Media hiring slips as sales roles fall and product teams rise

Hiring across Australia’s media industry has dipped again, with job activity down 3.8% year-on-year in the March quarter, pointing to a market undergoing structural change rather than short-term contraction.

According to new data from Mercury Talent, a total of 1,045 media roles were advertised between January and March, down on the same period last year and continuing a run of declines across the second half of 2025.

The headline decline masks a deeper shift in how media organisations are building their teams. Sales and client service roles, traditionally the backbone of media hiring, fell almost 15% year-on-year to 370 positions, with TV and streaming hit hardest, down 51.6%. Programmatic sales roles also declined sharply, while OOH and retail media remained stable and events saw growth from a low base.

Content roles also continued a steady decline, falling 10.2% to 202 positions and extending a two-year slide that has seen their share of total hiring drop from nearly 29% in early 2024 to 19% today.

By contrast, product and operations roles are rising.

Hiring in these functions increased 6.3% year-on-year to 336 roles and now accounts for nearly a third of all media recruitment, up from 24% two years ago. Growth was recorded across multiple sectors, including programmatic, TV, OOH and radio.

Mercury Talent’s Justin Randles said the data reflects a market in transition.

“We’re yet to see the impacts of recent large acquisitions, but my feeling is that the media industry has stopped getting smaller and that the latest decline in hiring activity is more a reflection of reduced movement in the job market overall,” he said.

“People are less willing to take the risk of changing jobs.”

Publishing remained the largest hiring sector with 422 roles, followed by TV and streaming, radio and podcast, and B2B media and events. Radio and podcast was a standout category, up 19% on six months ago, with hiring led by the likes of ABC, ARN and SCA. TV and streaming also recovered from a weaker end to 2025, with Nine, ABC and SBS increasing hiring, despite the sharp drop in sales roles.

At a company level, Domain nearly tripled its hiring compared to the same period last year, while Google more than doubled its product and operations roles. TikTok, meanwhile, continued to scale back, with job ads falling from 39 roles in Q1 2025 to 25.

The data also points to a shift in seniority. Executive hiring remained stable, while manager-level roles declined 11.8%, increasing the share of senior and director-level positions. Companies including Domain, Seven, Cartology and Nova all showed a tilt toward more senior hiring profiles.

The continued decline in content roles alongside growth in product and operations is also raising questions about the role of AI in reshaping media employment.

Content hiring has fallen consistently since mid-2024, while seniority levels within those roles have remained stable, suggesting a structural shift rather than simple cost-cutting.