Executive Producer @ New Statesman | Podcast & video production | Audience growth & monetisation
I might be changing my mind about a fundamental podcast strategy. For a long time I was firmly convinced that podcasts should run in a single-format feed: listeners like consistency, which builds habitual listening. But we've been trying something different on the New Statesman podcast recently. For some time we've been running three podcast feeds: The NS podcast (politics), World Review (global affairs) and Audio Long Reads (features & essays). Between them these feeds housed five episodes a week. All feeds had a growing listenership, but the NS podcast was by far and away our most popular feed (by 5-10x). This meant our effort was divided across three feeds, but the bulk of our audience - and revenue - was in one. So, over recent weeks we've begun consolidating them into a single feed, and created a new format by breaking out our "You Ask Us" listener questions segment into its own episode. The new schedule, all in the same New Statesman podcast feed, looks like this: MONDAY Interview: featuring newsmakers, politicians, academics and journalists - incorporating politics, global affairs and big ideas. Hosted by a rotating cast of New Statesman journalists, incorporating the World Review team. THURSDAY Westminster weekly: our regular discussion on what's really going on in British politics, Hosted by Anoosh Chakelian and featuring our lobby reporters and guests. FRIDAY You Ask Us: Anoosh and the politics team answer listener questions SATURDAY Audio Long Reads: the best of our reported features and essays, read aloud. This leaves Tuesday and Wednesday free for special features, series, or partner content of which we run maybe one a month. So far the results are promising. Despite mixing up the formats the audience appears to be growing, with our MoM stats all in the green. I'll be watching closely to see what impact this has in the long term. Will existing listeners (who came for the politics coverage) appreciate the variety? Will additional coverage attract new listeners? Or will the volume of episodes overwhelm the feed? Once we have some more data I'll share an update. If you're a regular listener to the New Statesman podcast I'd love your direct feedback - drop a comment or a DM. And I'd love to know how others approach publishing strategy. What are doing with your podcasts? #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #strategy #contentstrategy
I hate it as a massive podcast consumer who likes to keep things organised, but as a publisher I recognise this works for the vast majority of the audience and helps with discovery for new shows. What about having an all-in feed as the one link you market, but keeping per show feed available for the power users? Or does that get too messy?
This is super interesting, Chris! Essentially treating your highest-performing feed like a more traditional linear channel, for listenters to tune into! Very interested to hear how this works going forwards!
Really interesting, although I guess the magazine itself has always been a mix of different types of content in one place, where readers can pick and choose what they want to read and discover articles they wouldn't necessarily have read otherwise. Let me know when you're ready to talk about it 😎
It will be really interesting to see what this shows over time. It challenges so much around listener habits, consistency and individual branding for multiple content streams under one banner.
Senior Campaigns Adviser at the Motor Neurone Disease Association
12moI'm a regular listener and I love this! It's similar with corporate social media channels - for a while the thinking was to have separate accounts for separate audiences (eg press and public). But that splits your following. If you combine everything on one, the audiences can just engage with what they like and ignore the rest. I've really enjoyed the audio long reads (especially the one about Spanish politics) in the main feed recently. And yesterday in the pub I was telling friends about 2 recent interviews I've enjoyed - 'What does a think tank actually do' and 'All politics is local'. Thanks so much for your excellent work!