DMG Media steps up podcast focus with Adelicious partnership

DMG Media, the owner of the Daily Mail, Metro and i, has agreed a deal with Adelicious to host and monetise its current and upcoming shows.

The publisher’s podcast slate spans a range of genres and had more than 26m listens in its first year.

Adelicious will represent DMG Media to brands and work on “increasing revenue opportunities”, podcast growth and launch strategies.

Craig Eastwood, commercial operations director at Adelicious, said: “The Daily Mail Group is the most engaged news brand in the UK, and Jamie [East] and his team have developed one of the most ambitious and exciting line-ups we’ve seen in a long time.

“This collaboration presents a significant opportunity for advertisers to reach an engaged, high-value audience, which we know podcast listeners to be.”

Analysis: Changing perceptions

Last year, Mail Metro Media announced it will invest in “even more innovative and engaging multi-platform solutions”, including video and audio.

Jamie East, who started in the role of head of podcasts in August, told The Media Leader that the team had “immediately put the business out to tender” since they were doing “good numbers but were missing out on some revenue”.

East stressed that it had “been in the planning for a long time” and the team “spoke to everybody”. Since last year, DMG Media had an interim agreement with Acast that was “a temporary measure”.

Adelicious “fitted our technical strategy and creative needs the best”, he continued, highlighting the need to “bolster” the existing sales team, which does different deals across different titles and genres.

“We’ve got Metro, we’ve got Mail, we’ve got New Scientist, we’ve got i News — so it is going to cover a lot of bases,” he said. “Every podcast is really different and it’s not just doing news podcasts, or comedy podcasts — it is pretty complicated.”

Furthermore, East wanted a partner that “understood our needs”, was “proud to work with us” and would understand what he is trying to achieve with the podcast network.

Rather than “a bog-standard” network with a few news podcasts or shows by columnists, East stressed this network was different.

He explained: “We are looking to do something a bit more diverse and creative with it all and change the perception of brands and do some more exciting things.

“So it wasn’t really a case of reaching critical mass. It was always the fact that I knew that critical mass was coming, so it’s about being prepared.”

As part of its strategy to focus on multi-platform solutions, earlier this year Mail Metro Media also unveiled a full-service video proposition called Edits to help brands advertise against vertical video content created for MailOnline.