Southern Cross Broadcasting (SCB) has inked a three year deal with application outsourcing provider Hostworks to guarantee the availability of its national online portal, mytalk.com.au

The portal is Australia's first national online talk radio and music portal, which was launched by the Prime Minister John Howard in April.

Speaking at the launch, the Prime Minister said: "The dual presentation ... of both an innovative Web page but also the duplication of it as a datacasting service on digital television, that is an Australian first."

With major radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and more than 30 TV stations in regional areas of Australia, SCB has the ability to reach as much as 90 per cent of Australia's population.

It's talk back line-up features 4BC, 6PR and 3AW with Neil Mitchell and 2UE with John Laws.

Mytalk aggregates the digital content assets from SCB's seven radio stations as well as its television regions into a single portal that provides audiences with easy online access and advertisers with national reach.

SCB general manager Kim Anderson said Mytalk aggregated each station's online presence into a single site providing significant cost efficiencies and revenue opportunities.

"Mytalk achieves better economies of scale and aggregates traffic. Hostworks understands the whole load issue and can deal with large traffic spikes.

Set up in November last year, Southern Cross View manages the digital assets of SCB. Its core focus is to develop and bring to market products that enable SCB to have a significant online presence that provides revenue growth, that complements the existing distribution channels and is profitable.

Other Hostworks customers include the Compass Group, News Digital Media, Network Ten, ninemsn, realestate.com.au, SBS, SEEK, Ticketek and Wotif.com.

During the first month, Anderson said Mytalk had performed better than expected in terms of page impressions, registered members and unique visitors.

Hostworks sales and marketing director Klaus Bartosch said SCB has extensive television and radio operations that reach 90 per cent of Australia's population.