This is an automatically generated transcript of the PodPod episode ‘Ben Youatt: Growing a publisher podcast network’. We apologise for any errors in spelling and grammar.
Rhianna Dhillon
Hello, welcome to PodPod. I'm Rhianna Dhillon and I'm joined this week by Reem Makari, PodPod journalist and researcher, and Adam editor of PodPod. Hi, guys.
Reem Makari
Hello, how are you?
Rhianna
I'm very well, thanks. How are you guys doing? Good, good. So obviously, this is the podcast all about podcasting for podcasters. And it's a week in which we've just had the Arias, which is always a huge deal in radio but for podcasters as well. So tell us what's been going on, who won?
Reem
So one of the biggest highlights for podcasting on that night which by the way, it was a very long night.
Rhianna
Was it? Were you there?
Reem
Yes, first time attending the Arias, very long but very interesting, very cool people. But a big podcast highlight was the fact that from BBC Sounds Audio Lab Colouring in Britain, won best new podcast, and for the speech, Tomi and the commissioning exec for Audio Labs, they went to accept the award and Tomi was giving this speech and he was like, he didn't prepare anything because he didn't expect to win at all, because yes, it is a BBC podcast, but it is coming from an independent creator who literally just was mentored and and started this project on their own. And it's a very important project.
Adam Shepherd
And in fact, he was so not expecting to win that... So is it the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, all of the nominees are meant to be seated down in the stalls so that if their names called they can get up to the stage easily. We as non nominees were seated up right in the nosebleeds. Right. Back in the circle. Yeah. And when they called out Colouring in Britain, as the winner of the gold award for that category, we actually saw Tomi stand up like three rows in front of us and leg it down through the entire theatre! The presenters were on stage like looking around the theatre for him!
Reem
poor guy, but it was a very happy moment.
Rhianna
Yeah, I mean, it was up against Ukrainecast, Betwixt the Sheets, Talksport, Prison Radio, BBC Scotland, yeah, there were that was a very competitive category. And also what I find really interesting about this year's Arias is the fact that in categories where there was a mix of radio and podcasts, often the podcasts won, right?
Adam
yeah, the podcast did, I'm gonna say without crunching the numbers, I think at least as well for wins, as the radio shows did in the kind of mix categories, which is really interesting. I have to admit I wasn't expecting it to be quite that balanced. And I think it really shows how seriously podcasting is being taken by the overall audio industry.
Rhianna
So our interview this week is with Ben Youatt, who is head of podcasting at Immediate Media, and they they cover an awful lot of podcasts, including BBC Good Food, BBC History Extra, the Radio Times podcast. Adam Immediate Media is what exactly?
Adam
so Immediate Media is a publishing company. They're not actually affiliated with the BBC, the BBC sold off a number of its magazine brands to Immediate Media some years ago, so it operates these brands under the BBC name, but independent of the corporation.
Rhianna
so we're gonna go into all sorts of Ben including how to run a publisher podcast network and how he works with all of these brands and encourages them in certain ways and supports them of course, as well. So here is Ben Youatt, talking to me and Adam all about publisher podcasts. Ben Youatt, welcome to PodPod. Hello.
Ben Youatt
Hi, guys. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Rhianna
Thanks so much for joining us. We were kind of congratulating ourselves the other day for winning an award at the Publisher Podcast Awards, you won two - Immediate Media won two - so extra round of applause for that. Congratulations.
Ben Youatt
Thank you very much.
Adam
A History Extra round of applause, if you will.
Ben Youatt
The puns have started! Yeah, we got we got two awards, which is really great. We picked that one for History Extra, we picked up one for BBC Good Food. So yeah, it was a good start to award season. There's a couple more on the horizon. So fingers crossed, but yeah,
Rhianna
I'm sure we'll be seeing you again. So your title is head of podcasting at Immediate Media, which is an incredible title. I've got to be honest, it's a very cool one. What does it actually mean? What does it actually encompass at Immediate?
Ben Youatt
Yeah, I suppose it's a bit it's a bit fancy, really, isn't it? Well, so head of podcasts at Immediate Media 10 years ago, if you were to look at Immediate Media, you would see it as probably a very traditional publishing company and magazine publishing company. A lot of people listening in are probably familiar with a lot of our brands, especially in the UK, we've got brands like Radio Times, we've got brands like History Extra, BBC Good Food, Gardeners World, a giant host of other magazines. And you know, we really cover a lot of different areas, a lot of different spaces. So I suppose my job as head of podcast is to try and work as a central department that sort of introduces podcasting as a medium as a tool for those heritage brands to be able to use audio to reach out to new users to create new content types to tell, maybe not completely new stories, but tell stories in a new way, the reach users and sort of create a sense of investment and engagement, and then hopefully, try and make a business out of it at the same time. So my job is really to sit centrally and pull together the different aspects of what that involves, whether it be marketing or sales strategy, working between the editorial teams and the production teams. And just generally, I'm sort of just I don't really, I'm a master of nothing. But I work with a lot of other people who are masters of various fields.
Adam
I'm sure that's not true.
Ben Youatt
Yeah, humble to a fault. But yeah, I do my best I do my best to other people.
Adam
So how many podcasts does Immediate operate in total,
Ben Youatt
it sometimes fluctuates, because of seasonality, and so on. But at any given point, we're usually producing between 12 and 15 shows in a given month.
