Podcast, the trendy trend
Podcasts are becoming a trendy media trend in this era of technology and busy people. Podcasts are multi-tasking, allowing users to do everything while still being able to follow the news in a way that other platforms can hardly do.
Podcasts are like the old radio, but with the difference that people can listen to whatever they want, at any time, even while walking the dog, driving or doing the dishes. It’s a communication advantage that news organizations need to take advantage of in order to regain their foothold in the hearts of readers, especially young readers.
It’s even better if podcasts don’t just have audio, but also include images or video. Research firm Morning Consult found that many podcast listeners prefer to watch podcasts on YouTube rather than listen to audio-only versions. Another study found that podcasts with both audio and video attract more new podcasters and younger podcast listeners (ages 18 to 34) on YouTube than on other platforms like Spotify or Google Podcast.
Podcasting platforms like YouTube are a great way for newspapers to reach more readers. Photo: YouTube
YouTube started generating ad revenue for creators much earlier than other social networks or sharing platforms. And these video podcasts don’t have to be beautiful or elaborate. Many podcasts are uploaded with simple videos, or maybe just a series of still images. But that’s more engaging to users than just audio.
Notably, YouTube recently rolled out a dedicated “Podcasts” tab and featured podcasts from mainstream news organizations, like The New York Times and NPR. Several news organizations have noted that YouTube is still refining its podcast strategy and may grow even more in the future.
“We are committed to supporting the future of journalism, and that means continuing to create opportunities for journalism to harness the latest technology and techniques to thrive on YouTube,” promised YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez. “Whether it’s long-form video, short-form video, or podcasts, we’re always working to improve the experience and support multiple formats for news creators.”
From ESPN's breakout…
Many news organizations are now making good use of the platform as a low-cost, efficient news outlet. Mike Foss, vice president of digital production at ESPN, said that a year ago, the network streamed just two podcasts on YouTube. Now, it has 28 podcasts on the platform and four YouTube-specific shows.
Foss says it was a two-part process. The first was driven by the platform itself. YouTube introduced YouTube Shorts, vertical videos under 60 seconds, in 2021 to compete with TikTok. ESPN saw it could turn its highlights into Shorts and was surprisingly rewarded with a huge amount of traffic.
Slate Magazine is finding success with its podcast format on YouTube. Photo: Slate
Then, when ESPN started experimenting with longer videos, with streams lasting around 30 minutes for “preferred” events, Foss said the follow-up rates for those longer video streams were “really high,” so “it was natural for us to start doing this on a larger scale and more frequently with podcasts.”
Rather than creating separate YouTube channels for each topic, ESPN groups them largely by genre — NBA, soccer, and MMA channels are three of the most popular channels users can subscribe to. YouTube viewership, especially podcasts, represents a “new audience” for ESPN, Foss said.
…until the successful launch of Slate and NPR
Another highly successful example of podcasts in general, and YouTube podcasts in particular, is Slate magazine, which had 190 million downloads from a collection of podcasts including Political Gabfest, Slow Burn, and Amicus in 2022. The digital news organization relies on podcasts for about half of its revenue and sells subscriptions that include additional podcast content.
And earlier this year, Slate announced a partnership with YouTube to bring its shows to the platform. YouTube has more than 2.6 billion monthly active users. The video platform clearly has a huge global audience, with more than half of all internet users worldwide visiting YouTube at least once a month.
“Discovery has become one of the biggest challenges in the podcast industry, and we see this as a real opportunity to build scale and reach new audiences on YouTube, the most used platform in the world,” said Slate President Charlie Kammerer.
Meanwhile, the US radio and television network NPR currently posts about 65 episodes from 25 active podcasts to YouTube each week. The audio and video-heavy media outlet hosts its podcasts on a dedicated YouTube channel with about 34,500 subscribers, along with additional channels such as Planet Money, Fresh Air, NPR Daily News, NPR Entertainment, and Alt.Latino.
NPR has found that podcasts with more visual elements tend to perform better than those with limited graphics or still images. However, YouTube is still relatively new to NPR. Keith Jenkins, the channel’s vice president of visual and music strategy, notes that the journalism community needs to redefine “podcast” to appeal to a broader audience.
To succeed in this endeavor, however, Jenkins stresses that we “need to look at it as an overall strategy, and be willing to change direction, depending on what makes the most sense.” Because the mission of winning back readers for newspapers is thorny, requiring extreme effort, even sacrifice if necessary.
Hoang Hai
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