Wednesday 28th April: Podcast subscriptions are coming and they matter

April 28, 2021

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

The pivot to paid has well and truly arrived in podcast land.

Spotify and Apple both recently announced paid platforms that will let podcast creators set up subscriber-only episodes. As usual Apple is skimming 30% off the top while Spotify will take nothing for two years.

America's original podcast network NPR is already planning an ad-free subscription service in partnership with Apple and Spotify, although it has committed to keeping some content free to access.

The move to paid will rile some elements of the podcast community, who desperately want to hold on to podcasting's open-access ethos. But as Eric Nuzum says in his Audio Insurgent newsletter, subscriptions matter because relying on one revenue source is a bad idea:

"Just as advertising can lead you to pursue behaviors that aren’t in your long-term best interest, subscriptions can point you towards behaviors that are definitely in your long-term best interest."

The transition from third-party cookies to FLoCs, cohort based tracking and targeting, isn't going quite as smoothly as Google might have hoped. The New York Times is among the publishers open to testing FLoCs, but the WordPress community, European regulators and now The Guardian are all far more reticent.

In the latest report from his Mediafutures research, Jim Bilton says that, as an industry, publishing is not as tech-savvy as it needs to be. He says technology remains the industry’s biggest barrier to success in 2021 with competence varying widely from company to company and from area to area inside individual businesses.

It won't sort your company's tech stack, but if you need some help getting things done, What's New In Publishing has a roundup of the 10 digital tools showcased at the NICAR21 data journalism conference. From video transcription to organising your inbox, this top 10's worth a look.

This week's episode:

This week we hear from Gina Tonic co-founder of The Fat Zine, an independent magazine by fat people for fat people, plus those that care. We spoke about the F word, the influence of Pitch Perfect, being an activist vs being a publisher, Fat Liberation and how inside every thin person there’s a fat person dying to get out.

Catch up with this year's winning podcasts and find your next great listen. You can also watch a video of the awards ceremony if you missed it and read about our plans for a Summit next year. All thoughts welcome - just reply to this email!