Adam
Wow.
Ben Youatt
It's a lot. And it can... When I first started, which was nearly five years ago, we were doing about five episodes a week across about four or five brands. And now we're doing 15 shows 15 different brands, and about 30-35 episodes a week. So it's it's expanded massively in the last couple of years.
Rhianna
What are kind of some of those early strategies that you have when a brand approaches you and they say, you know, we want to expand into podcasting. Of course, that would depend on who the brand is and what they do what they offer. But I think especially for some, it's about trying to get older people who are perhaps fans of certain things involved in the podcasting, younger people who maybe don't use physical media in quite the same way. Yeah, tell us about those strategies.
Ben Youatt
That's actually the really fun part of my job is to be able to talk to different brands, because I get a really privileged perspective, being a central team member, I don't sit on History Extra, I don't sit on Radio Times. So in that way, we get to work with the entire Immediate company, if they choose to have a podcast, we get to sit in and sort of be an added member of that team. And that feels really great to have that. That wide range and that experience. But what you learn pretty quickly is that different brands are in it for completely different reasons. So the first thing we do is try and ask them why. Which might sound really simple, but it's often the thing that stumps a lot of people. And it's often the thing that when you when you actually get under the hood, and you figure out why, sometimes the idea they may have started with ends up being completely different when you actually hammer out a strategy around why you're trying to do this. For example, History Extra was a show that was already running for about 10 years before I joined the company, it's been running for about 15 years now. It already had a massive following, not as big as it is now. But it was sort of doing well over a million listens a month at that point. And it was growing and growing and growing. And their objective was at that point in time when I first joined, right, how do we take this show that's already very successful and make it commercially viable. Let's look at the ways that this can help us boost some of the awareness around our other products like our magazine or web subscription, and those agendas have basically still stayed with us. But we've gotten a lot better at actually actioning a lot of those strategies. But other brands coming into brand new, like Good Food, which have been around for a couple years, Radio Times, for them, it's not about having this existing business, it's about starting something fresh. And that's really exciting for us being able to sit down with a brand like Radio Times and say okay, well, Radio Times is typically known for having an older readership, is typically known for sort of TV and terrestrial TV at that. So how do we take a digital medium, and help them really get who they are out to a new, younger audience. And that's what the brand wanted to do with the strategy behind the show. And that's what we try and do with that marketing with our use of social channels, with our choice of guests with our choice of hosts. And that is really fun sort of being able to build this architecture of what they're trying to drive out. And the way you treat the show to achieve those objectives. That's, that's really great.
Rhianna
If somebody doesn't have the right why, would you sort of advise not moving forward with a podcast or at least putting that idea on hold for a little while?
Ben Youatt
We would normally not onboard a project unless various parties were happy with it. So being a big publisher, it means you've got a lot of stakeholders, which can also make things move slower than maybe independents are able to which is sometimes a struggle but often a fun challenge to try and get everyone enthusiastic about stuff. So for example, if we're doing a strategy that is aimed at making money, but there's something that doesn't work, there will be a senior sales stakeholder there has to advise on it. And there will be a sense check, same for a marketing approach if we're trying to reach a younger audience. But our hosts are maybe very, you know, mature. And the format is more akin to an older audience, then it doesn't line up. So it wouldn't I don't think we're in danger of starting to onboard projects that don't fit the brief that they've set out for themselves. But yeah, I think it makes it harder, because it just means that brands aren't really in the world of podcasting. They don't understand how subtle changes to the voice of it, the format of it, the length of it, the person you put in front of audiences, all of those things, which to a podcasting publisher or to a producer, we just know it straight away, sometimes you have to work a little bit harder to build that understanding. But yeah, I think typically, if we did get an idea that was really off brief, we would just work with the brand and try and get them to think about those things for themselves.
Adam
I'm curious about how Immediate first got into podcasting in a really sort of strategic way. So you mentioned History Extra, which was, I think it's fair to say, an early pioneer in terms of publisher podcasts, or rather editorial brand driven podcasts. But Immediate as an organisation hasn't been investing in podcasting on an organisational level for quite as long as that, right. How did the organisation first decide to start really backing podcasting as a main pillar?
Ben Youatt
That's a good question. I think I should give full credit at this point to Dave Musgrove, who is the content director of BBC History magazine, who established the History Extra podcast 15 years ago. And at the time, they were just doing one episode a month, it was normally two interviews back together, back to back, if you go back to our very first interviews on the feed, you'll see it and the production quality isn't as good as it is now. And we obviously release episodes daily now. So there's a lot of learnings from 2007, to where we are now.
Adam
Because it initially started as an archival thing, right? It was interviews that they'd done, you know, for the magazine that they were just like, well, we've got these recorded anyway, we might as well do something with them.
