The USA TODAY NETWORK quietly builds a podcast vertical
Dear industry pundits who pay attention to this sort of thing, the USA TODAY NETWORK has a strong podcast story to tell. Consider this our offer to help you tell it.
Like most purveyors of news, the USA TODAY NETWORK has been experimenting with podcasts; building audience while testing our way to a sustainable and winning strategy. Up to this point, we’ve concentrated on surfacing those offerings to potential audience rather than media industry publications and blogs. But now that we’re sustaining decent numbers and producing quality podcast content, we can turn our attention to a little outreach and measured self congratulation. With around 30 regular shows — 10 of which have found significant, sustained audience — the network is now logging, in aggregate, an average of 7 million listens each month.
Yep, 7 million.
To be clear:
So how did we do that?
“Many of our journalists raised their hands to learn a new skill and found a growing audience, hungry for audio stories across all sections (news, money, life and sports) and platforms,” said Shannon Rae Green, a senior multimedia producer at the company’s McLean headquarters, who has been at the leading edge of developing the NETWORK’s podcast offerings. Green, like others who spearheaded the first podcasts for USA TODAY, was drawn to the project by her passion for audio storytelling. “It simply fits seamlessly into the busy lives of our listeners in this mobile, hands-free world.”
Empowering staffers like Green who were already fans of the medium to lead the way allowed USA TODAY’s programming to develop organically, producing shows that work for podcast audiences.
Some titles of note:
Talking Tech: USA TODAY columnist Jefferson Graham draws an average weekly listenership of 540,000 listeners. The show features tech news-you-can-use and interviews with newsmakers.
Talking Tech has been the no. 1 tech show on Stitcher, the top app for podcasts on Android and Apple devices, for more than nine months and is regularly in the top 10 overall podcasts, as well. Some popular recent topics: What you need to know about the rules for flying drones, how Instagram’s new changes in presenting photos changes what you see, a guide to new streaming TV boxes and rating food delivery apps.
Dad Rock: 40-something Gen-Xers Jim Lenahan and Patrick Foster obsess over rock and roll and interview idols for a monthly audience of about 500,000 listeners, proving that there is audience beyond millennials. Recently, Jim and Patrick took the show on the road to Austin for SXSW, hosting a series of live podcasts along the way.
“The show has quickly built a loyal audience,” said co-host Lenahan. “We get tons of great feedback from listeners who say they have been looking for a show like this for some time — reaching as high as No. 2 on the iTunes music podcast chart.”
Punchlines: USA TODAY staffer Eileen Rivers helms this daily roundup of late night jokes, daily, with a loyal audience of around 500,000 monthly listens.
FTW*: The sport-centric show mirrors the success of the upstart content vertical that caters to millennials. The show approached nearly 1 million downloads in March. (*For the Win)
I Tell My Husband the News: Described by listeners as “charming,” “funny” and “likely to make you smile,” Shannon Rae Green tells quirky news stories to her comedian husband, Dusty Terrill. The show garners over 300,000 downloads monthly despite having launched in late 2015.
The Full Story: Still growing its audience, but well worth a listen, the show gets at the story behind the story, for instance, talking to two Wisconsin journalists about what it was like covering the Stephen Avery (“Making a Murderer”) trial 24–7 back in 2006. The series’ audience is still growing, but I’d suggest paying close attention.
Interested in finding out more? Reach out to me, liznelson@gannett.com and I’ll put you in touch with our fabulous corporate communications team, who will totes hook you up with our journalists, podcast rock stars, strategists and anyone else you need to tell this story.
(And many thanks, by the way, to HotPod’s Nicholas Quah for reminding us that we needed to show a little of our podcast leg.)
