For Tim Gilbert, storytelling isn’t just part of the job – it is the job.
From long days on the road covering sport to presenting live news and features, he’s built a career on the belief that “everyone’s got a story to tell.”
Now, he’s bringing that philosophy to LeadStory, where he’ll work across business, sport, technology and industry to craft news-led stories that sit alongside breaking news.
Gilbert’s path to this point has been shaped by variety.
At Nine he covered everything from cricket test matches, Olympic Games to New Year’s Eve broadcasts – and anchored the sport on the Today Show for many years alongside hosts Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson.
Later, he hosted weekend breakfast on Sky News for six years, broadening his “newsy aspect” while working alongside his brother Kieran Gilbert and others. More recently, he continues to present Racing Dreams on Sky News with Julie Snook on Saturday mornings.
Richard Wilkins, Karl Stefanovic, and Tim Gilbert on the Today show.
A natural step to LeadStory
LeadStory co-founder and CEO Cam Price said: “Tim Gilbert is one of Australia’s most respected broadcasters and we’re proud to have him join LeadStory. Tim is a proven storyteller who understands how to make complex subjects engaging and relatable.
“His experience will help us expand our Native Advertising product further working with clients across a variety of sectors, supporting our mission to deliver high-quality and compelling content to our 13-million strong global audience every day.”
Gilbert told Mediaweek that the opportunity to work with LeadStory came about “organically”.
“I’ve know the team behind the company for a long time and it just seemed to be a really good fit for me. I love storytelling, and a lot of commercial, corporates and businesses have got great stories to tell. And over the course of the years there hasn’t always been an opportunity for them to do it until now,” he said.
A global news platform built in Australia
Founded in 2021, LeadStory positions itself as a global news platform designed to give audiences access to broadcast journalism on demand.
Originally launched as a web and mobile app, the business has signed direct and licensed content partnerships with major publishers including CBS, CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, France 24 and Channel 10 in Australia.
Currently, LeadStory pulls in more than 13 million viewers each month across web, mobile and its FAST TV channels – Breaking News Channel and Your News Channel, billed as the world’s first personalised TV channel – available on Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels and Vizio in Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
The company has also launched an in-car app that comes pre-installed in new Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Tim Gilbert and Julie Snook on Sky News’ Racing Dreams
Innovation and branded content
In July 2025, LeadStory announced $2.75 million USD in seed funding alongside the launch of an AI video search tool designed to make content discovery faster and more efficient.
Alongside licensed news, LeadStory has developed a branded storytelling offering through its “Native Advertising” product – which sees the team work directly with a diverse range of clients as well as via their media agencies, public relations and investor relations organisations.
Recent projects have featured Tourism Fiji, Sydney Water, Engineers Australia, Goodstart Early Learning, Juniper & Pilot, Koh, and Nova Systems.
And they’re resonating. According to the company, the watch-through rate for branded content is “above 90% on our channels, which is far higher than typical completion rates on YouTube (40%) and Facebook/Instagram (25%)”.
Gilbert added that their branded pieces need to carry the same weight as the journalism they sit alongside.
“When you’ve got big stories by all these mastheads – like CBS and Reuters – our content needs to sit authentically in between that. And obviously it’s in full transparency that it’s badged as commercial content. But that needs to be told in a way that will make people interested in what they’re watching,” he said.
Careful and collaborative storytelling
Gilbert said what drew him to LeadStory was not just the opportunity to help businesses tell their stories, but also the production culture.
“Everyone that I’ve worked with so far on the team is not only talented, but committed,” he said. “Nothing’s done flippantly. It’s done collaboratively, and it’s done well.”
A day of filming with Gilbert and the team might stretch out to ten hours, but he says it’s all worth it for the finished product. “With TV, the more time you take to tell the story the better the story is. We put a lot of care into our storytelling.”
And, he added, the ultimate reward is in the response. “There’s a lot of care taken into it. And you really enjoy telling those stories. I love it. I love it and I love actually seeing the finished product and seeing someone very happy with having done an interview and feeling that it wasn’t as intimidating as it may have felt at the start, just even that little piece of the story.”
For Gilbert, it all comes back to a simple truth: every brand has a story worth telling – it just needs to be told well.