Since launching out of beta, ART19 has hit the ground running and secured a partnership with The New York Times. The venerable publishing company will migrate its entire catalog to the ART19 platform. The first three NYT shows rolling out to ART19 are The Run-Up, Book Review and the latest show, Still Processing.
Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris are the duo behind Still Processing, a show where the two culture writers will unpack their personal views on topics ranging from television and the Internet to dating and politics. The Run-Up is a twice-weekly show hosted by politics reporter Michael Barbaro. Book Review complements the newspaper’s long-standing column of the same name.
“Our short-term strategy is to go where the listeners are and build big audiences and get our name out there as a creator of great audio content,” said Samantha Henig, editorial director of audio for The New York Times. “We’ll also promote it from our mobile app where we have a link right there to go listen.” However, the deal with ART19 could help The Times to become its own podcast destination rather than relying on the outside support of iTunes or other third-party sites.
We’ve seen several legacy publishers making serious forays into podcasting. That may take the form of launching shows, or of acquisitions. For instance, E.W. Scripps has purchased Midroll Media and Stitcher. The multimedia approach can help these publishers and media brands to reach new audiences in addition to their existing reader bases.
ART19 officially exited beta in early August with hosting, distribution, and monetization features for podcast networks. Its launch partners included Midroll Media, DGital Media, and Wondery. The company offers dynamic ad insertion, ad targeting, and custom APIs, in addition to tools for audience measurement.