News podcasts are, increasingly, something you watch (but The Daily still works best as audio)

Large publishers see video as one big future for podcasts, according to a report out Thursday from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ). They’re certainly not abandoning audio, but they’re aware that many young people hear “podcast” and think “YouTube.” “The discovery mechanisms for video are much better. Video as a medium is extremely personable and transferrable,” Nina Lassam, vice president of audio and video news at The New York Times, told Nic Newman, the report’s author and a senior research associate at RISJ. “People share clips on Instagram, on TikTok, and on YouTube Shorts. I think the audience is new, and I think it is bigger.” Many publishers are also prioritizing daily news and conversational podcasts, moving away from expensive, highly produced Serial-type shows. News podcasts have “become more reactive,” Phil Maynard, head of podcasts at The Guardian, said. “Podcasts that were taking two to three days to turn around weren’t necessarily what the audience wanted, or at least, it wasn’t the only thing they wanted. They also wanted reactive stuff, and they wanted the people that they trust most to tell them what’s just happened.” So The Guardian launched The Latest, a daily 10-minute video podcast, as a spinoff of its deep-dive Today in Focus. “Podcasts fit well into my routine because they allow me to stay informed and entertained without needing to dedicate exclusive time to them,” Ben, a 23-year-old from the U.K., told RISJ. Does video change that? It’s hard to watch a podcast on YouTube while walking the dog or doing the dishes. In interviews with 50 regular news podcast consumers from the U.S., the U.K., and Norway, RISJ found that people switch back and forth between audio or video depending on where they are, and may primarily be listening even if they have a video of a podcast on. “If I am working remotely from home and don’t have anything going on, I would say that it is definitely about 80% listening to video, the other 20% audio,” Jamie, a 47-year-old in the U.S., said. “And then when I’m working away from home, then I would say the majority of time it is about 80% audio, 20% video.” Another American, 31-year-old Nathan, said video podcasts let you “see the emotions better” and, because he’s already a heavy YouTube user, defaults to it for podcasts, too. “He knows that podcasts exist on other platforms (e.g. Apple),” the report notes, “but says he has never even explored that option because it is so convenient to have them in the same place as his other favorite content.” YouTube is not the only platform offering video podcasts. The report notes that “by 2024 there were over 250,000 video podcasts on [Spotify] and half of the top 20 shows, including the Joe Rogan Experience and Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, are now available in video.” (Apple Podcasts did not begin supporting video until this year.) Not every podcast works well as video. Notably, The New York Times’ flagship The Daily — which remains the most-mentioned news podcast in the U.S. in RISJ’s research, followed by another audio-first product, NPR’s Up First — remains primarily audio. (Its tagline: “This is how the news should sound.”) “Making The Daily exactly the same in video would be a challenge. The production of the show is established in audio and our listeners have grown to value the relationship they have with that journalism in audio,” Lassam said. “Whilst we are really interested in and are investing in video podcasts,” said Nicole Jackson, The Guardian’s global head of multimedia, “we are also keenly aware that there is still this huge audio-only audience out there.” That means doing some video interviews even for audio-focused investigations, and creating promotional videos for social media. The Guardian’s Football Weekly now has a full-video version. “The challenge for the business overall is that we are both trying to maintain discoverability from the collapse of search and the growth of AI, while also maintaining high numbers of highly engaged subscribers,” said John Shields, The Economist’s director of podcasts. “And podcast videos crystalize that dilemma.” You can read the full report here.