The publisher playbook for podcasts, from someone who built one

Chris Stone, executive producer for podcasts and video at The New Statesman, lays out a hard-nosed view of when publishers should and should not do audio. His opening warning: do not launch because "you think it'll be cool," or it becomes a hobby project. At the New Statesman, treating the podcast as the primary YouTube output grew subscribers from 30,000 to 220,000. His monetisation hierarchy is the useful part. Advertising and sponsorships are "the easiest to turn on, but it's the lowest return." Memberships and multi-platform partnerships pay better, because podcasts build a parasocial relationship with the host that converts to paid subscription. Real money sits in selling IP, like The Observer selling its podcast to Netflix. And he is firm on staffing: an always-on weekly show "probably needs at least one full-time producer," and downloads are a vanity metric, "a discovery metric," not proof anyone listened.

The crux

Podcasting is a subscription and IP play, not an ad play, and publishers who treat it as an ad-supported side project will leave most of the value on the table.

Sell-side read

For publishers weighing audio, the revenue logic points away from sell-side CPM and toward direct reader-revenue and licensing, which is the same direction the broader business is moving anyway.

Watch

Sky News launching paid memberships for its podcasts, which forces the show-based subscription model Stone is describing into the U.K. national market.