Have daily news podcasts peaked?
Two major Danish publishers are closing some of their flagship podcasts. A sign of the times to come?
A few years ago, it seemed that every publisher with respect for itself should have one: A daily news podcast, more or less modeled after The New York Times' success "The Daily".
But now it seems, for some publishers at least, that the trend may be reversing.
On the same day, major Danish publishers TV 2 and Ekstra Bladet both announced that they are cutting their podcast businesses.
Crowded market, goals not met
TV 2 will be closing their daily podcast "Dato" and "Skyggesiden" (a crime podcast), both published on podcast platform Podimo and TV 2's own app.
"We must admit that the market for news podcasts is crowded and that our commercial goals have not been met," News Director Ulla Pors write in an email to the staff at TV 2, according to Journalisten.
Both podcasts were launched in late 2022.
"Headlines", a podcast produced with Podimo will also be closing.
Ekstra Bladet will close their daily podcast, "Basker", writes MediaWatch. According to Ekstra Bladet's Head of Podcast, Sofie Rye, it's due to both the host and producer getting new jobs for other publishers.
"We had a very amputated program. When you have to make a podcast that comes out every day, it requires a bit of a production flow," Rye says.
Also, she adds, it's hard to build a solid business case on a daily podcast available for free:
"The advertising market just isn't there yet. There's a whole different market for video."
Whether the trend will continue is obviously too early to tell, but it tell us something about the saturation in the (Danish) podcasting market – and advertising as a potential business model.
It should be added, that several other Danish publishers still have daily podcasts in a similar format to the ones closing.
The NYTimes approach
One of the more successful newspapers-becoming-podcasters, The New York Times, seem to follow a strategy, where they first make the podcast available for free to build up an audience and following.
Then, once a critical mass has been reached, either pulls the podcast behind the paywall (making it available to just subscribers) or by selling subscriptions through Apple and Spotify. </>
My name is Lars K Jensen and I'm the Audience Development Lead at Berlingske Media. I work with data, editorial insights, user needs and journalism.
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I also publish two newsletters; Products in Publishing and Digital Ugerevy, a weekly recap on digital media and platforms.