
The Washington Podcast’s year-old daily news letter The 7 will expand into a podcast this fall. The daily briefing targeting readers in its local market has already been available in a speech-to-text format, and based on that success it will become a full-fledged podcast next month.
Making The 7 available as a podcast will help it reach new listeners since it will be available on traditional audio apps as well as on smart speakers. It will also give The Washington Post an entry into the morning daily podcast marketplace. Its Post Reports podcast currently targets afternoon commuters.
“We are thrilled by how well received The 7 has been in just a year since its launch. Readers have adopted The 7 into their routines, turning to it multiple times a week across platforms, making it our fastest-growing newsletter and our most clicked on audio article,” said Post Head of Curation and Platforms Coleen O’Lear. “The digestible format and story curation from sections across The Post’s newsroom has really resonated with readers, and we look forward to growing this experience to reach new audiences.”
A Washington Post spokesperson told Digiday that the audio version has about 2,000 people a day listening. That is three-times as many readers of The 7 opting to listen to the newsletter than the typical article on the Washington Post’s website.
The creation of the podcast comes as the Washington Post announces plans to rework The 7 into a more tailored product with more regional issues. The first, targeting its homebase readers, will be known as The 7 DMV for D.C. Maryland and Virginia. Written by local reporter Hau Chu and hitting inboxes at 7am ET, The 7 DMV covers local news, sports, features, photography and other sections with selections that emphasize the human, real-world impacts of the news through an approachable format of a quick list of seven items written by Post staff. “People who live in our region now have their own morning briefing to quickly learn about the most important news in less than three minutes,” said Mike Semel, Local Editor at The Post. "They also will be able to click through to the stories that make up the most comprehensive local report in the DMV. The 7 DMV draws on the breadth and depth of Post reporting with our readers’ hectic schedules in mind.”
The paper says it will extend to other “key markets” with a global edition expected next year.
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