Paid podcasting is nowadays so much a part of the industry, that it’s hard to imagine that, as recently as 2019, many were sniggering as Morten Strunge launched Podimo with the crazy idea that consumers might hand over actual money to listen to a mere podcast.
Starting this month, The New York Times (NYT) will offer its audio subscription for purchase via Apple Podcasts and Spotify, a move that aligns with a broader trend among publishers, such as Vox Media and The Economist, which are increasingly experimenting with paywalled podcasts to expand their subscription audiences.
Ben Cotton, NYT’s head of subscription growth, emphasised the importance of building direct customer relationships through platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, leveraging their (Apple’s and Spotify’s) technology to enhance user experience.
In an interesting approach, the NYT will offer frontlist stories free and put the full list behind a paywall. Listeners will need to subscribe to access older episodes of popular NYT shows like The Daily, The Ezra Klein Show, Modern Love, and Hard Fork. So while the latest three episodes of The Daily will remain free, for example, deeper archives and most other shows will only offer the latest two episodes for free. Subscribers will also enjoy perks like early access to new shows from Serial Productions, acquired by NYT in 2020.
The subscription will cost $6 monthly or $50 annually, mirroring the price of the NYT Audio app, which includes all NYT audio content.
Since launching The Daily in 2017, NYT’s podcast business has flourished. NYT Audio, released in May 2023, reached over 1 million downloads last year, with nearly 1 billion podcast downloads in 2023, reports Axios.
This audio subscription initiative is part of NYT’s long-term strategy to grow its subscription business by paywalling more content once a critical audience mass is reached. NYT plans to partner with more third parties to expand its subscription base off-platform. It will count new podcast subscribers from Apple Podcasts or Spotify towards its overall subscription total. The company aims to reach 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, up from its current 10.84 million.
TNPS regulars will be familiar with the shift of podcasting from a niche, free-to-consumer service to its current status.
Paid podcasting is nowadays so much a part of the industry, that it’s hard to imagine that, as recently as 2019, many were sniggering as Morten Strunge launched Podimo with the crazy idea that consumers might hand over actual money to listen to a mere podcast.
Yet podcasting has now become central to their revenue strategies. This shift is driven by the medium’s ability to build direct relationships with audiences in a way that news stories and audiobooks, for example, cannot, and offer exclusive, high-quality content that listeners are willing to pay for.
Market value estimates vary wildly at a global level, with one report suggesting the global podcasting market was valued at $18.52 billion in 2022, and projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6% from 2023 to 20301.
In the United States the numbers are not that much more reliable, with one report suggesting a 2020 valuation of $11.5 billion is expected to reach $94.88 billion globally by 2028, while another says that the entire global podcasting sector was only worth $2.22 billion in 2022 and was projected to grow from $2.84 billion in 2023 to $17.59 billion by 2030.
But regardless of just how accurate those numbers are, podcasting is going to be bringing in serious money to publishers of all types that are willing to take podcasting seriously.
This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.
