Newrewired spotlight | Chris Stone: 'The news industry has a lot to learn from podcast creators'

News podcasts are an incredible opportunity to discover and develop new audiences. Far from being just a standalone digital product, podcasts can drive growth across your entire digital media business.

Chris Stone, head of video and podcasts at the New Statesman, has led podcast businesses for over 12 years, with previous roles at the London Standard and the Telegraph. He also writes the Podcast Strategy Weekly newsletter.

The award-winning podcasting maestro delivers a must-attend podcast talk at our next Newsrewired conference on 13 May 2025, which will delve into how to repurpose your podcast content, convert newly discovered listeners into paying customers, and maximise ROI on your podcasting tech and talent.

Journalism.co.uk caught up with Stone to discuss all things podcasting and what publishers need to know. Answers have been edited for brevity.

Q: What makes news podcasts distinct from other genres?

CS: It's all about what the users are coming to the podcast for, isn't it? It's Dimitri Shishkin's user needs, maybe. But also, where are you meeting people during the day? So often, news podcasts will meet them either in the morning or last thing in the evening.

And what are they hoping to get out of the podcast? If it's updates, then you want to be thinking short, but maybe what they're looking for from you is lengthy news analysis.

Q: Do news podcasts take inspiration from other genres?

CS: If they're not, then they should be, because news has an incredible ego and we tend to think that we know how to do the media best, but most of the lessons that I've learned have been from what solo creators are doing. And so I think the news industry has a lot to learn from individual creators.

Q: Are there unusual podcast structures that might work for news?

CS: I've been quite enjoying quiz podcasts recently, particularly with my kids. My kids love a quiz podcast. I think there is a lot of room to make news more engaging and entertaining as well.

Q: How important is sound and production quality?

CS: Very. Although the barrier for entry is technically low, if it comes down to a podcast that sounds great and a podcast that doesn't, and all else is equal, then a listener will choose the one that sounds great. So if you've got the means, then why wouldn't you give yourself that advantage?

Q: What are the best ways to promote a podcast online?

CS: The first thing to try is to appeal to people who already listen to audio. So, placing ads or promo swaps with other podcasts can be very helpful. Cross-promoting within your existing stable of podcasts, if you have more than one, also helps.

Newsletters are an underrated resource, and having your own newsletter to drive people to your podcast, and also to capture people's interest further, is helpful. Pitching out to podcast newsletters themselves can be very useful too.

I think that social and display ads have a role, but the user acquisition route is more complicated because it's much harder to get people to go from watching a social clip directly to listening to a podcast. You have to expose them to things more than once, normally like seven times or something, to get them to take action.

@newstatesman

"There is such a thing as Starmer-ism" - Andrew Marr

♬ original sound - New Statesman

Q: What's the one big opportunity to watch out for in terms of using video for podcasts?

CS: YouTube is still a massive opportunity to extend your audience reach and to grow an additional audience for your podcast because if they're a YouTube viewer, they tend to like watching YouTube. So you've got to think carefully about what you're going to ask people to do next after watching a YouTube video.

Q: Audiograms, yay or nay?

CS: Nay. When I've used audiograms on TikTok, they bomb. YouTube, they bomb. Instagram, they bomb. Twitter, the jury's out. If you've got nothing else, then an audiogram is better than a still, but a video is better than an audiogram.

Q: Favourite podcasting tool at the moment?

CS: Descript, because I can edit a podcast quicker on Descript than in any other editor.

Q: Remote podcasting, yay or nay?

CS: Yeah, sure. If you can find a way to make the sound quality work, then remote podcasting is fine - in fact, better than fine because you can get access to guests that you would absolutely never get in a studio. If you can get somebody in a studio, always get them in a studio. If you can't, then remote podcasting is absolutely fine.

Q: Favourite podcast at the moment?

CS: I am learning a tremendous amount from Jay Clouse's Creator Science. This is what I was saying about learning from individual creators, if not more than from people in the news industry.

Jay has built a content business from nothing and builds in public all the way, right? So he shares exactly what he's doing and why it's working and what's not working, including experiments that work and experiments that fail. And he gets a really good selection of guests to talk about their own successes. So yeah, there's a lot to learn there.

Q: Biggest pet peeve in podcasting?

CS: I've got a lot of pet peeves in podcasting. I'm going to go for not cutting out the words: "That's a great question." Maybe that's more from a perspective of signing off on other people's edits rather than necessarily listening to an actual podcasts because when I hear it in actual podcasts it's whatever.

When people are talking on podcasts, as we all do in real life, they start with a thinking phrase: "well, I think" or "yeah it's interesting because..." What you're basically saying is "um let me think about that..."

Q: How much should you cut out filler words like "ums" and "ahs"?

CS: Cut it out if it disrupts the flow of the audience's ability to understand what the person is saying. If it's part of their natural rhythm of speech, then leave it in.

Q: What is your one podcasting secret that you can share?

CS: Nobody really knows what they're doing.

Don't miss Chris Stone's session "How to turn your podcast into a growth engine" on 13 May 2025 at News UK, London.

Check out the full agenda and speaker line-up now and book your place for Newsrewired and the study tour while final places last

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).