The Ways to Unlock The Cash to Fund Your Investigation
Your brand has more power than you think.
"My role in podcasting has been as a publisher. I've got access to broader newsrooms, big titles, and when I started there four years ago there was no audio department," says Scott Peter Smith, Head of Multimedia (this includes news videos and podcasts) at Arena Holdings. Arena publishes a whole host of publications like the South African iteration of The Sunday Times, The Sowetan and Business Day.
Today they produce a huge amount of audio content. "I started approaching editors and saying, let's do some weekly shows."
Tip 1# - Your brand has more power than you think
Scott has started a bunch of shows with big names in South African journalism. He says these people are "brand friendly".
"And we also have quite a lot of native advertising podcasts come through to us," he says. "That work maintains the team financially. I don't directly want to do sponsored content at all, but the demand is there so we've enabled it," he says.
Arena has a large publishing mechanism and an existing audience that makes them an enticing prospect and the extra cash allows Scott to expand the audio department. He says he's very happy with his team at the moment.
"As a department we are publishing between 70 and 80 episodes a month," he says. They use iono.fm as their publishing platform who bring advertising partners to them (inserting the adverts into the episodes).
Scott doesn't need permission from any editors to publish, but he does need permission from other people at Arena to use their journalists (to participate in hosting or producing a podcast, for example).
"The ideal for me would be to have a 'content studio'. At the moment I consider us a 'news division'," he says. Around 50% of their listenership comes from audio news stories that "add value" to a print story. "The goal is to do more longer-form, series based podcasts," he says. "I want to do something deeper."
LISTEN NOW: Justice for Kopano. An investigation produced by Scott's team at Arena. It looks into the death of 10-year-old Kopano Molelekedi and the cold case against her killer.
Kopano Molelekedi was hit by a speeding car in 2018. She was crossing the road to her home in Jerusalem informal settlement in Johannesburg. The driver of the vehicle took her to Pennyville Park in Soweto where she died at Noordgesig Clinic.
Listen at TimesLIVE or on Spotify.
Tip 2# - Selling sponsorships is difficult
"I wish I could say to you that it is working so well: our shows are getting sponsored, but they're not. And it's getting frustrating."
There are also interesting dynamics with publishers sometimes putting their podcasts behind a paywall. Scott has a fresh angle on this. "So, up until recently none of our pods were behind a paywall." Arena is still testing different ways in which to make digital monetisation work in general. "It's not a perfect system yet," says Scott.
Scott says, "I understand the idea of using these pods to lure in subscribers. Sure. Makes sense." But with this particular show it is simultaneously available on Apple and Spotify for everyone (so it is public), but on the TimesLIVE site it is only accessible behind the subscriber wall. So, you are getting the worst of both worlds: it isn't really restricted and the number of listens has dropped because it isn't easily accessible either. "I'm happy to explore how we reach these weekly shows, but a direct subscriber call-to-action needs to be present."
"Literally just last week we got a documentary unit signed off for the group," says Scott. "How this is going to develop I'm not sure yet, but already they are knocking on my door." This is outside of his department, but they all work for the same company. It is a sign that Scott is always moving projects forward, particularly in audio.
All the best,
Paul
LISTEN NOW: Justice for Kopano. An investigation produced by Scott's team at Arena. It looks into the death of 10-year-old Kopano Molelekedi and the cold case against her killer.
Kopano Molelekedi was hit by a speeding car in 2018. She was crossing the road to her home in Jerusalem informal settlement in Johannesburg. The driver of the vehicle took her to Pennyville Park in Soweto where she died at Noordgesig Clinic.
Listen at TimesLIVE or on Spotify.