Publishers Are Investing in a Second Generation of Audio Articles

The BBC, Apple News and The Washington Post have in the past month rolled out new ways to listen to their written articles, hoping to give busy subscribers a flexible way to explore stories and to attract new subscriptions, executives said. "We conducted user research and learned that users want to stay informed but are busy, so they appreciate an option to get up to speed on the latest news developments while cooking dinner, running errands or exercising," said Emily Chow, director of site product at The Washington Post. The Post said it began producing audio articles as an experiment "several years ago," but text-to-audio or click-to-listen story formats have been available for over a decade. The Economist Newspaper Ltd. began producing an audio edition of its weekly magazine in 2007 and little has changed since then, said Tom Standage, the company's deputy editor and head of digital strategy. The Economist sees audio articles as a way to retain subscribers and find new ones by publishing select content for free as podcasts, said Mr. Standage, who noted the offer "is not about advertiser revenue."