Daily current affairs podcast The News Agents has reached 24 million downloads just seven months after its launch, Global has announced, increasing its previous growth trajectory.
“Today we're announcing that we've done 24 million downloads in seven months, which is incredible,” said Dino Sofos, creator of The News Agents and founder of production company Persefonica, speaking at the Radiodays Europe conference in Prague. “When I was at the BBC, with Brexitcast, Newscast and various other podcasts, I did 85 million downloads in four years, and so 24 in seven months is just incredible.”
The podcast launched in August last year, and by early December had achieved more than 10 million downloads. In recent months, the podcast has also broken major stories such as a new development on the privatisation of Channel 4, and played a role in influencing government policy as part of the most recent Budget, according to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
“What we've found now, and this is what I like to think of as the tipping point, is that when we first started out, I thought we would be breaking our backs trying to get guests to come on,” The News Agents co-host Emily Maitlis told conference attendees via video link. "Now we get people calling us. We get senior politicians, we get leaders and leaders of the opposition, we've had the Chancellor, you name it, coming on and say I think I'd like to do it, can you fit us in, and that's a great place to be.”
“Global is ambitious,” said Vicky Etchells, head of news and factual podcasts at Global Player. “So we've got really big exciting plans for the next year. But here's the challenge… What's the next thing? How do you keep going? How do you keep growing? So it's a conversation that we're having all the time. But yes, we've got big, exciting plans for the next shows.”
