Podcasters Following Development Of NYTimes Audio App

The New York Times announced this week that it was seeking volunteers to beta test its newest experiment, an app called New York Times Audio, which will function as a clearinghouse for all the audio products under The Times’ banner, including its podcasts, read-aloud journalism, Audm-produced pieces and more.

The app will also feature audio journalism from a curated set of publishers, including BuzzFeed News, New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, though the publisher declined to share specifics on the financial details of those partnerships. Each of the listed publishing partners produces content on Audm, which The Times acquired last year.

The app is seeking participants to download the offering and, starting in November, provide the media company with feedback on their experience. The initial audience of volunteers will be small, Stephanie Preiss, The Times’ vp of audio and TV, told Adweek, because its primary objective is to test a critical premise: Will people use the product?

“We have thousands of things we want to learn and test, but they share a common theme, which is: ‘Have we created something that people are returning to?’ It’s pretty much that simple,” Preiss said. “We have all these hypotheses about what’s going to make them do that, but the main thing is whether or not the value is clear to them.”

If The Times builds a standalone audio product that succeeds in attracting repeat listeners, it could mark a new era in the audio industry, believes Mark Stenberg at adweek.com.

The last decade has bred a reticence amongst media companies to rest their content strategy on algorithmically driven third-party platforms, but publishers have largely ceded control of their audio distribution to companies like Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon. In testing the willingness of its audience to seek out its content on a standalone app, The Times is gauging the viability of an owned-and-operated audio product, which could reduce its reliance on intermediaries, as well as offer a host of data and advertising advantages.

In recent years, publishers have redoubled their efforts to encourage readers to consume content on their native apps. Doing so allows publishers to collect richer first-party data and more accurately track user preferences, which enables them to recommend more relevant articles and advertisements. As a result, the product becomes stickier, users return more often and the virtuous cycle continues.