When The New York Times launched its The Daily podcast a year ago, it had its share of skeptics. Well, they’re not skeptical anymore.
Pitching its content to ad buyers at this week’s NewFronts event in New York, The New Times reported the daily audio show, which is also extending to radio, clocks between two and three million listeners daily.
It’s fair to say The New York Times is emboldened by the launch. At the NewFronts, NYT global advertising and marketing solutions head Sebastian Tomic said the focus of the publisher’s pitch to advertisers was: “New Voices, New Insights, New Audiences”.
“Different from years past, we really focused on not pinning ourselves down to a single format, or a single partnership, or a single announcement,” he tells Beet.TV.
“The audio story, I think, with The Daily, kind of taught us that we can do bigger things. And when we do bigger things, we make bigger bets.”
How big? Extending from audio to amplify its video ambitions, for one.
AdAge reports The New York Times is mulling about women and minorities who didn’t get obituaries in the Times but should have: “Also in consideration is a TV-version of The Daily podcast; a TV show around its Modern Love column; and a cooking show tied to writer Sam Sifton. They are even thinking about how crossword puzzles might make compelling TV.”
Already announced were a Netflix medical mystery series based on The Times’ ‘Diagnosis’ column and a movie based on its Harvey Weinstein investigations.
“This is a much bigger story about us pushing into new forms of entertainment, and new forms of video, that will ultimately be on our platforms at some point,” Tomic adds.
Why should new advertisers care? Because, Tomic says, current spenders are satisfied. He says The Daily boasts big buyers including BMW and Stella, but also typical podcast advertisers like ZipRecruiter.
“And they’re returning, over and over and over, it’s showing that it’s working,” he says.
This interview was conducted at The New Times’ NewFronts presentation.
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.
