Welcome to The Publisher Newsletter, by Media Voices. Last call for our online Publisher Masterclass on improving and optimising your newsletter strategy with Inbox Collective’s Dan Oshinsky this coming Wednesday on October 9th. Newsletter subscribers can get an exclusive 20% off using the code MVNL20 at checkout.

This season is sponsored by BlueConic, the operating system that puts data into action for marketing and growth doers. The industry-first solution empowers doers with an unmatched range of capabilities to access relevant customer data, create resonant customer experiences, and drive maximum returns for their business.

More than 500 businesses worldwide rely on BlueConic to unlock their full customer data potential, including Forbes, Heineken, Mattel, Michelin, Telia Company, and VF Corp.

7 lessons from a year of paywalled podcasts at The Economist

One year ago, The Economist took a leap of faith and moved all their podcasts (bar one) behind a paywall. It’s paid off, with the publisher saying they have retained 80% of listeners. Director of Podcasts John Shields looks back at what they’ve learned over the past 12 months of Economist Podcasts+.

The topic of paywalled podcasts keeps cropping up in conversations we have, especially around the Publisher Podcast Summit. When The Economist announced last autumn that they were putting their entire podcast portfolio – with the exception of flagship show The Intelligence – behind a paywall, we anticipated a slew of others doing the same.

But fast forward a year, and paid podcasts remain few and far between. Some publishers like Immediate Media and Bauer have launched subscriber-only shows as premium add-ons to existing podcasts. The New York Times announced earlier this month that they will begin drawing some podcasts behind a paywall. Yet none have followed The Economist with quite the same boldness. 

John Shields, Director of Podcasts at The Economist spoke to The Publisher Podcast this week about preparing to make the leap, communicating with listeners about the changes, and how uptake of the new Podcasts+ subscription tier has gone. He believes paid audio will become much more widespread in the future, which is why The Economist is getting ahead of the curve.

Here are seven lessons from our conversation for other publishers considering launching paywalled podcasts, or making their existing shows available only to subscribers.

1: People will pay

It’s a familiar tale to anyone who has been in the industry in the last decade or so: everything on the internet is free, so how can we ask people to pay for it? It’s a particularly acute issue in podcasting at the moment: with thousands of (often) high-quality shows competing for listener attention, what would convince people to pay to access podcasts?

“We had various pitches about all the extra things you’d get with a subscription, but the pitch that really landed very solidly was the central one of, good journalism costs money and needs to be supported,” Shields said, explaining how they went about communicating to listeners. “That was a huge relief, and was very encouraging… to know that people appreciate what we do and see the value in it, so it’s not a huge leap for them to start thinking about paying for it.”

In fact, Shields shared that they hit an initial target for 30,000 paid subscriptions within the first six months. With a monthly price point of £4.90, that’s encouraging additional revenue that wasn’t there before. Existing Economist subscribers get access to podcasts as part of a main subscription, so this is a new tier of subscribers for the publisher.

“Most gratifyingly, the vast majority of those have never paid for an Economist subscription before,” Shields said. “And secondly, the vast majority also have never bought an audio subscription before. So in terms of that bet on creating a new behaviour, or at least being out ahead of a new behaviour in podcast listening, I’m very satisfied that that’s worked.”

2: Listener numbers remain strong

Prior to the launch of Economist Podcasts+, The Economist’s podcast portfolio has been described as their fastest-growing platform, with the audience doubling between 2020 and 2023 to 5 million monthly unique listeners.

Shields said that there was concern about how many of those listeners they were going to lose when they made the switch. “As producers, that really is a source of anxiety,” he said. “But in the end, we’ve held on to 80% of our audience in terms of numbers, so that’s really reassuring.”

Keeping weekday episodes of The Economist’s flagship Monday-Friday podcast The Intelligence free has helped mitigate some of this risk, as well as providing a channel to sample episodes of other shows. Shields noted that around the time of launching the paywall, they also added a sixth episode on a Saturday called The Weekend Intelligence. This is a more scripted, narrative-style episode available only to paying subscribers, but is visible in the main feed.

For publishers with multiple shows, having some shows available to listen for free or having mixed paywalled and open episodes can be a good way of showcasing audio work while exposing listeners to paid options.

3: Personalities are highly valued

The Economist’s articles famously aren’t bylined, and its journalists are largely anonymous. This allows ‘many writers to speak with a collective voice,’ according to their FAQ, with articles being the work of a hive mind rather than a single author: ‘What is written is more important than who writes it.’

