sources in the Australian Financial Review, said the decision had been approved at a Nine board meeting earlier in the week.

That makes an important distinction necessary.

There is currently no publicly established evidence that Laing is leaving because of personal misconduct, a specific programming failure or one isolated commercial decision. The reporting instead places her exit inside a broader organisational change.

What remains unclear is precisely how Nine intends to redraw the responsibilities she currently holds.

What Did Amanda Laing Control At Nine?

Laing occupied one of the most strategically important positions inside Nine.

Her division brought together the traditional Channel 9 television network with 9Now and Stan, placing free-to-air broadcasting, free digital streaming and subscription streaming within a more unified structure.

Nine announced a major leadership framework for the division in June 2025.

At the time, the company said the new organisation was intended to generate growth and revenue opportunities while accelerating its wider Nine2028 transformation programme.

Hamish Turner was given responsibility for Channel 9, its multichannels and 9Now. Dan Taylor was given responsibility for Stan. Radio continued under Tom Malone. Those executives were placed beneath Laing within the broader Streaming and Broadcast division.

It was an important structural experiment.

Traditional broadcasters around the world are attempting to manage a similar transition: protecting large linear television audiences while shifting more viewing, advertising and subscription revenue towards digital platforms.

Nine’s version involved trying to make Channel 9, 9Now and Stan operate less like isolated businesses and more like connected parts of one media ecosystem.

Laing was placed near the centre of that project.

Amanda Laing Had Only Just Presented Nine’s 2027 Strategy

That is what makes the timing of her departure unusually notable.

Nine held its 2027 Upfront only days before the news emerged.

Laing was among the senior executives explaining how the group intended to extend audiences and programmes across Channel 9, 9Now and Stan.

One element of the strategy involves using established television brands across multiple platforms, including Stan projects connected to franchises such as The Block and Love Island Australia.

Nine has also been promoting a broader integrated proposition to advertisers, effectively arguing that its combination of television, streaming, publishing, audio and other assets can reach consumers across different parts of their day.

That makes Laing’s exit more significant than a conventional management change.

Nine now has to determine who owns the strategy operationally.

What Happens To Channel 9, 9Now And Stan?

There is no suggestion that Laing’s departure means Nine is abandoning the closer integration of its broadcast and streaming businesses.

In fact, the opposite may ultimately prove true.

If her position itself is being changed or removed as part of the restructure, Nine could redistribute more responsibility directly among executives already running individual platforms.

That remains a possibility rather than a confirmed outcome.

What is established is that Nine had already created executives with direct profit-and-loss responsibility for different parts of the division.

Hamish Turner controls Channel 9, its multichannels and 9Now, while Dan Taylor has responsibility for Stan under the structure Nine announced in 2025.

That existing layer of management gives Nine several potential ways to reorganise the division without reversing the broader strategy.

The crucial unanswered question is whether the company appoints another executive above those businesses, divides Laing’s responsibilities between existing leaders, or redesigns the division altogether.

Nine’s Television Business Is Under Pressure

The executive change also comes against a difficult commercial backdrop.

Australia’s traditional television market has been adapting to audience fragmentation and the continuing shift of advertising towards digital services.

Marketing-Interactive reported that Nine has been cutting costs amid weaker advertising conditions and recorded a $426 million writedown of its Total TV business, reducing its carrying value to approximately $360 million in its latest annual results.

Those numbers help explain why organisational efficiency matters so much.

Nine is attempting to extract greater value from the same programmes and intellectual property by distributing them across broadcast television and streaming rather than treating every platform as a completely separate operation.

That means the logic behind combining Channel 9, 9Now and Stan remains powerful even if the management structure changes again.

Laing Had Been Driving Greater Integration

Laing’s tenure was closely associated with that integration.

Nine said in 2025 that its streaming and broadcast brands had been successful independently but argued that greater coordination could unlock additional growth.

The company subsequently gave executives wider responsibilities spanning platforms that had historically operated with greater separation.

Laing described the restructuring at the time as the beginning of an effort to exploit the combined strength of Nine’s assets.

During her tenure, the company also expanded its streaming and sports strategy.

Nine retained major NRL broadcasting rights, while Stan has continued to function as the group’s premium subscription streaming business.

That combination of free television, free streaming and paid streaming gives Nine something global streaming rivals do not have in exactly the same form in Australia.

But it also creates management complexity.

The businesses have different economics, different audiences and different commercial priorities.

Who Is Amanda Laing?

Laing is an experienced Australian media executive with a career spanning television, streaming, commercial strategy and corporate law.

Before returning to Nine, she worked at Foxtel Group, where her roles included Chief Commercial and Content Officer and Managing Director of streaming service Binge.

She had also previously worked at Nine, including as Group General Counsel, meaning her latest period at the company was a return rather than her first association with the broadcaster.

She has additionally served on the Australian Rugby League Commission.

Her combination of commercial, legal, content and streaming experience made her an unusual executive choice for a job designed to bridge multiple areas of the modern media business.

Was She At Nine For 15 Months Or 18 Months?

Some of the early reporting describes Laing as leaving after 18 months, while other coverage refers to roughly 15 months in the specific Managing Director of Streaming and Broadcast position.

The difference appears to relate to the distinction between when she returned to Nine and when the newer role formally took effect.

Laing returned to the company during 2025, while reporting places her appointment to the newly created Streaming and Broadcast leadership position in April 2025.

Nine then publicly announced the division’s detailed new leadership structure in June 2025, with the changes taking effect from July 1.

For that reason, “18 months” is best understood as an approximate description of her latest period at Nine rather than necessarily the exact length of time she occupied every version of her current job.

Another High-Profile Change At Nine

Laing’s departure also emerges during a broader period of executive movement around Nine.

The company confirmed another prominent change this week when Australian Financial Review editor-in-chief James Chessell was reported to be leaving for independent media venture Rampart.

The two departures involve different areas of Nine and should not automatically be treated as having the same cause.

However, together they add to the sense of organisational change surrounding one of Australia’s largest media companies.

Why Laing’s Departure Matters

The bigger story is not simply that a senior executive has left after a relatively short tenure.

It is what the departure says about Nine’s continuing attempt to redesign itself for a media market in which the boundaries between broadcast television and streaming are increasingly disappearing.

Nine still owns powerful conventional television assets.

It also operates 9Now, which gives viewers free digital access to programming, and Stan, which competes directly in the subscription streaming market.

The strategic challenge is working out how those businesses reinforce rather than cannibalise one another.

Laing was appointed to help solve precisely that problem.

Her exit therefore creates a leadership question at the same moment Nine is publicly promoting an increasingly integrated future.

What Happens Next?

The most important development to watch will be Nine’s replacement structure.

If another executive is appointed directly into Laing’s position, that would suggest Nine still wants a single leader overseeing the combined broadcast and streaming portfolio.

If the role disappears and responsibility moves further down into Channel 9, 9Now and Stan, it would signal a meaningful change in how the integration project is being managed.

Either way, the strategy Laing helped build is not disappearing with her overnight.

Nine has already reorganised executives, content planning and commercial responsibilities around the idea that television and streaming need to work together.

The company has also just presented advertisers with a 2027 vision built heavily around the combined reach of its platforms.

That makes the next appointment — or the decision not to make one — potentially more consequential than Laing’s departure itself.

Amanda Laing may be leaving Nine after only around 18 months, but the transformation she was recruited to help manage is far from finished.

The real story now is who Nine chooses to put in control of it.