Guardian Selling Podcast Ads

The Guardian News & Media says it has become the first news organisation in the UK to sell advertising around its podcasts.

Press Gazette reports that the GNM is working with an American company to insert geo-targeted adverts at the point of download of audio recordings available on its website.

Head of audio Matt Wells revealed that The Guardian and Observer, which produce about ten hours of audio each week, recorded some 2.5 million podcast downloads throughout October.


“People are comfortable with the medium and we’ll be working with all the divisions in our commercial department to include audio as part of our multimedia offering,” said Helen Mayor, commercial development manager at GNM.

She added: “GNM has been researching usage, impressions and collecting information on audience to enable it to be much more prepared when we go into the market.”


[Picture – Annie Mole on Flickr.]