Ben Youatt
That's completely bang on. And I think it just became one of those conversations that the editorial team would basically have a random Monday morning planning session. And they say, are you talking to so and so next week? And they say, Yeah, I'm doing that. Well, we're trying to do this podcast thing. Can you take a microphone? Can you take a dictaphone? Can you see what we can get? And it started slow. And if there was no targets in mind, there was no sort of this is the objective. Certainly back then, when podcasting was only for a select few publishers, we have maybe not even, not even five or six major publishers in the UK, were doing anything around podcasting. So they really were a pioneer. That's the right word for it. And they were there with the likes of the Ricky Gervais Podcast, you know, one of the first big British podcasters to really accept the medium and run with it. So that started out of just wanting to play around with it as a format. It was cost effective. They were doing the work anyway, they were just going to use the transcripts that they were doing. And yeah, it was just something they could bolt on. So that was where they started now cut forward, maybe 10 years when my predecessor was here. And when I took over and started running the team, that's when as a company, they started saying, Okay, well, there's all this engagement in History, we've got these other shows, we want to try and make them into successful standalone products on their own. We can't just sort of, you know, tape everything to History and let that be the main front runner, the flagship, we need these other shows to try and build. And that's what we're doing. Now. Granted, none of them are as big as History Extra, it's still our flagship, but we've got aspirations for the rest of the portfolio. And it is going nicely. And you know, we are making strides, which I'm happy about. But yeah, I think it was basically about four years ago, or maybe three and a half years ago, when History really started to make money of its podcast, which changed a lot of attitudes internally around, okay, this is a this actually is a viable form of income. It's not just eyeballs or people listening. It's actually something that can be commercialised. And I think that's largely to do with market trend as well. You know, the way that listen through models work the way the ad tech works that way with sponsorship works, it's just getting more and more sophisticated. And often if you're a publisher, you can't take full advantage of the commercial models around podcasting, because they're a lot more suited to independence. You do straight endorsements, you do bespoke episodes, you get brand ambassadors on to have a chat about different products. And there is that intimacy around a product recommendation, which of course we can't do because we're BBC. So I think even with all those restrictions, the ad tech and the market is basically caught up with where we were with our earlier success. And that had a huge impact in terms of our leadership team. And our internal management saying, right this is a viable commercial strategy as well as being an interesting medium. Let's invest and get some other shows in the in the running.
Rhianna
So what kind of revenue models have you been exploring with your podcasts and do you approach them all in a similar way?
Ben Youatt
So that is again, very similar to the way that we will tailor a brief to suit the brand's needs around the why. So you know what kind of content you create and what kind of audience you're going after. The commercial strategy often plays in the same way we know if you're starting a brand new show from scratch, you probably shouldn't expect to have a million listeners in your first month, you know, your first run, that would be incredibly ambitious. And it would be a huge success, we'd love that, but you know, doesn't typically happen. So for that, you know, you do want to tell your commercial models after going after specific clients or having sponsorship, which is a bit more high value rather than generic ads, which have a lot of CPM rates. So you have to serve a lot more scale to be effective serving ads, rather than sponsorship, sometimes just timing, releasing a series when it's when it's timely. You know, you wouldn't release maybe an entertainment series in the middle of summer, compared to you know, that market explodes around winter and around Christmas streaming services, and so on, put a lot more money into the market in the lead up to Christmas. So just things like that things that you would be a common sense strategy of when are you doing it? What type of show is it? What are the clients that are in that arena? Who can we reach out to? And how can we make this package more appealing to the people who want to be aligned with our brands?
Adam
One of the interesting approaches that we've seen in this space is Tortoise who like yourselves are a an editorial publisher. They have a membership based model, but they also do podcast specific subscriptions through Apple's tooling, alongside using podcasts as a wider brand levels, subscriptions, revenue tool and selling ads and partnerships on the podcast themselves. Have you explored using podcast specific subscription models with some of your shows?
Ben Youatt
Yes, we have. So again, feel like we're just talking about History all the time. But History. So about two years ago, with Apple podcast subscriptions and their service, we released a channel called History Extra Plus, as a number of benefits for subscribers. It's been running for two years, it's growing steadily. And it's becoming a more and more interesting part of what we're doing for users. What it basically offers is an ad free experience. So if people want to completely ad free listening experience, you sign up, you'll never get an ad ever again, as long as you listen on that platform. We also released early access special series. So in April, we released Six Wives, which was a six part sort of, sort of slightly more Radio 4 approach to instead of a regular History Extra podcast, which is a one on one interview for say 40 minutes with one historian on one topic, it's a more docu drama approach, whereas multiple voices narrative thread that ties each episode together a lot more music, sound effects, it's a bit more of a higher production value. So we'll release that in bulk on Apple podcasts on History Extra Plus on Apple podcasts, users will get that ad free in early access for maybe two months or three months. And then later that will be released for free on the free feed. But that will be one a week. So it's it's more of an incentive for people sign up if you really want to get into that series. And you really want to consume it in one go and binge it and so on. But what it also does is it allows us the ability to create individual feeds for curated collections. So if you're a really big history fan, you've got a Tudors collection, a Romans collection, a Vikings collection. And it just is a really easy way for us to curate and tailor your experiences history fans, if you do take out History Extra Plus subscription, all of that stuff is just put into nice, easy buckets for you to just go where you want to go. So there's a number of benefits to it as well, as well as bonus content. It's exclusively behind the paywall, which you can't get anywhere else, except the History Extra website and app which also has a subscription offering for it. So if you went to the History Extra website, you'd be able to look at a couple of pages, and then you'd be asked to sign up and all of the podcasts benefits we have on Apple are also on the website in the app.
Rhianna
So is there a reason why you wouldn't roll that out across certain other podcasts that it just wouldn't suit?
