Podcasts as an Audience Channel: RAJAR Midas, Spotify Analytics & Cross-Promotion

The podcast audience opportunity for UK newsrooms

UK news podcasts have become significant audience assets in their own right. The Guardian's Today in Focus, BBC's Newscast and Today podcast, and Global's News Agents all have loyal listener bases that often overlap only partially with their publications' text readerships. For publishers, podcasts offer an opportunity to reach audiences during commutes, exercise, or domestic tasks when text consumption is not possible.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report finds that podcast listening in the UK has grown steadily, with younger adults (18–34) disproportionately likely to get news from audio formats. This makes podcasts strategically important for publications trying to reach audiences who are reducing their use of traditional news websites and social media feeds.

Unlike social media distribution, podcast listeners are habitual: a listener who subscribes and turns on auto-download is far more likely to engage with each episode than a social follower is to see each post. Subscriber retention is therefore a stronger indicator of podcast health than raw download numbers.

UK news podcast landscape: key examples

Red flags to watch for

• ⚠Measuring success purely by downloads — downloads are not confirmed listens. Use completion rate and follower growth as primary health metrics.
• ⚠Publishing on an irregular cadence — podcast algorithms and listener habits both reward consistency. Irregular releases cause subscriber churn.
• ⚠Distributing only on one platform — relying solely on Spotify or Apple Podcasts creates dependence on a single platform's algorithm and terms.
• ⚠Not creating a podcast webpage on your own domain — off-platform publishing means you lose SEO value and cannot retarget web visitors.
• ⚠Ignoring accessibility — transcripts and episode summaries serve deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences and improve search discoverability.
• ⚠Running undisclosed advertising — the ASA and OFCOM both require disclosure of paid-for content in audio, just as in text.

Podcast analytics checklist for UK newsrooms

• RAJAR Midas: track UK reach and listening occasions quarterly. Cite in media packs for advertisers and sponsors.
• Spotify for Podcasters: monitor plays, play-through rate, follower count, and listener demographics by episode.
• Apple Podcasts Connect: track unique devices and completion rate. Apple reports the percentage of listeners completing 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of each episode.
• Own-site analytics: track podcast page traffic, embedded player plays, and traffic to article pages linked in episode show notes.
• Episode-level A/B comparison: compare titles, durations, and subject matter across episodes to identify what drives the highest completion rate.
• Subscriber net change per episode: track how many new subscribers each episode generates versus the baseline churn rate.

Common mistakes

• ›Launching a podcast without a sustainable production workflow — many newsroom podcasts fail because production costs are underestimated.
• ›Not creating episode transcripts — transcripts improve accessibility, add SEO value to episode pages, and can be repurposed as article content.
• ›Assuming a large social following will automatically convert to podcast listeners — discovery mechanisms differ and require specific cross-promotion strategy.
• ›Over-indexing on news-of-the-moment topics that date quickly — evergreen episode formats (explainers, interviews) retain listening value longer.
• ›Neglecting the RSS feed metadata — an incomplete or inaccurate RSS feed causes display errors in podcast directories and reduces discoverability.
• ›Treating podcast advertising as the only revenue model — membership, live events, and sponsorships of specific series are all used by UK publishers.

Related guides

Primary sources

Frequently asked questions