How the Financial Times Is Using Podcasts to Build Its US Audience

U.K. publisher the Financial Times released a weekly eight-part investigative podcast called Hot Money: Porn, Power and Profit in June in partnership with Pushkin Industries. The series delves into the porn industry's hidden secrets and the money that fuels it and is part of the business publisher's goal to grow U.S. audiences, and with it, subscriptions. The germ of the idea for the show originated from a scoop in 2020 from the FT journalist Patricia Nilsson. Now, Hot Money is now No. 3 on the Apple Podcasts Business chart and has been No. 1 on podcast streaming platform Pocket Casts for more than two weeks, according to FT head of podcast Cheryl Brumley. "Alex Barker and Patricia Nilsson investigated an industry that most people have interacted with at some point in their lifetime, but talk little about," Brumley told Adweek. "That’s why Hot Money has captivated so many listeners and is charting so well even in its fifth week." While the story's findings about the industry are hot, so is the FT’s growing podcast listenership. It has approximately eight regular podcasts including its daily news podcast called News Briefing, FT Weekend Podcast and Payne's Politics. Its podcast audience increased 51% year over year from May 2021 to May 2022, according to FT. This is also fueling its growth in the U.S. According to Brumley, the publisher saw a 43% year-over-year growth this year in its U.S. audience, and now 25% of its global audience is U.S.-based. “We needed to kind of cut back on what we're doing … and rethink what kind of content would really help grow our audiences out there [in the U.S.],” Brumley said. Expanding stateside According to Brumley, the plan to expand its U.S. audience started after the FT was acquired by Japanese finance publishing company Nikkei in 2015. For shows like the FT Weekend Podcast, which has more than 3 million listeners, at least 20% are U.S. based. For the longer-standing show that started in 2016, Tech Tonic, there has been a 74% increase in audience compared to its previous season. Now, U.S. listeners account for 26% of the audience. FT News Briefing drives a chunk of the publishers overall audience growth, according to Brumley. The audience for the show increased 60% in the last year with 2.8 million listens and 4.5 million downloads recorded from March. "This tells us that we’re on the right track, we’re creating habits, meeting a growing need for global, sharp and informative content and we know there’s an appetite for more," Brumley added. In 2019, the FT's audio department was just four people. It's now grown to 18. Close ties The FT has a solid subscription business, so it's less at the whim of digital ad fluctuations. Its latest report from March shows the publisher has more than 1 million digital subscribers. But audio ad revenue is still an opportunity. According to FT head of business development, audio and video Alastair Mackie, almost 90% of the FT’s audio advertising revenue is generated by its global sales team. Like other publishers, the FT integrates "audio into wider advertising campaigns across display, branded content and thought leadership activity," Mackie said. He declined to share specific ad rates. Since 2019, the FT has had more than 50 brands advertise on its podcasts. Among its key partners are its business-focused clients including Equinor, Accenture, Workday and Morgan Stanley. "Audio is an increasingly important part of the conversation we have with our advertising partners," Mackie said. Podcast audiences are growing more diverse, according to Edison Research, an industry shift FT is keen on, according to Brumley. "That is incredibly encouraging and showcases how audio can help us reach younger and more diverse audiences." The Economist's Podcasts Have Fetched Over a Billion Downloads Since Launch An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the FT increased its podcast audience 40% year over year from March 2020 to March 2021. And incorrectly stated that the publisher saw a 29% year-over-year growth this year in its U.S. audience.