Ben Youatt
I think to be completely candid about it, we want to make sure that we've grown our audience size to a substantial user base, that sort of top of funnel is looking very substantial and robust,
Rhianna
which is what, by the way, like roughly?
Ben Youatt
well, it'd be hard to put a specific number on it because I think for different brands, you could have a very small but highly engaged audience, you know, things around news or things around sports or things about celebrity, you can see it already on channels like YouTube or like Patreon, people are willing to pay $10, $15 a month for an exclusive membership to someone they deeply care about. So as a business if you only had, you know, 5000 people sign up, that's a substantial amount of revenue every month. So you wouldn't need a million users. You know, you could do it with a core group of 4 or 5000 subscribers and as long as you provide a great product that people are happy to continue consuming That's a real business. You know, I remember going to the Pod show in London last year and talking to the guys from Red Handed, or watching their show as well. And they were talking about their subscription offer. And it's all of that, you know, it's all about how do you drive huge engagement, you don't need a massive audience to really make a successful business out of it. That puts the pressure on a publisher to really get a mainstream audience in in the first place. You know, for a brand like Gardeners World who's doing really well in our portfolio, they've got, you know, a huge amount of listeners every month, we're moving in to summer and spring now, and you know, they've got a lot of listens. But that doesn't necessarily mean they've got hundreds of 1000s of users tuning in. And you would need a substantial amount of users at the top of funnel who are willing to consume the content for free before you can funnel those people down into your subscriber base. And typically, if you've got more than 10% of your user base converted into a subscription rate, that's well above the industry, average 10% of your overall user base to pay money is massive, you'd really have to struggle hard to be able to do that. So depends on big the size of the prices when you start before you can finish. And a lot of our brands just simply aren't at that scale yet. So that's why we focus the History, just for now.
Adam
Speaking of audience growth and growing that initial kind of listener base, how do you approach that in terms of your user acquisition strategy? If you like? Do you cross advertise different podcasts across the network? How do you work the print side in things? What's the what's the game plan?
Ben Youatt
I'll be honest, we, our game plan is to sort of do all of it, and push every lever just a little bit, and see which brand has the biggest impact on which channel. So on History, we have a really great success rate with newsletters, on different channels, we have a really, really great success rate on you know, Twitter, not Facebook, and then you go to a different brand and it's Facebook, not Twitter. So you never really know what's going to engage with the podcast audience for that specific brand, until you do it. But for us, we will do always do all of it. I think it's our responsibility. As a publisher, if you've picked up a magazine, at some point in that magazine, whether it's Radio Times or Gardener's World or Countryfile or any of our brands, you will see a QR code and a mention about the podcast that month, and a benefit. If you're going on social media channel, especially if it's a podcast that's in season, you will see a tweet or a promo video or a short extract on YouTube, you'll see a playlist of selected clips, you know, we won't be as visible as possible on as many touch points. And that's the that's the thing about podcasts marketing, some people just like the playlist videos on YouTube. To them. That's where that's that's how they view a podcast, it's not actually listening to it without the visuals. Some people just like the funny clips that they see on Reels. And that's okay, too. So I would encourage publishers out there not to see that as some sort of big defeat, that you haven't been able to pipeline those people through to this other listening platform, or this other way of consuming it. To some people, that's their favourite thing about the podcast, the social media content, the YouTube content, whatever it might be, that's where that's where the most value is for them. So to see success in different metrics across different brands is a big thing we encourage. But yeah, basically, we do all of it. And when we get some data back, when we know what's working for one, brand A versus brand B, then over the next iteration, maybe it's quarterly, maybe it's monthly, we'll just sort of keep an eye on it. And then we'll tailor our approach. So we're not wasting too much time or effort on channels that aren't really resonating. And then we'll double down on the channels that are so it's Yeah, so a lot of time. So I'm just testing stuff. And sometimes your instincts are right, and sometimes you're really surprised you instincts are way off. So you got to do the work.
Rhianna
Do you have an example of that of where your instinct was perhaps wrong?
Ben Youatt
Well, a good example is actually video for History Extra. So most of our brands have experimented with long form podcasts video at one point or another. We've done it recently with Top Gear, we've done it with Radio Times. And it normally gets good engagement, but the drop off is quite short. So basically, people listen to seven, eight minutes. And then they think, Well, I haven't got time to listen to 45 minutes, you know, watch 45 minutes of this video just sat on my laptop, but you know, I like to be on the go I like to consume different things is a different user behaviour around that. But with History audiences maybe it's because it's a History audience, maybe because of the age demographic, the geographic demographic, you know, for whatever magical reason, the video on History, massively bucks trend, you know, the videos that are an hour long, or an hour plus, where it's just a historian talking about a set subject do really, really well. So it could just be the content type. It could be this could be that, but that goes against everything we see on every other brand. See, you never know we went we went into that conversation and just said, Look, guys, this may not work. You know, we've seen it elsewhere. You can try it if you want, you know, we sort of, you know, thought we knew it all.
Rhianna
play it down.
Ben Youatt
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know, we're happy to be proved wrong because that's, you know, we have to be data led and you have to be impartial and you just have to realise that every brand has their own little nuances. And, and yeah, that's, that's the fun part of it is like we, you don't know what you're going to know next.
