The Telegraph’s next podcast play: video, events and paid memberships

The Telegraph adopted a video-first approach to its podcast strategy after seeing viewership and video engagement grow this year. The U.K. news publisher’s podcast audience has grown 161% year over year, according to a company spokesperson. Weekly average YouTube views are 2.4 million for its three daily news podcast shows, including “The Daily T,” “Ukraine: The Latest,” and “Iran: The Latest.”

“There is no escaping the fact that video is now becoming the primary method by which news and journalism is consumed,” said Matthew Bayley, The Telegraph’s executive editor of audio and visuals. 

The Telegraph is investing in video podcast production as a central component of its newsroom output, he said. 

“We use ‘The Daily T’ as a vehicle for some of our more exclusive journalism. So our journalists will appear as guests and explain the stories they’re doing, and we just think it’s an absolutely crucial and indispensable part of what we now do,” Bayley said.

Nic Newman, senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, told Digiday he expects more subscription-based publishers like The Telegraph to experiment with products that go beyond text, as they look for new ways to retain and grow paying audiences. 

Newman pointed to The Economist’s launch earlier this summer of Economist Play, a lower-priced subscription tier centered on its audio and video journalism. The standalone offering bundles the publisher’s long-form video shows, paywalled podcasts, daily audio briefings and short-form videos, alongside subscriber-only newsletters and games.

The Telegraph has released three new podcasts this year, including two in the lifestyle space to reach a more diverse audience, Bayley said. In total, The Telegraph has five regular video podcasts. The publisher plans to debut four more shows before the end of the year, including three new narrative series, ranging from a true crime show to a sports podcast. 

In the past year, “The Daily T” has also expanded into live events, touring cities in the U.K. and releasing special edition episodes, such as “The Weekend T” on Saturdays and “The Royal T”. From July 2025 to March 2026, overall plays have increased by 93%, according to the spokesperson.

The strategy reflects a broader shift in how The Telegraph thinks about podcasts. It’s not seen as just another format for distributing journalism, but as IP that can build loyal audiences across platforms, deepen engagement and ultimately support subscription growth. That’s becoming more important as publishers contend with declining search referrals, putting a premium on products that create repeatable habits and direct audience relationships. 

“Ukraine:The Latest” is still the only dedicated daily podcast in the U.K. detailing the ongoing effects of the Ukraine war. Since its launch, it has amassed more than 75 million views across all platforms globally. And it’s still growing: in the last three months, YouTube views have gone up 115%, Bayley said.

Following the success of this dedicated daily war podcast, The Telegraph used the same model to convert a previous weekly podcast called “Battle Lines” into the daily podcast “Iran: The Latest.” Weekly plays are now over 350,000 and daily downloads have grown to over 60,000, according to the publisher.

The podcast push hasn’t been about creating more video inventory to sell ads against, according to Bayley. 

“The pipe dream would be that everyone comes back to the Telegraph app and the homepage and instantly becomes a subscriber,” Bayley said. But for now, “We have been very much concentrating on audience at this point, and revenue has not been the prime driver of this,” he added. The metrics Bayley is most interested in growing are listeners, viewers, watch time and engagement. 

One way The Telegraph is hoping to drive more conversions is to introduce a separate podcasting subscription offering, as well as a YouTube membership program. While the offering is “not finalized by any means,” Bayley said he thinks there are enough people out there willing to pay for additional content and access to podcast hosts. He did not share details on a timeline for when such offerings would be available.

Subscribers are becoming more interested in video on The Telegraph’s homepage and app, Bayley said. Homepage video views increased by more than threefold from April to June compared to the first three months of the year, a spokesperson said, declining to share what percentage of that audience was made up of subscribers.

This investment in video podcasts was in the works before the Axel Springer deal went through at the end of June, Bayley noted. The Telegraph had already doubled the size of its audio team to over 40 people this year. Bayley said he was “optimistic” that the takeover will help boost The Telegraph’s video and audience development, though there haven’t been any specific plans in place yet, he said.