Welcome to The Publisher Newsletter, by Media Voices. The podcast is on a break for a few weeks now while we plan our next season, and focus on The Publisher Summits. Missed an episode? Catch up here or search ‘The Publisher Podcast’ on your podcast app of choice.

Don’t miss 2025’s Publisher Newsletter Summit on 10th June, featuring speakers from The Economist, The Times, National World, The FT and more.

Topics include: launching paid newsletter series, how to convert newsletter readers to subscribers, tips for sign up and conversion optimisation, using other platforms to grow newsletters, and more.

Why The Economist is making its podcasts and newsletters more personal

The Economist has unparalleled expertise and an incredible reputation. What it doesn’t necessarily have is a personal relationship between its journalists and audiences – the foundation of successful podcasts and newsletters. That is set to change.

Podcasts and newsletters, by design, are personal. They exist in inboxes and apps, in the private spaces to which only the individual has access. They are closer to personally-penned missives than to indiscriminate mass broadcasts: to succeed in that rarefied space, they have to be treated and presented as such.

For The Economist, whose magazine articles are presented without byline as though the analysis originated directly from that stentorian parent newsbrand, that presents a dilemma. Do they continue to present podcasts and newsletters without a singular author, or does the need to be personal supersede that consideration?

Andrew Palmer, author of The Economist’s business-and-management focused column Bartleby, believes that the need to engage audiences as they wish to be engaged answers that question. He explains: “Our column names are totally baffling to anyone who doesn’t sort of read the magazine already or is not familiar with us. So if you’re in the know, lovely, but if you’re not, it’s like, ‘What the hell is Bartleby?’”

So when The Economist team was looking to broaden its suite of podcasts, the team took the decision to rebadge the Bartleby column as ‘Boss Class’ – now about to enter its second season. As with the column, it covers leadership and management that distills advice and experience from CEOs and profiles of companies doing it right.

While the decision to rebadge was partially motivated by a slight shift in how the topic is being covered in text versus audio, it was also as a recognition of the power of personality for building an audience. That has required a period of adjustment not just from the brand as a whole, but for its journalists.

A place to vent

Palmer explains that, as someone who has almost exclusively worked in written journalism, he had to discover what works best in audio: “I have found that, somewhat to my surprise and delight, that being able to just vent about things, and say the things that I wouldn’t normally vocalise actually turns out to be a really good way of writing a column – but also doing the audio stuff. 

“Being able to vocalise that, I hope, makes people feel like I’m on their side.”

It is, in the end, a lighter and more personality-led take on the Bartleby column, a shift that the team believes justifies a new sub-brand rather than coasting on the equity of the Bartleby column name. 

He explains: “[We ask] what are the three points that we’re trying to make that are helpful? What’s the nugget that a subscriber of The Economist wants? That’s a honed-over-years instinct… and then taking that personality and amping it up a little bit.”

It is the fifth limited series for Economist Podcasts+ – The Economist’s podcast subscription – which also includes shows like Scam Inc, a limited series on the world of online fraud, and Babbage, a weekly podcast on science and technology. With a suite of content that is extremely diverse in genre and coverage, the thing that remains consistent is the focus on being more personable in audio than in text.

Personality-led newsletters

To build upon the work of the Boss Class podcast as it enters its second season on May 12th, The Economist is also launching a companion newsletter – albeit under the original column’s name. Just as other organisations including the Financial Times have discovered, the intimate appeal of podcasts translates to newsletters too, so Palmer and the team are experimenting with having named bylines and more personal content for the companion newsletter.

Palmer says: “It’s subscriber only, so although it fulfils the function of ‘here’s the latest column, don’t forget to listen to the latest podcast episode’… that sense of engagement [with] the author is really important to the newsletter.” 

He notes, too, that the newsletters are the only place The Economist’s journalism is bylined, making it all the more important that the team nails that feeling of a personal relationship in inboxes. To that end the Bartleby newsletter allows its audience the chance to email Palmer directly, offering ‘direct access’ in a way that is relatively new to The Economist’s output.

He says the ultimate aim of opening up that relationship, and adding the new touchpoints for audiences, is to develop a new type of community for the title: “There is no other way to form a community. And that is the intent. So if you find your place and your person, it’s really powerful.” 

Building a new relationship

The Economist also faces another issue in growing audiences around its podcasts: discovery. That is a perennial problem for many titles, but even with the exceptional power of the brand behind it The Economist’s efforts to attract listeners have to overcome an obstacle other news outlets do not. Back in 2023, The Economist’s podcasts went behind a paywall.

That has implications for how the team promotes those podcasts. Ahead of Boss Class’ second seasons, for example, the entire first season is coming out from behind the paywall for a limited time. Additionally, the first two episodes of the second season – and the first company profile developed as a part of it – will be available to all listeners, not just paying subscribers.

Palmer says that it is designed, in part, to give would-be subscribers a taste of what is different about The Economist’s audio journalism. He also points out, however, that it is based on the team’s recognition of different consumption habits among its audience: “Firstly and most obviously, we're meeting people where they're consuming content, right? And if we're not doing podcasts, we're just not getting to them. 

“And we see that also in the way that people consume the weekly magazine, right? A whole bunch of people listen to the audio version of it, and don't read it.”

The Economist, then, has grappled with the universal issues relating to building a successful podcast and newsletter business. Compared to its contemporaries, however, it has had to do so from almost the opposite direction: it has unparalleled brand equity and a sterling reputation for in-depth analysis, but a by-design obfuscation of personality in its coverage.

With Economist Podcasts+ shows like Boss Class and its attendant newsletters, it is having to prove it can deliver upon developing that personality in order to reach new audiences.

Explore how podcasts and newsletters can work for your publishing business and connect with fellow professionals in the podcast and newsletter space at the Publisher Summits on 10th-11th June in London.

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