In the midst of the financial crisis, more and more Quebec media outlets are embarking on the news podcast adventure, hoping to attract a new audience and advertisers. But it’s difficult to easily stand out in a market already saturated with content from artists, influencers, activists or even politicians.
This fall, the magazine News decided to push its popular newsletter further Dollars and cents to create a podcast of the same name, the first episodes of which will be released next week. On the microphone, the head of the business and economy office, Marc-André Sabourin, will provide concrete tips for replenishing your portfolio on a daily basis and countering inflation.
Five episodes, five minutes each, will be released at the start of each month. We will discover in particular how to find money in your emails, get a discount at a restaurant or even a check from your municipality.
News had already taken a few steps in the world of podcasts, notably this year offering 2023 ways to love, in collaboration with 98.5FM. This time, it is alone and with its own means that the magazine is entering the arena.
A subsidy from Quebec, as part of the Digital Adaptation Assistance Program for written news media companies, enabled the media to equip itself to create a recording studio within its offices in Montreal.
“If it works well, we will launch a 2e season of Dollars and cents with new episodes this winter,” says editor-in-chief Claudine St-Germain confidently. His team is already working on other podcast projects which should see the light of day by spring.
A growing offer
News is far from being the only media in Quebec to explore this increasingly popular audio format. Rad, Radio-Canada’s “journalism laboratory,” is preparing to launch a podcast this fall. “Several concepts are currently being studied,” confirms Crystelle Crépeau, first director of magazines and digital information at Radio-Canada.
The Press also plans to deliver a second season of his podcast this fall Just between you and me, which we were able to discover this spring. In each episode, journalist Dominic Tardif speaks with a different guest to share anecdotes, reflections and other confidences.
For his part, The duty will soon offer a brand new podcast format to replace its daily Get the headlines, which ended in June. These are series of three or four episodes delving into several angles of the same theme or the same journalistic quest. For the first series, which will be revealed in the coming weeks, the team looked at our relationship to attention in the age of overstimulation.
And that’s without forgetting the new projects to come at QUB Radio or even Radio-Canada, two players who have already been well established in this sector for several years.
An intimate format
Like the Internet in the 2000s, the podcast format has become the new playground for the media, which seeks to conquer it through experiments of all kinds. “The advantage of podcasting is that there are no pre-established rules like other formats. There are no timings to respect, all formats are possible, all subjects are to be explored, we can do everything,” notes Étienne Roy, director of platforms and digital content at QUB radio.
The stories delivered to listeners’ ears also create a feeling of closeness. “The tone is confidential, it’s more intimate. The journalist will, for example, be able to speak more personally about his experience, revealing behind the scenes of his work,” underlines Crystelle Crépeau, from Radio-Canada.
The podcast also offers greater flexibility to the public, who can listen to it when they want, where they want, in bursts or gradually. This is one of the reasons that explains its growing popularity in recent years.
Both at QUB Radio and Radio-Canada, we are seeing significant growth in the number of podcast listeners. The public broadcaster currently has 1.5 million monthly connections, which corresponds to an increase of +112% since 2020.
Reach a new audience
And where the public is, the media comes running. “It’s now part of the way we think about our content. We wonder what people want to read or hear and above all, where are they? Then we go to them, we will join them directly,” explains the editor-in-chief of DutyMarie-Andrée Chouinard.
Seeking to reach new audiences has become one of the main objectives of traditional media, which have been going through a crisis for several years, their advertising revenue having declined since the arrival of GAFAM. Meta’s blocking of news since August has only added a layer of complexity to the task, forcing them to redouble their efforts to reach people. And that’s without mentioning information fatigue which is pushing more and more people to completely turn away from the news.
It’s now part of the way we think about our content. We wonder what people want to read or hear and above all, where are they? Then we go towards them, we go to join them directly.
“I think the message that society sends us is: ‘Be creative, try things, come find me differently. Don’t take for granted that I will always make the effort to contact you for information,” adds the director of strategic development of The Press, Mélanie Thivierge. “As media, we must make an effort to reinvent and develop, each in our own way. And the podcast is certainly one of the keys to allowing us to gain new audiences,” she believes.
Getting started in podcasting, however, involves facing certain challenges, including discoverability and monetization. Even though it has been in the industry since 2018, QUB media “works hard every day” to maintain and grow its audience.
“The problem is that there are a lot of listening platforms and above all tons of content with which we find ourselves in competition,” notes Étienne Roy of QUB radio. You have to stand out, find the right stories, the right formats, produce more. But it takes budget for that, and also to promote our content so that it has a life and finds its audience. »