The Economist is doing some awesome podcasting

Nicholas Quah of Vulture writes about The Economist’s podcasts.

Quah writes, “Quietly but surely, more of my listening has been drifting toward a source I never expected to develop a relationship with: The Economist, the stodgy, 180-year-old British weekly specializing in global affairs.

“Now, let me be clear: The Economist’s podcasts are explicitly not for everybody. Aside from their intended audience of present and future power elites, the shows feel most suited for the kind of nerds who would happily submit themselves to the cult of Adam Tooze (if they aren’t already sated by his own wonky economics podcast, Ones & Tooze, of course). The Economist’s growing audio portfolio primarily consists of several regularly publishing news shows that span the publication’s range of staid interests: The Intelligence (its take on the daily news podcast), Checks and Balances (U.S. politics from a U.K. perspective), Money Talks (self-explanatory), Babbage (science and technology), and Editor’s Picks (selected articles read aloud). None are particularly groundbreaking on paper. In fact, they are almost throwbacks, somewhat devoid of the affable presentation and emotionality of modern American news podcasts. They are incredibly British — which is to say genteel, studious, a little awkward, and dry as sand.

“They also seem to be catching on. A spokesperson for The Economist tells me that its podcasts averaged around 25 million downloads in March. That’s still a fraction of what you’d expect from a heavyweight like, say, the New York Times (125 million, according to the industry-measurement firm Podtrac), but the larger story here is one of growth. The network has more than doubled its unique listenership, another salient audience metric, over the past three years, from around 2 million in 2019 to about 5 million today. The momentum is inspiring further investment. ‘This is our fastest-growing platform,’ said Bob Cohn, The Economist’s president, over email. ‘We’re thinking hard about how to keep adding to the portfolio, likely in the back half of this year.’ This makes for a striking contrast with other parts of the industry, which has been facing cuts and show cancellations in the midst of navigating a difficult economic environment.”