This week we're joined by Chris Stone, Executive Producer at the New Statesman. Chris is in charge of the podcast and video strategy at the publication, and his experimental approach has seen monthly podcast downloads double, video views reach 8 million a month, and huge growth on their YouTube channel. More recently, he has been leaning into video podcasts on YouTube, figuring out what works for the New Statesman as the platform doubles down on its support for podcasts.
Chris takes us through some of his boldest experiments with podcasts at the New Statesman, from consolidating them into one feed to publishing audio and video versions to YouTube. He also talks about how they're adapting to wider trends in the podcasting market, the potential use cases for AI in podcasts, and whether others will follow in the footsteps of The Economist and move all their podcasts behind a paywall. As economic conditions continue to put publishers under pressure, he gives some advice to publisher podcast teams facing budget cuts.
2023's podcasting trends and their relevance to publishers will be one of the chapters we explore as part of our upcoming Media Moments 2023 report. Find out more and pre-register for the report here.
The GSM Association (GSMA) is the advocacy and lobbying organization for the mobile communications industry, representing more than 750 mobile operators as full members and a further 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem as associate members. Although legally a non-profit trade association, the GSMA operates on an commercial scale generating estimated annual revenues of approximately $668 million, largely through its flagship event series, the Mobile World Congress (MWC). The MWC event in Barcelona alone contributed over €561 million to the local economy in a recent year, demonstrating the event's massive commercial engine. This funding is reinvested to support the organization's primary missions, which include: Global Advocacy and Lobbying on behalf of its members, especially concerning radio spectrum allocation and telecom regulatory policy. Technical Standardization for mobile technologies (from GSM to 5G and beyond).
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electrical or electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of transmission may be divided into communication channels for multiplexing, allowing for a single medium to transmit several concurrent communication sessions. Long-distance technologies invented during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries generally use electric power, and include the electrical telegraph, telephone, television, and radio. Early telecommunication networks used metal wires as the medium for transmitting signals. These networks were used for telegraphy and telephony for many decades.