New Media Audience Seeks Stories, Platforms Shift

Michael Hedges December 15, 2015 Follow on Twitter

The nature of things is that wonderful ebb and flow between adapting and extinction. This is not a value judgment, just an observation. The media sphere, itself thereof created, has grown - maybe grown crazy - being tossed by tides and waves, most recently digital. Ain’t it fun?

About this time last year the podcast Serial ended its first season after attracting listeners and fans in the millions. After being introduced on This American Life, a US public radio program, the remaining 12 episodes of Serial were only available in the US by download. UK public broadcaster BBC broadcast the series on digital channel Radio 4 Extra. Others followed.

With an estimated 100 million downloads and a 2015 Peabody Award Serial made podcast a household word, not lost on the corporate suits. “An audio game-changer, this compelling, multi-episode podcast closely examined the evidence against an 18-year-old facing a life sentence for murder, illuminating disturbing flaws in the justice system along the way,” said the Peabody committee. Even the instrumental soundtrack was a hit. A made-for-TV movie about producer/host Sarah Koenig’s idea coming into being is planned.

Podcasts, particularly factual narratives, have arrived. Just as most radio broadcasters scuttled “programs” for “formats” iTunes began cataloguing podcasts. That was 2005 and smartphones were becoming the portable everything player. Commercial broadcasters, largely, have held tight to very cost-effective music formats even as a growing set of listeners turned to streaming services. Public broadcasters, the world over, produce lots of programs designed to fill slots in the broadcast day, a concept unknown to digital natives.

Producers a bit outside the broadcasting realm have seized the podcast potential. Of the zillion or so titles available on the various streaming services most are thinly disguised PR or marketing efforts. There’s nothing wrong with that. The number one iTunes downloaded podcast in November was the science fiction series The Message produced by General Electric (GE), ad agency BBDO and Slate Group’s podcast network Panoply Media. Slate is owned by the Washington Post Company, which spun-off the newspaper of the same name to Jeff Bezos, the Amazon guy.

Traditional publishers are getting on-board, although the New York Times jumped off a couple of years ago. Media buyers love all platforms, particularly those with buzz. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) publisher Dow Jones, principally owned by Rupert Murdoch, is now offering a dozen podcasts through Panoply Media. (See Dow Jones presser here) "Through WSJ Podcasts, advertisers can develop an even deeper relationship with our ambitious audience,” said WSJ ad chief Trevor Fellows. “We're looking forward to helping clients tell their stories via this new platform.”

Serial’s second season kicked off last week with another thriller, certain to fit the US election year climate, the story of US Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. With interviews and a new soundtrack it plans the expected intimate audio portrait of a complicated and controversial tale. Sgt. Bergdahl “left” his post in Afghanistan, was held five years by the Taliban and released in a prisoner trade. “I do have that old-fashioned sense, as a reporter, that, I don’t know, we get to tell people shit,” said Ms Koenig, quoted by Atlantic (December 11). This, too, is ambitious.

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