However, in audio this level of anonymity is simply impossible to maintain. Not only that, audiences today tend to build trust with people rather than brands. Shields acknowledged that The Economist has had a journey in this respect, and they realised very quickly that the “strongest lever in persuading listeners to change habits, to do something new, are the podcast hosts.”

“The strength of The Economist is that it has this very strong voice and opinionated voice, often that comes from the hive mind; this brilliant expertise that the journalists on the team have,” Shields explained. “But as media habits evolve – obviously podcasts being prime among them but also videos – people are getting to know The Economist journalists, getting to know what they sound like, what they look like. I think that’s helpful, and normal in the environment we’re in.”

Don’t expect to see headshots and bylines in the magazine just yet, but it’s a learning that the publisher is taking very seriously as it navigates new consumption habits.

4: It takes a mindset shift

Shields said one unexpected hurdle  the team faced internally was letting go of the importance of listener numbers. “As producers and hosts, you’re used to wanting the biggest possible audience for your work,” he explained. “So that was a big psychological shift. Lots of hosts [said], ‘Well we can paywall some podcasts, but please don’t paywall mine!’” 

This worry was quickly overcome once people began signing up. Shields noted that it was also well-timed around an update Apple was making to podcast download measurement. “Everyone was questioning, what is a download? How many people are actually out there?” he said.

“You could see as the subscriptions came in and people were linking their accounts, that’s a really powerful feeling because suddenly you’ve got paying customers… and it meant those fears amongst producers and hosts evaporated much more quickly than I thought.” 

It will be a familiar dilemma to any publishers with paywalls. Journalists are similarly keen to get their work read by as many people as possible, and it does require a mindset shift and tactful leadership to overcome any initial resistance.

5: Long-term thinking is essential

In the grand scheme of things, a year isn’t very long to have it all figured out, even if The Economist are first movers. Shields repeatedly emphasised that paywalling podcasts is a bet on the longer term, and he drew on the historical ‘original sin’ of the internet in making content free to parallel the case of audio.  

“Publishers like us made a huge mistake in giving away our journalism for free,” he commented. “It’s a bet that audio is something we think is going to change over the next five to 10 years,”

With this in mind, Shields was grateful for the decisive leadership at The Economist in being prepared to take short-term hits to advertising revenue from podcasts. “It’s a bet on the way legacy media and podcasts in general are going, so any bumps in the road in terms of impact on advertising in the first few months are in that context,” he explained. 

“Obviously you have fewer listeners, and that’s just part and parcel of the strategy. But what you’re gaining is engaged subscribers, and that idea of having podcasts as absolutely a central part of our journalism and our subscriber strategy.”

6: This is just the beginning

With a long term roadmap in mind, The Economist are content that this is the first iteration of Economist Podcasts+. There are aspects of the user journey and paywall placement that need optimising, and as the technology improves, they need to be ready to adapt and think about different things they can do.

“We’re very conscious that we won’t have nailed it necessarily first time, but we are pleased that we were out there ahead of others, and that hopefully gives us a bit of an edge,” Shields said. He also noted that although the majority of listeners are coming from Spotify and Apple, they are seeing more listening on The Economist’s own app, and have added a podcast tab to assist this behaviour.

“We had a lot of deliberations over aspects of the strategy,” he added. “Once you make that decision and everyone follows that decision, it’s actually hard to keep maintaining that spirit of debate. 

“Obviously we try to. But I would say, if you go at it with that in mind, that this is going to be version one, and you’re going to iterate, that’s hugely helpful.”

7: Other publishers shouldn’t be afraid to follow

Shields has been asked for his advice on paywalling podcasts numerous times in the past year. His top takeaway is to be bold. “At no point have I thought we should have been less bold, boldness has always been rewarded,” he emphasised. This is new territory we’re staking out, we’re experimenting and iterating.” 

Communication is always important, both internally and externally. Shields said that publishers can do anything they like, as long as they tell the audience what is going on and why. That’s true of changing up the format of a podcast, as well as strategic and commercial evolutions. “You’ve got to make the effort to bring people with you,” he said.

But the most interesting takeaway was how quickly subscriber-only podcasts have become normal for The Economist. “Thinking back to a year ago, how this all felt like such a leap,” he concluded. “Now it’s completely normalised, and we’re all getting on with our jobs and enjoying having this much more engaged audience.”

Sponsored by BlueConic, your all-in-one customer data solution. Go from data to insights to action with BlueConic’s fully integrated customer data operation system. Learn more at BlueConic.com, where data is for doing.

More good reads from the week: