Tuesday 25th August: New investment in podcast news & reviews from Vulture

August 25, 2020

Good morning (and how is it nearly the end of August already?) This morning's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

Not podcast production...actual journalism about podcasts! As podcasting attracts more listeners, there is apparently a growing demand for podcast news and reviews.

Vulture's expansion includes a new recommendations newsletter from noted podcast critic Nick Quah (of the Hot Pod newsletter), a dedicated site section, and more features and reviews.

"Our readers devour podcast stories as they navigate that ever-expanding universe," said editor Neil Janowitz. Sites like Vulture taking podcasting seriously as a medium will in turn help potential listeners find reviews and the information they need to access podcasts for the first time.

Who knows, the next Game of Thrones-style cultural conversation might be driven by a podcast...

This is a really interesting look at how the subscribe page on news publishers' websites has become an area of continuous testing. It actually brought to mind an article I saw on FIPP's site back in July which compares many complex publisher pricing tiers to Netflix's much simpler approach. Is it better to have flexible pricing and incentives, or is simple, fixed pricing better at building trust in the long term?

Despite its name, the Sunday Times Travel magazine isn't a supplement, it's sold on newsstands and by subscription. The magazine had an average monthly circulation of 53,500+ last year, which makes it the third-highest travel title in the UK. News UK have said they will focus investment in their core digital travel products instead.

Google used a new blog post to attack the Australian government's proposals, while admitting it would be unlikely to be able to escape its effects. "It simply isn’t viable for us, or any digital platform, to pay unreasonable and exorbitant amounts to one group in one country," they say.

Today's throwback:

As the lead story is about podcasts, today's throwback is to media analyst Nic Newman taking us through the findings of his report into News Podcasts and the Opportunities for Publishers for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. It looks at the future of news podcasting and the state of the medium across five different countries.

We're supporters of the International Magazine Centre, and they're running round two of their virtual Troika consultation on Sept 9th (with some familiar expert faces). It's a peer-to-peer consulting technique that allows small groups of publishing professionals to share and solve each other's business problems. So if you're a magazine publisher, this is a chance to get some fresh perspectives on any hurdles you might be facing.