Podcast strategies of leading Aussie companies

As we approach crunch time for the announcement of finalists and winners in Radio Today’s 2022 Podcast Awards, let’s look at the podcast strategies of some of the big players in Australia.

Last month we showcased SCA’s LiSTNR strategy , outlined during an experiential event in Sydney.  CEO Grant Blackley can see a day when podcasting and other on demand audio assets are “at the centre of the company.”

ARN has developed a roadmap for its audio strategy that includes the expansion of its broadcast radio network and the continued growth of its podcast and on demand audio offerings through the iHeartRadio app.

Today we look at the strategies of Australia’s two national broadcasters and the rapid growth of News Limited’s NewsCast podcast business.

NewsCast

NewsCast entries to our Podcast Awards show a well thought out commercial strategy which goes beyond audio to social media, supplemented by other content forms, including speech to text. The company also now integrates its audio offerings into its newspaper websites.

As NewsCast’s swag of offerings keeps growing, it now offers flagship podcasts such as The Teacher’s Pet, The Teacher’s Trial, I Catch Killers, The Matty Johns Podcast, Browny’s Podcast, The Front, I’ve Got News For You and From the Newsroom, and many more new titles.

Publication of these titles is supported by other key strategy elements, including:

• Social assets for each and every episode of its flagship suite, creating channel-first outputs across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
• NewsCast have also led the way in thinking about audio as a ‘first class asset’. This includes investment into its accessibility features, like podcasting text to voice, voice to text and smart speaker initiatives that have been tested and launched to different levels over the past twelve months.
• NewsCast has also undertaken an internal project that allows for the integration of audio into a wholly digital publishing framework, meaning that editors are able to rank podcasts on their homepage and index pages. News Limited is the first publisher in the industry (that we know of) that has successfully completed this integration.

News Corp Australia is rapidly monetising the listening audience for its growing range of podcast offerings. The company believes that the audio space “is an essential part of content consumption, now and even more so in the future.”

ABC

The ABC’s News Division has spearheaded news and information podcasts as part of the corporation’s non-commercial strategy that sits within its charter to inform, educate and entertain all Australians.

Regular ABC Current Affairs shows AM, The World Today and PM are now available on all podcast platforms and on its own ABC Listen app daily after the show goes to air. The ABC Listen app also now delivers a National News stream, as well as headline bulletins from all capital cities and large ABC regional centres.

The ABC News audio strategy was rebuilt under Gaven Morris for efficiency reasons, and now links News Radio content with its news streams and state/regional bulletins to feed podcasts, the ABC Listen app’s News Stream and to provide instant localised updates to smart speakers and voice command enabled digital tvs.

In 2021 ABC News on Radio was reaching on average 880,000 Australians aged 10+ each week. The live stream of ABC News Radio in the Listen app recorded a 16% increase in weekly plays in 2021, after a 66% uplift in the previous year 2020.

Over the past five years podcasts have become an increasingly important source of news and current affairs. ABC News has recognised this growing audience with a suite of on-demand audio news programming designed to bring timely, accurate, compelling journalism to listeners’ ears when and where they want it.

ABC has grown its news podcasts beyond its daily radio programs, restructuring Saturday AM into a podcast titled This Week and introducing new podcasts including ABC News Daily, Insiders, the If You’re Listening shows, Coronacast, The Ticket and others.

ABC News’ podcasts are designed to fit in with busy lives, and reflect the best reporting ABC News has to offer, in podcast-form. “In doing so ABC News has led the way in shaping an Australian podcast industry that is mature, high-quality and grounded in news values.”

The prioritisation of podcasts at ABC News has been “transformative for the industry,” the news podcast space in Australia is now competitive and thriving. Where Australian listeners once turned to US-based podcasts for their audio news, there are now myriad podcasts competing for a diverse range of listeners on all podcast platforms, driven by news values, Australian stories and high-quality production.

SBS

SBS has continued to grow its multilingual podcast output since the launch of its first podcasts in 2008. Growth accelerated in 2022 with major investment in podcasting, including an expansion of the podcast team and new commissioning strategy.

SBS now has over 100 podcasts in English and more than 60 other languages, including bespoke podcast series as well as repurposed radio. These podcasts serve the needs of many different audiences and cover a wide range of genres including news and current affairs, society & culture, history, sport, business, language learning and entertainment.

SBS’ podcasts include award-winning, distinctive and popular podcasts series like Great Minds, Bad Taste, My Bilingual Family, My Arab Identity, The Uluru Statement from the Heart in your language, Eyes on Gilead, Slow Italian Fast Learning, Our Deaf Ways, and Chinese-ish; alongside core daily output of shortform news and current affairs podcasts produced by the SBS Radio team.

The output makes SBS the most multilingual podcast publisher in Australia and the world, more than the BBC World Service, RFI or any others, with goals driven by the SBS Charter.

The finalists in the 2022 Radio Today Podcast Awards will be announced next week.

Key Dates:

• Entries Closed: Sunday, July 24 at 11.59pm AEST
• Judging Period: Monday, July 25 to Sunday, August 14
• Finalists Announced: Monday, August 15
• Winners Announced: Monday, August 22

Headline Sponsor:

Supporting Partners

Judging Process:
• The awards have a specially curated judging panel, formed by mixing peers with those elsewhere in the value chain, to make sure that the judgement is informed and considered from all relevant sides of the industry
• Radio Today will publish the full list of judges during the entry period
• Judges will be required to score each submission against specific criteria
• This system makes sure that each and every judge will score every allocated entry, and allows the editorial team to identify any potential bias or inconsistencies
• Judges are able to recuse themselves from entries if necessary. The process is designed to be transparent and fair to all parties.