Rhianna
And with that sort of network that you've built up, are you able to in the same way that the BBC does, I suppose? Do you sort of cross pollinate with your advertising? With your different podcasts?
Ben Youatt
Yeah, definitely. I mean, Christmas is a great example. Because a lot of our brands are based around Christmas, a lot of our other brands are based around spring. So when there are, you know, we might do historical Christmas foods, and that crosses over great with Good Food and Olive, or we might, you know, we had Jamie Oliver on the Radio Times podcast. And that was just a really great natural crossover with BBC Good Food with Tom Kerridge. So when there are opportunities that we think users going to appreciate we do it, you know, we wouldn't necessarily just do one completely out of the blue, unless maybe there was a big campaign around a new series, or a new launch or something like that, that might be different. But typically, if there's a really great content crossover, and we think users are gonna get the benefit of that, that exposure, yeah, we always do our best to sort of nurture the relationships between our brands. And it's always worked really well for us.
Rhianna
Do you actually see growth with that with listener growth?
Ben Youatt
It's not necessarily that the numbers would double on both podcasts overnight, then I think there would be if people out there think if we just team up with this person, we're going to steal all their listeners, you know, what? I wish, but no, it doesn't work quite like that. But what you do get is maybe an initial bump, you know, five 10%, or something compared to what you'd normally get this never scoffed at. But what you get is long term continuation. So the next week might be slightly higher, the week after that might be slightly higher. Again, podcasts, in our experience are a long, slow, steady organic growth model. You know, you may do one episode with a particular talent. They tweet about it, they put it on their social media, and they get this huge surge. And you think, Oh, great, this is it. And then next week, the next talent you get on doesn't do that. And the numbers go straight back to where they were before. So those moments happen as well. Key promotion on the major platforms on Apple on Spotify on Amazon is something that we focus on, we do our best to make sure that all of our submissions are airtight that the artwork looks as good as possible, that it's as relevant as possible to the current discussion. You know, you don't want to put out something that's super serious that's maybe around Christmas, you don't want to put out something that is, you know, really fun in a comedy podcast when there's something very serious going on. Or maybe you do maybe that's, you know, maybe that's exactly what people need. We try and pick your moments, you know, the coronation, huge royal event, great for History. Summer, great for barbecues of Good Food comes into a great for gardening, Gardeners World come in. So it's just about, again, common sense marketing, when is this going to have the biggest impact on the biggest audience that are going to be interested in this, whether they're on the periphery, or they're a hardcore fan, pick the right time to strike, make sure the artwork looks brilliant, make sure the copy is great, make sure the guest is great, make sure the production standards are great. So it's a lot of just doing the basics really well and trying to be as consistent as possible.
Rhianna
How do you kind of talk about patience in podcasting, because as you say, things aren't an overnight success. So if something is kind of steadily doing well, and kind of growing and growing, and a brand is saying, Actually, it's not growing fast enough, we need to change it up. At which point do you say, no, no, let's keep it at this because it's a good thing. Or you're right, we need something that's a bit more sort of flashy.
Ben Youatt
That is such a common conversation that happens. And it's such a concerning conversation when it does happen, because part of you just wants people to stay on track and have that type of consistency. The thing we would probably say to a publisher, if they came in and they said, look, the numbers have been consistent for two or three months, we don't seem to be growing, we've kind of hit a plateau, which happens regularly. And they're concerned about it. And they want to dramatically change the show because they want to do something to give it a bit of a shot in the arm. What you typically say is that we look at the numbers. And if they're doing quite well, we'd say Well, look, it's not the end of the world. But if they're doing small amount of listeners, I'd have a certain amount of sympathy for that. And this sort of there is an aspect of what have you got to lose, there's not that many people tuning in. Let's see if we can improve this. You'd have to appreciate it within context. But a big part of what we would say to publishers, it's a well, what are you trying to achieve? Because if you are trying to make a million people listen in, and you're not doing it, then why aren't you doing it? Is it because the production standards aren't up to scratch and people listen to 30 seconds and it sounds echoey. And it doesn't sound like it's been produced very well. We can fix that. So let's not abandon the show. You've got this just look at the problem that you're facing, and deal with it that way. But sometimes brands do change their show, when patience would probably be a better approach. People go right we're going to change the host, we're going to change the format. We're going to change the artwork, and then you end up with this identity crisis because they don't start a new feed. You know they don't start a new show from scratch and try and create an new piece of creative that has its own identity and everything else, you kind of annoy your audience that's already there, we've grown to know and appreciate and, you know, get on with the hosts, and they like the frequency and they like, you know, this part of their week. And now they're having to put up with something else that feels different, has different voices, and it's just not the same product. So I encourage brands, if you're gonna do that, or if you if you're in a similar position, is anyone listening to this is in a similar position? Think about it from a creative perspective, what is it you're trying to make? What feeling do you want your user to have when they're listening in? Is it a comedy podcast? Is it a news podcast? What are you trying to serve, because it might be you already have a really great product, but your marketing isn't right, or your production standard isn't right, or it goes out the wrong day, or it doesn't do well on social. If that's happening, before you really scrap it, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of stuff, just examine everything you're doing first, because if you've got to the stage where you've on boarded it, and you've done that correctly, you should already have a really brilliant show, you shouldn't be doing a show that isn't well thought out.
