Audience Engagement Digital Publishing
2 mins read

Readly launches podcasts, further expands into the U.S.

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Digital magazine and newspaper app, Readly, is launching podcasts on its platform. The first phase will be in collaboration with three leading British publishers, Future plc, Immediate Media, and Guardian News & Media.

From this month onwards, readers can listen to 25 podcasts including Today in Focus from Guardian News & Media, The TopGear Magazine Podcast from Immediate Media and The MoneyWeek Podcast from Future Publishing. According to Readly, the launch aims to meet the increased demand for podcast content, boost the use of the Readly platform, and generally “give publishers greater value”.

Our ambition is to strengthen the content experience at Readly and thereby broaden our target audience. Podcasts are a format we want to explore because of their increased popularity. Most people combine listening with other activities such as training, driving or cooking, which means that Readly can be used on more occasions.

Mats Brandt, CEO, Readly

Brandt continues, “Publishers have also come a long way in their audio offering and we want Readly to become a great discovery tool for their popular podcasts to enhance engagement and audience reach at a global level. We look forward to learning more about how magazines and podcasts can complement each other as part of our strategic move into sound-based services.”

The rollout of the service will eventually include podcasts from additional countries and interest areas. There is also a focus on gathering user insights that will form the basis for further development of the service, with Readly saying it will “collect data on listening time, number of episodes played, number of users listening, how it affects magazine reading and also how it affects retention and conversion”.

We iterate features based on user feedback and understanding of our customers. The data guides us and teaches us how different content formats can make Readly even more mobile friendly, enjoyable and create greater value for publishers.

Mats Brandt, CEO, Readly

U.S. Expansion

The news comes at a busy time for Readly with the publisher announcing this week that it is expanding its U.S. portfolio with the signing of 23 iconic US magazine titles including People, All Recipes and Better Homes & Gardens. The platform is also strengthening its U.S. presence through ramped-up PR and marketing efforts.

Chris Couchman, Readly’s Head of Content in the US, says that the addition of the new titles is “another step in being able to deliver American readers the perfect mix of niche titles and well-established magazines that they are searching for.”

These magazines are some of the most known and trusted titles in the USA and we are proud to now be able to offer them on the Readly platform…we are eager to explore the market potential and our focus now is to put Readly in the hands of more U.S.consumers.

Chris Couchman, Head of Content U.S., Readly