Financial Times and The Economist to be launch partners

STOCKHOLM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Acast,
the world’s largest podcast company, today announces the launch of Acast
Access. The new product is the technical infrastructure for publishers
to manage and distribute their exclusive paywalled content in a secure
way. With Acast Access, for the first time, publishers can lock
exclusive content behind their own paywall, while allowing consumers to
listen to that content on their podcasting app of choice.

Until recently, the vast majority of podcasters have monetized their
content through ad revenue. As more and more podcast publishers search
for sustainable revenue streams to support their content, the industry
will need to evolve support both ad revenue and subscriber revenue while
creating consumption flexibility for listeners. It is in this context
that Acast Access was developed – a product for publishers to distribute
paywalled audio content via RSS feeds.

Ross Adams, CEO Of Acast said “At Acast, we believe the most important
thing about the podcast medium is that it continues to be public and
accessible and independent of any one platform. We built Acast to be
independent and to bring value to podcasters by allowing their content
to be shared on any device, app, or player. Acast Access takes this
commitment to the next level by working with publishers to do this not
just for their ad-supported podcasts but their exclusive subscription
content as well.”

Johan Billgren, Acast Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer explains
“Acast Access is built on the concept of having two RSS feeds for one
show. One is the standard, public-RSS feed. The other is the
private version of that show, the accessed-RSS. The publisher
then decides what parts of the content are exclusive and only available
through the accessed-RSS, and what parts are in both feeds. Acast
Access then checks the anonymized user data against the publisher’s API
to determine which users are approved as either logged in or paying
subscribers of the publisher. From the listener’s perspective, Acast
Access is easy to use. It takes just two clicks to replace the public
feed with the accessed version in their podcast app of choice.”

Acast first began testing paywalled content when Acast+ launched in
2016. The Acast+ paywall was only accessible through the Acast app. One
publisher who used Acast+ is leading UK football podcast The Football
Ramble. The Football Ramble offered one exclusive episode per month,
plus an ad-free experience for all of their regular episodes, to
listeners who paid a fee. For the listeners who use the Acast app, the
conversion to the paywalled content was close to 50%. From listeners who
didn’t pay, the feedback Acast received was directly related to the
content being exclusive to the Acast app: many listeners said they would
pay if they could access the paywalled episodes in their own app of
choice.

This feedback led to a crucial component of Acast Access: the ability to
protect content behind any third party’s paywall while letting listeners
access this content in the podcast app of their choosing, such as Apple
Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and more.

Alastair Mackie, head of audio for commercial at the Financial Times, is
leading the beta test of Acast Access for the Financial Times, with
editorial support from Renée Kaplan, the FT’s Head of Audience and New
Content Strategies. Mackie said, “The Financial Times recently announced
the milestone accomplishment of reaching one million paying readers and
we’re continuing to look for ways to attract new audiences. We’ve been
building out our various forms of audio and are always eager to
experiment as we grow beyond a traditional print and online offering.
The majority of our podcast listeners are not yet subscribers and Acast
Access will help us to bring tremendous value to the audio realm,
incentivizing conversion for those listeners.”

Acast Access is truly a world first audio product. In addition to the
ability for publishers to paywall entire episodes, they may also choose
to combine private and public content in the same episode with the goal
of driving conversions.

Frank Andrejasich, Associate Director for The Economist Media Lab, which
is also beta testing Acast Access, said “We are always working to
maximize the value of a subscription payment for our subscribers. We see
Acast Access as helping us to take a more innovative approach to audio
subscription and helping to grow the opportunities for our podcasts,
including the recently launched Intelligence daily podcast. We want to
give our listeners as many reasons as possible to stay connected to The
Economist.”

Frank Andrejasich, Product Manager for New Product Development at The
Economist, which is also beta testing Acast Access, said “We are always
trying to help subscribers unlock value from their subscription to The
Economist, and audio has been a key differentiator for us for many
years. Acast Access offers us the opportunity to take a more innovative
approach to subscription audio content and will allow our subscribers to
listen to subscriber-only audio in the same places they listen to our
award-winning Economist Radio podcasts.”

About Acast

Acast is the world’s largest podcast company. Since 2014, Acast has been
the engine powering audio for makers all over the world. At its core,
Acast connects audio makers with the financial support they need to
create amazing content while also delivering the audience they want.
Acast works with podcasts globally including My Dad Wrote a Porno,
Off Menu, David Tennant Does A Podcast With, The Adam Buxton Podcast,
Sanspants Radio, Alice & Bianca, Watch What Crappens and Varvet
as well as those of publishers such as the Times, the Economist,
Guardian, VICE and Vogue. As a global business, Acast has offices around
the world from Stockholm to Sydney and a team of 100 talented audio
lovers working diligently to create a sustainable audio and voice
ecosystem to ensure that the audio industry continues to grow and
flourish. Acast was founded by Karl Rosander and Mans Ulvestam together
with co-founder Johan Billgren.

Contacts

Kara Silverman
[email protected]
201-499-7889