Adam
we've mentioned Apple a couple of times already, one thing I wanted to dig into is Spotify. Because you recently, you guys announced a partnership with Megaphone to handle your hosting and monetization and all of that good stuff. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what the motivations were behind that change? And whether or not you've started to see any benefits from the partnership?
Ben Youatt
Yeah, definitely. Well, I think that the thing I should say, first of all, is that we've always had a really great relationship with our previous provider. And it wasn't like something really nasty had gone down. And we were trying to change what we were doing. We'd always had a really great relationship there. And that provider had helped us grow both commercially and in terms of our audience reach. And yeah, we had a really great thing going on for a number of years. But we went into a contract negotiation, we looked at other partners who were available. And naturally, we ended up talking to Spotify as well. And after we started talking to them, we saw that it was a very compelling partnership for us. We had gotten to a point as a publisher, where we wanted to try some new things and we wanted to expand into different areas. We wanted to look at the way that we were commercialising our podcast in a number of different regions, which is something that Spotify and Megaphone, were particularly strong app, which we'd like to look of. And, of course, from an audience development standpoint, you know, Spotify, own such a massive market share of global podcast listeners. And that hasn't typically been reflected in our user demographic, the majority of our users have always historically listened on Apple podcasts. So for us, it was an interesting partnership to see how we could grow both commercially and both in terms of audience development. And yeah, we went through about a 16 month consultation period where we had to work out the agreements and talk to various different people, not just you know, one provider, but we you know, we really looked into the market and did our homework on this. And we just thought that moving forward, the agreement that we've now got was Megaphone. Spotify really does suit us as, as best as any agreement could, and we're very happy with it. And it has only been live for a couple of months. It's very early days, but we're not this happy at all. Obviously, the migration itself was you know, epic, because, you know, we've got 12 or 15 shows live. But then we've got a back catalogue of about another 12 or 15 shows sort of that we you know, it's our IP, and we want it to make sure that they're safeguarded and carried across properly as well. There's a lot of working practices around how we know book campaigns and get things like there's a lot of internal comms project management,
Adam
service level agreements, all of that kind of thing.
Ben Youatt
It was a very complicated Q1 for us this year. We managed to do it without too many hiccups. I'm touching wood, but it's all gone well, and our partners, they're so lovely, you know, anytime we've got an issue, we just drop them an email, and they come straight back to us. And they help out the commercial team seems so enthusiastic about what we have as a publisher, about History but not just about History, but about all of our brands. The scale of our operation in the US is really attractive to them. And you know, we want to commercialise that more. So. Yeah, a lot of the conversations we've been having have been really brilliant, because it's all the things that we have wanted to achieve. And that's what they want to achieve. And it's just sort of lined up. It's a very good partnership. Yeah, we're just really happy with it.
Rhianna
Do you ever outsource to external production companies as well, because I know that you must do a lot in house in terms of editing and producing those shows, but you do also outsource stuff, right?
Ben Youatt
Occasionally, I mean, to be honest, most of the stuff we do is in house. So we've got a team of about six editors, and some admin coordination stuff, but we are so lucky that you wouldn't be able to produce 35 shows a week with six editors. Normally that would be an incredible amount. What we've got the benefit of is each individual editorial team like Radio Times or History has got an editorial lead. Who knows History, I know nothing about history, they know about gardening. I know a little bit about gardening. So we don't have to carry that. We step in as specialists, and experts and we say, Look, these are the podcasts in your space, your your main competitors, here are the general do's and general don'ts make it this length. If you want it to be a comedy podcast, maybe do a roundtable with some people who know how to be funny. That's my first suggestion sounds basic, but you'd be surprised if you want to do an in depth History podcast or one on one and totally and really get into it and do it for longer do for 45 minutes or an hour. And it's just the sort of format in things that someone from an editorial background knows how to do a print article knows how to do a web article knows how to make the video and do all these other things. When it comes to audio. We're just there to advise and steer and make sure that we're really hitting the audience with the content that they're going to relate to most in the way that they want it. The way I normally describe it, as I say we're the Samwise to their Frodo, they're really the star of the show, were kind of there to carry the bags and cook the sausages.
Adam
That's blatant Sam erasure and I will not stand it! The emotional heart of that series.
Ben Youatt
I'll take it. I'll take that.
Adam
So one thing that I wanted to touch on you spoken a little bit about the commercial and partnership side of things. But I was curious as to whether or not expanding more into podcasts with some of the more heritage brands, do you find that that attracts a different kind of advertiser and a different kind of commercial partner than would otherwise be interested in engaging with the brand as is?
