How The New York Times is using visuals to boost podcast discovery and grow listenership

The New York Times is employing several strategies to grow its podcast listenership:

• Creating visual content: They are experimenting with images and videos on platforms like YouTube and their own audio app.
• Promoting podcasts through audio ads: These ads feature on popular shows within The Times' network and often include personal anecdotes from journalists and Times employees.
• Marketing on The Times' core news app: They are using more visual assets like images and video on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
• Testing episode-specific art: For instance, instead of using the same logo for every new episode of 'The Daily,' they are trying out graphics and photography relevant to the episode's topic.
• Adding more video content: The Times is incorporating video into its audio app, similar to short animation clips in the core news app.
• Posting fully-filmed episodes on YouTube: They began posting episodes of podcasts like 'Hard Fork' and 'Popcast' on YouTube to leverage the platform's large user base.

The New York Times audio app aims to enhance user experience by:

• Diverse audio formats: Allowing journalists and columnists to experiment with audio formats that are not typically suitable for platforms like Apple, Spotify, and RSS feeds.
• Front page press play: Offering an experience akin to pressing play on the front page of The New York Times, with programming ranging from daily headlines to updates on major topics and longer-form articles.
• Integration of audio clips: Planning to promote new podcast shows and integrate audio clips in a manner similar to how video and graphics are used across the news app.

The app, which launched for news and bundle subscribers, has seen over a million downloads from June to December of the previous year.

Podcasters face the challenge of finding new listeners in a 'mature landscape' where audiences have been accustomed to the same content presentation for a long time. Nina Lassam, the vp of business and head of audience growth, audio at The New York Times, mentioned that podcasters have been looking at the same tiles for so long, indicating a need for innovation in how podcasts are marketed and presented. Additionally, other podcast networks and publishers have discussed the difficulties in attracting an audience for limited-run series, with the need for consistent weekly shows that allow listeners to build a habit being more effective than seasonal shows.