Podcasts win over audiences, and AI can help produce them
Trends and insights from INMA World Congress 2023
Christopher Andrew Lim
“THE world doesn’t need more audio content, but it does need an audio guide to the world,” AG Sulzberger, chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times, said at the International News Media Association (INMA) World Congress in New York in May.
Sulzberger was speaking of podcasts – a medium that is generating great interest among many publishers because of its demonstrated ability to acquire, engage and retain audiences.
Attendees of the five-day event spoke of how they have been investing in audio tools and manpower for podcasts, which is able to engage the younger audiences that most businesses want to target. They are also trying to figure out how best to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their business models and news production.
Podcasts are the new e-mail address
Publishers have found that podcast listeners are sticky: they tend not to unfollow podcasts.
In that respect, podcasts are similar to e-mail addresses, said Alistair Mackie, head of audio business development at the Financial Times.
Nick Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, predicts that “audio will be everywhere”. His advice: “Lean into it.” Newsrooms should study and experiment with it, he said.
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“It’s hard to break into the podcast market, but the time spent listening will just keep going up,” he said.
In addition to podcasts, publishers are also finding some success with applying text-to-speech technology to stories.
Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has an option allowing readers to listen to most of its stories. The text is read by an AI voice model of Aftenposten podcaster Anne Lindholm.
Stories using this cloned voice resulted in record-high engagement across the board, said the paper, but particularly among young audiences.
The Business Times (BT), too, has been trialling the use of synthetic voices in podcasts since August 2022.
AI: threat and opportunity
Artificial voices are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI.
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney were much discussed at the INMA World Congress.
On the agenda: how to grapple with the disruption AI threatens, as well as to grasp its promise?
Many publishers have committed to ensuring that regardless of the extent to which AI tools are used to improve efficiency and automate tasks, human journalists will always review content before it is published.
The role of AI in news media is therefore to augment – to preserve bandwidth to add value for audiences – rather than to fully automate publication.
The framework needed for this sort of augmentation is an AI charter, which many publishers now have in some form: The Guardian has a set of guidelines, and the Financial Times has a statement of intent.
German publisher Ippen Media is inserting standardised disclaimers for when AI is used, with possible differentiation for when AI is used to generate content from scratch, or to augment it.
BT is in the process of drafting some practice notes for the use of AI.
Transform or be left behind
Leaning into both audio and AI requires newsroom transformations that break down silos so that reporters can work with technical specialists.
It also requires the development of complementary skills, such as data literacy and data-informed workflows.
Journalists need to measure the editorial and business impacts of what they are doing in order to build a virtuous cycle of feedback and iteration.
Don’t try and measure everything, though. Alexandra Beverfjord, chief executive and editor-in-chief of Dagbladet in Norway, suggested choosing key performance indicators that drive employee cooperation in pursuit of their fulfilment.
Be data-informed, not data-driven, added Lotta Edling, editorial director of Sweden’s Bonnier News.
Seizing data as an enabler and guide is one of the four ways that INMA’s May 2023 report, Bringing Newsrooms Into the Business of News, defines newsroom culture change.
The other three are embracing the realities of digital news consumption, understanding the evolving economics behind journalism, and connecting journalism to business outcomes.
An awareness of business outcomes as well as how audiences actually consume news today should help journalists lean into AI and audio.
Some stories don’t meet a required business outcome, but can be augmented by AI.
For those stories, it’s best to make use of AI so that people can be freed up to work on other content that does move the needle.
Similarly, knowing when someone might prefer to listen to news, rather than read or watch it, can help shape podcasts that perform well.
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