Ben Youatt
I think it does, and it doesn't. Mysterious answer ahead. So I think there are naturally brands that are always going to want to be aligned with BBC titles and heritage brands, you know, things that are kind of regal in nature, things like the Royal Society of Chemistry, one of our clients, and people who are not specific to podcasting or digital media. So people like Disney people like Now TV, Netflix, you know, they advertise everywhere. But I think what podcasting does is it does give digital publishers the opportunity to see a different kind of client that they maybe wouldn't see on print or wouldn't see in some of their other outputs. So, you know, podcasting is sort of, if anyone said, a typical podcast sponsor, they'd say Squarespace, or they'd say, coffee or sort of, you know, supplements, that type of thing. And that's often quite a funny conversation to have with publishers, when they sort of don't realise that these clients are now in all of a sudden interested in their heritage brands, you know, and you sort of say, there's like a supplement company trying to sell pepper and tumeric. And they're thinking, you know, it's not normally our thing. You go, well, it is now and you know, welcome to podcasts. So yeah, that can often be a funny conversation. But also, it's brought in a lot of sponsors that then go on to spend money elsewhere in the brand, because they realise actually, podcast was maybe the first thing they started with. Or maybe it was part of a package, you know, the first time that they came in as a client, they did a little bit of podcasting, a bit of social, a bit of web or whatever, but podcast was a main part of that package to begin with. And then they come back, and then you know, they sort of go, wow, actually, this is starting to have an impact. And the audience that is on this brand is exactly the audience we want. And the engagement from a podcast audience where they're listening for 45 minutes, and they're getting a host endorsement or they're getting a producer endorsement is valuable. It is on the rating scale. He says one of the most trusted forms of advertising because there is an endorsement from a trusted intimate source, etc, etc. It's a lot harder from a KPI level, or CTR level to send people to specific places even now with podcasts. And that's a huge limitation we've got you know, when people say, We're sponsored by this cruise company, click this link now for 10% off on your next cruise. You know, not all podcast providers have got that technology where a link is going to magically pop up when the ad plays. And that's a huge limitation for a digital medium, you need to be able to have that two click journey or that one click journey, that immediate access podcast still don't have that. Whereas if you're on a web site or a social club, you would. So there's a ways to go. There's other things that I hope are on the horizon, and people are making strides towards that with their players and with their functionality. Yeah, overall it's been an interesting journey to introduce old school publishers to new school advertisers. And it's, you know, when it works, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
Rhianna
When I first started at PodPod, or I think even before that, I was having a conversation with somebody and they were saying every brand needs a podcast. Why doesn't every brand have a podcast? And on the other end of the spectrum, you have people going there are so many podcasts Why does everything need to have a podcast nowadays? Where do you stand on that spectrum? You know, say, Do you think that every brand should have a podcast? If it's done well, obviously, I'm not talking about rubbish for the sake of it podcasts. But do you think that actually the potential is there for every brand to have a podcast?
Ben Youatt
I was thinking of a clever way to say this. But in all honesty, no.
Rhianna
Plan is good. Yeah,
Ben Youatt
Plan is good. I don't think every brand does need a podcast, because you're right, it's an oversaturated, medium, you know, if 10 years ago, it was the you know, the new frontier, it is very much the old frontier at this point, it is completely saturated. If you're not going to do something that is best in class, then you're not going to be able to cut through the noise. So I take your point about, you know, it's not for the sake of it, but that's what people are doing, people are doing for the sake of it product. And I think often publishers are getting those directives from, you know, from a corporate standpoint, you know, we need to do XYZ, we need to hit certain criteria, you know, monthly turnaround and, and, without thinking about the heart of what podcast really began from, which it was sort of this pirate radio online, you know, it was about being able to say things you couldn't say on radio, it's about being if you want to do a three hour show, you can do it and you don't have to play music, or have adverts, you can just hang out and have a chat with your mate. And I think that soul of where podcasts began 10, 15 even longer ago, at this point, years ago, is still there. And people still associate that with why they like podcasting, and why it's valuable to them, because it feels a little bit more rock'n'roll or independent in a lot of ways. But I think a lot of publishers don't understand podcasting when they get into it. I think a lot of people don't think Well, should we get some radio talent who know how to present in order to bring this thing to life? Shall we create a format that can stand on its own? Regardless who's the main host, you know, I love a good format. That's the thing that I always say is that a good podcast is similar to a good sort of afternoon game show. You know, there's a reason why some afternoon game shows are better than others. You know, when you boil it down, it's a presenter, it's a contestant, there's a cash prize and there's some sort of game you got to play in the middle. But there's a reason and I'm going to upset a lot of people here. There's a reason why The Chase is better than Tipping Point. Right I'm gonna wait for the comments to come flooding in and tell me I'm wrong.
Rhianna
I've got friends who've written for both.
Ben Youatt
But yeah, that's that's that's, that's how I often describe podcasts to people is, it's it's not just you're really brilliant. Sit here for 30 minutes, think about the format. Think about the mechanism. And think about the attitude and the vibe, and how do you want people to feel at the end of it. So if publishers aren't willing to do that, and aren't willing to realise that they're up against some pretty strong company in the space, and they're going to need to outclass, outlast, and be consistent at that level for potentially two or three years before they really become synonymous with the top of their category, then there's no point doing it. It's not it's not a one quarter punt. You really have to stay in the game for years, at this point, before you're going to be able to hold any kind of market share.
Adam
So with that in mind, then, are there any other brands that you would like to launch podcasts for? Or that indeed, you're planning to launch podcasts for, that you haven't had the chance to yet?
