Future of TV Briefing: How publishers are turning podcasts into video talk shows

Honestly, I thought video podcasts were just a fad. And obviously, I was wrong. Way wrong. More than 170 million people have watched a video podcast on Spotify, per the company, and YouTube has become the “most used” platform for consuming podcasts, according to a study by Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights.

All of which is to say: Podcasts are becoming largely video productions. As a result, podcast publishers are having to sort out how to adapt podcasts into videos. Sure, they can just hook up a show’s RSS feed to YouTube and have the audio play over a static image of the podcast’s thumbnail image. But then that’s not really a video podcast.

“There is a version of a video show that you could do, say, on YouTube that is a static image and just a long-form audio bed underneath it. That doesn’t feel as native to the platform, even though people do consume that way. And so as we think about podcasts as like a modern talk show – our chat podcasts at least – we are thinking about what’s native to the different platforms where they appear,” said Nishat Kurwa, svp and executive producer for podcasts at Vox Media, which has been producing video podcasts since The Verge’s Vergecast debuted in November 2011.

Making video podcasts native to platforms like YouTube means making sure a video podcast is as much a video as a podcast. There are some basic elements, like filming the hosts and guests. But simply recording a Zoom session or setting up a single camera in a podcast studio doesn’t necessarily suffice. 

“It’s important for us to be cutting and changing the layout of the screen, just to keep the user engaged. That’s one thing that you never need to think about for audio, vs. on video, it’s like, ‘How is there some type of change every once in a while so that people are not just looking at the same type of image for too long?’” said Sam Gordon, editor-in-chief of Overtime, which started producing long-form video podcasts roughly six months ago and has accumulated 55 million views on YouTube for those podcasts in the past two months.

Much of the answer to that question depends on how the podcast is recorded. 

If done entirely in person, then a best practice is to set up three cameras on set: one focused on the host, one focused on the guest(s) or cohost and one set at a wide angle to show all parties. “That way we always have two angles that we can pull from for any given person,” said Gordon.

In-person recordings also open up production design opportunities to create visual interest on the set. For example, Sue Bird’s and Megan Rapinoe’s podcast with Vox Media, “A Touch More,” originated as an Instagram Live series recorded at home. So the video podcast is filmed in one of Vox Media’s studios on a set “that looks like a cozy room,” said Kurwa. 

If recorded remotely via Zoom or another video conferencing platform, creating visual interest can be trickier. Webcam-quality clips are often of lower resolution than what people are accustomed to watching on YouTube, especially as more of YouTube’s watch time takes place on TV screens. 

This is where graphics become the unsung workhorse of the video podcast. “You can add a lot of personality with graphics,” said Kurwa.

Overtime, for example, has graphics packages for each of its shows recorded via Zoom. These graphics enable the Zoom recordings to be inset as opposed to scaled up to cover the entire screen and enlarge the lower image quality. Additionally, Overtime sometimes adds motion to the graphics that add depth and life to the shot.

“We also have graphics where we can show multiple camera angles at once. If you go full screen, and it’s half one [clip] and half the other, it’s not visually engaging,” Gordon said.

Vox Media similarly enlists its design team to create custom visuals and motion graphics for its video podcasts. “We map out what the segments are going to be in the show. We talk to the design team about some recurring templates that we think we’re going to use, whether that’s the segment title cards or recurring motion graphics that we think will be useful to have over time,” Kurwa said. 

Minding the visual as well as aural quality of podcasts is also reshaping the skillsets of those working on podcasts. Case in point: Production assistants on the Vox Media Podcast Network’s production team have historically been responsible for pulling archival audio clips and now are being asked to also pull b-roll video clips. 

“We are seeing the future of podcasts as multi-platform shows. I think that is a skillset that’s really beneficial for podcast producers to have, so that they can be more versatile in the jobs of now, the jobs of the future, and be more of an asset to more kinds of productions,” Kurwa said.

What we’ve heard

“It’s: Speak out, but don’t speak out if you want to pay your rent, but speak out if you want to be a morally accepted creator, but don’t speak out if you want to be able to pay your bills.”

— Mollie Daniela on brands asking creators to avoid political content

Olympics wins watch time gold for NBCUniversal

Thanks to the Summer Olympics airing across traditional TV and streaming, people spent more time watching NBCUniversal properties on their TV screens in August than any other media company’s, according to Nielsen’s latest Media Distributor Gauge viewership report.

NBCUniversal’s upswing didn’t necessarily come at a cost to all other companies’ watch time shares. YouTube and Roku’s The Roku Channel gained share in the month.

Numbers to know

90%: Percentage share of Paramount Global’s planned layoffs that the company expects to have been completed after Tuesday.

$100: Price of Roku’s new Ultra connected TV device.

What we’ve covered

Legal battle aside, here’s all you need to know about TikTok right now:

• TikTok is trying to build up the performance side of its advertising business.
• The platform has avoided political ads but has started to open up to alcohol brands in Latin America and the U.S.

Read more about TikTok here.

Brands push for apolitical influencers to avoid ‘backlash’ as U.S. presidential election looms:

• Brands are asking creators to avoid posting political content around the U.S. presidential election.
• One brand asked a creator to not post any political content from September through January 2025.

Read more about apolitical influencer marketing here.

Why StreamElements is launching a ‘side sponsorship’ tool to widen creators’ advertising options:

• The livestreaming services provider’s new tool is meant to help creators work with multiple brands simultaneously.
• The new sponsorship tools is effectively an affiliate marketing mechanism.

Read more about StreamElements here.

Why are sports organizations including the NFL and Ligue 1 investing in their own streaming services?:

• Sports leagues are using streaming to establish direct connections with audiences.
• Sports leagues need to balance between their own streaming properties and their rights deals with TV and streaming companies.

Read more about sports streaming here.

Broadcasters and advertisers expected a lot from the Olympics — was it worth it?:

• NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery touted high ad sales numbers.
• Samsung has measured awareness and sales boosts from its Olympics campaign.

Read more about Olympics advertising here.

What we’re reading

YouTube’s latest brand safety snafu:

Ads for brands including Adobe and Mazda as well as Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign appeared on YouTube videos spreading misinformation about Haitian migrants, according to The New York Times.

Lionsgate’s AI deal:

The movie and TV studio has signed a deal with generative AI company Runway that gives the latter access to its content library and the former access to an AI model trained on that content, seemingly without any money changing hands between the two, according to The Wall Street Journal.

YouTube’s AI tools:

A year after unveiling generative AI tools for creators, YouTube is adding to its lineup by formally rolling out products to let creators have generative AI come up with video concepts and even create actual videos (albeit only up to 6-second-long clips), according to The Verge.

Amazon’s AI ads:

Like Google and Meta before it, Amazon has created a tool for advertisers to have AI create their video ads by converting static images into video, according to TechCrunch.