A new study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism finds that news podcasts are attracting large audiences as well as driving loyalty and revenue for many media outlets.
And news podcasts have been generating many times more downloads than those focused on other topics, in part because of interest in information about the covid-19 crisis, researchers Nic Newman and Nathan Gallo found.
The researchers focused on 102 daily news podcasts in the US, UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia. These podcast audiences tend to be younger, better educated, and more urban than traditional news audiences.
Four types for four audiences
Newman and Gallo identified four distinct podcast types whose length, content, and presentation style depend on the goals of the media outlet as well as the perceived listening habits and information needs of the audience.
The length of the podcast varies, depending on and how the audiences fit a podcast into their daily routines, such as the morning commute (longer in the US, shorter in Europe), walking the dog, household chores, or going to the gym. The four types:
The deep dive on a particular topic, lasting around 25 minutes. This genre “has been most widely adopted by other publishers around the world.”
“For publishers like the New York Times (The Daily) and the Guardian (Today in Focus) these on-demand audio briefings are now attracting large daily audiences, building habit and loyalty for their brands, and driving significant revenue too,” the study found. It is also the most expensive, involving large staffs.
Extended chat, which involves informal discussions on a variety of topics. It can be low cost, since it simply replicates an on-air event in podcast form.
News round-ups, which give a brief summary of a range of stories. In this genre, a news organization can repurpose material already broadcast and thus keep costs low.
Microbulletins, which can also be low cost to the news outlet but useful to users who want to stay abreast of news throughout the day. “These are often aimed at voice devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home as well as Spotify.”
When I wrote about podcasting in June, my focus was on the commercial possibilities. At the time, I considered mainly a high-cost model, the deep dive. But it now appears that news organizations are finding innovative ways to repurpose their staff and existing resources to attract and serve new audiences.
So there clearly are economical ways to produce podcasts. The trick will be to keep them when the interest in covid-19 news begins to wane.