Ben Youatt
Here's the chance for me to get into trouble. Well, I don't think I'll be giving too much away. But there's definitely I don't know about specific brands at this point. But there's definitely specific content areas that we're really interested in. For me, personally, I have made this known, it's no secret, I really want to do a piece of work in the children's audio space, I think for a number of our brands is a natural place to go not just for children, but for parents. For families, we've got heritage brands, we've got compelling stories, we've already got magazines like History Revealed that tailor to a slightly more basic audience, I won't say a children's audience, but audiences who just don't want the heavy academia that comes with a lot of history. They just want the stories and the emotion and the characters, things like that, that are already half in play could easily lend themselves to children's audio. And that's something that I want to experiment with not necessarily for one specific brand, but as a as a more wider attempt into the space. I think entertainment, video games, tech is a compelling area that we haven't typically done a lot in. And that can be really appealing for a number of reasons. One because we know the audience are in that space and two, because we know it's a very commercially exciting area as well. So those are other areas we're looking at, but I wouldn't say you know, we're going to have some sort of Good Food video We'll game monstrosity in the airwaves anytime soon. We'll go into the lab and work out a cool format and hopefully get some good ideas together before we do any of this stuff.
Rhianna
Ben, thank you so much for joining us on PodPod that was very illuminating,
Ben Youatt
Guy,s, thank you so much.
Rhianna
So Reem what did you make of Ben Youatt talking all about publisher podcasts and its network?
Reem
I thought it was really interesting to learn about publisher podcasts because we are technically a publisher podcast. Yeah,
Rhianna
it was quite interesting hearing it echoed back, wasn't it?
Reem
Yeah. And it was funny, like right before the actual recording started, because we were talking about the fact that we're in the same category for one of the awards. And he's like, what's your podcast? And we're like this one. But no, I thought it was really interesting. I think he was very candid about the fact that not every publisher needs to have a podcast, for the sake of it, even though there's many publishers or even just people who are getting into podcasting, that think it's so easy to just make one. And it's just worth having the same way that you would have like a Twitter account for your brand. just sound like a podcast is an extension of it but actually, you do need to have something with an idea with a proper idea with a proper message, something that reflects your brand, and you need to put in the effort to make it, otherwise it's kind of just a waste of time, because you're not actually making anything valuable for your brand. So I like the fact that he was very candid about that. And not just like, Hey, everyone, everyone should have one!
Rhianna
Yeah, I like that idea of always coming back to the why, why are you making this? What is the point? How is it going to further your brand? Is it? Or is it a vanity project? I suppose in so many words, right? Adam? What about you?
Adam
Yeah, much like you guys, I found it very interesting. Hearing about what Immediate as a publisher, is doing on a strategic level, because Immediate has really been quite ahead of the curve, compared to a lot of publishers, they've invested really heavily in making their podcasts a core pillar of the business in ways that a lot of magazine publishers, certainly in the UK just haven't. What was particularly interesting, I thought was hearing about how they approach audience growth, and really looking at that engaged audience, not necessarily the largest audience, but making sure that they build real connections with listeners, because it's very easy, particularly in publishing, to focus on just maximising the, the size of the audience and going for the biggest numbers that you can. But really, the value is in getting listeners that will, and readers in general and audience members in general, that are prepared to, to back your brand and to to engage with it. Now, whether that's coming to events or buying subscriptions, or whatever. And yeah, it's it's rare to find publishers that are prepared to put that focus on it.
Rhianna
Yeah, I was kind of thinking about, I meant to ask really, about the motivations of publisher podcasts, that ones that he works with? And whether they're all the same? Is it to kind of up consumers of the original product? Or, you know, what is the sort of end game? Really? Do you think that was sort of answered anyway, in the conversation? Yeah,
Adam
I think so. Because one of the other interesting things that he mentioned was about advertisers coming into the podcast, that wouldn't have interacted with the, you know, the other Brand Channels, whether that's, you know, the print titles or the websites or whatever, but then also buying into the wider brand after being introduced to it via podcasts. And I suspect that that's probably the same for readers as well. Podcast audiences aren't always the same as print audiences, you know, you will get some people that only engage with one channel. And indeed, Ben made a similar point about people consuming TikTok clips in Instagram Reels and stuff like that versus listening to a whole podcast. But there is going to be some portion of that audience that is crossover and does move from one channel to the other.
Reem
I agree with Adam but the point of audiences you know, moving from one to the other and the fact that sometimes they're not the same audience that you have for podcasts as you do for for print, and I think really good examples of that is when we've had we've had them on before like Empire. You know, like with the Empire Film Podcast, they have their podcast audience they also have their, their print their magazine audience. We also have like Tortoise Media that just went completely audio first or not completely, but they made the transition to be mostly audio first
Rhianna
Oh, yeah isn't like 90% audio or something now, Tortoise. Yeah.
Reem
And they had like, like Sweet Bobby, I think was one of their best podcasts. And that just gave them a whole new wave of followers and subscribers and audiences. So I think it's really interesting the way that that can work sometimes and how it can really just transform a brand and just introduce you to a whole new set of audiences.
Rhianna
Well, as you can hear, Reem is very knowledgeable about all of this, and it's because she's written so much on it, and you can find all of her articles and more at podpod.com Thank you so much, guys. Thank you for joining me and thank you all for listening. And of course, thank you to Ben Youatt. For being our interviewee. This week, do sign up to our daily email bulletins, so you don't miss anything, any news in the podcast world. And do rate and subscribe us as well. It would just be lovely to read some of your comments. The podcast is produced by Emma Corsham for Haymarket Business Media, and I'm your host, Rhianna Dhillon, and I'll see you next week. Bye.
