News Podcasts and the Opportunities for Publishers

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(Newswire.net — July 28, 2020) — A podcast can be best described as an episodic series of digital audio files that can be downloaded, subscribed to, and listened to. In the technical sense, the show or program is inside a feed and it can be accessed through an application that is sometimes regarded as a podcatcher. Examples of a podcatcher include Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addicts, and Stitcher.

A podcast can also be accessed through a publisher app or website like BBC sounds or SR Play from Swedish radio or better still, the New York Times that has also recently added a podcast feature in its app. However, over the last few years, podcasts have become also available through music services like Pandora and Spotify, through voice platforms like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa as well as through Google search itself.

Growth and categories of news podcasts

A lot has been detailed about podcasts generally as the drivers around the development. However, little focus has been put on news podcasts as well as the commercial and creative opportunities it presents for publishers. As categorized by Apple, news podcasts make a small percentage of the existing 770000 podcasts but the general appeal and stickiness of news content imply that the category is doing beyond expectation in terms of consumption. This explains why we have so much of these news podcats such as Shame On You Podcast.

Now, these news podcasts can be divided into three broad categories which are:

  • Micro-bulletins: These are short news updates that offer a quick summary of the news of the day (1-5 minutes)
  • News round-ups: These are longer podcasts targeted at briefing listeners at certain points during the day (6-15 minutes)
  • Deep dives: These focus on one news story to provide a deeper analysis. Each episode is usually more than 20 minutes.

Is this an opportunity or threat for habit formation?

As publishers now focus more on habit formation, audio has started growing on a lot of publishers. In addition, podcasts are usually an additional means through which some listen to the news instead of being a replacement for existing news behavior. Since they are screen-less in nature, podcasts are like the ideal for incorporating moments that previously lacked news consumption such as doing chores or driving. In Sweden, Schibsted’s Omni Pod initially started as an experiment; however, as a result of its perfect alignment with the usual morning routine of news consumers, the podcast has remained around.

This explains why a lot of publishers such as Jordon Power, the co-host of Shame on you podcast who also recently wrote a book continue to see deeper engagement with their daily news podcasts. Data from private publishers have shown that listeners usually come back many times in a week and listen to most of each show. What this shows is that on average, users engage for more than one hour per podcast every week and that is a big difference from that of the average website editor which is a few minutes per week.

 Under the space of a year, The Guardian developed a bigger audience for its daily podcast than one that purchases their newspaper. In fact, the audience is younger than that of both the website readers and print readers. This means that it has helped The Guardian grow a new audience, instead of feeding on the existing one.

Revenue opportunities are currently limited to anglophone countries

In the US, publishers are already making huge revenue from podcasts. Over 50% of the total revenue of online magazine, Slate comes from podcasts now. Similarly, National Public Radio now earns $55m from podcasting, overtaking radio when it comes to sponsorship income. Advertisement remains the revenue driver for all publishers, including those that otherwise use a subscription model.

On the other hand, reality in non-anglophone countries is totally different. Indeed, outside of the Anglosphere, there seems to be a constant problem of monetization, especially in smaller markets. It is believed that the most likely reason for this is the fact that podcasting in such countries is a relatively new thing and it is only just beginning to catch up to what obtains in the Anglosphere.

Of course, many people still believe that many things are bound to improve and we may see many new niches of podcasts which will provide more opportunities for publishers.