A look at the rise of narrated articles across publications, with many partnering with apps like Audm, Curio, and Noa to produce and distribute them
“I think the distinction between podcasts and longform audio articles and e-books is blurring, and that is likely to help preserve in-depth and investigative reporting” https://twitter.com/... @niemanlab : Here's how @HarvardBiz, @NewYorker, and @TheEconomist use audio to boost reach and retention: https://niemanreports.org/... @niemanreports : Narrated articles may not offer the most robust listening experience, but they do offer one that's convenient for listeners & for publishers. A look at why outlets such as @HarvardBiz, @NewYorker, & @TheEconomist are using audio to boost reach & retention https://niemanreports.org/... @niemanfdn : Audio articles are closer to audiobooks than podcasts. Here's how they're helping newsrooms gain loyal audiences. Via @NiemanReports https://niemanreports.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Publishers have been drifting toward audio for years: they poured resources into audiobooks after US and Canadian sales grew 21% in 2015 (audiobook growth), and Medium put narrated stories behind its subscription as early as 2017 (Medium's subscriber audio). What changed with this piece is the mechanism — instead of building in-house studios, outlets like Harvard Business Review, The New Yorker, and The Economist are licensing their longform to specialist apps.
That app layer — Audm, Curio, Noa — sits between publishers and listeners, handling production and distribution while magazines collect reach and retention. Weeks after this analysis ran, the model's endgame surfaced when The New York Times Company acquired Audm outright, pulling the aggregator in-house.
First-order effects
- Harvard Business Review, The New Yorker, and The Economist gain a listening-time channel for longform pieces without hiring narrators or audio engineers — Nieman frames the trade as convenient for listeners and publishers alike.
- Audm, Curio, and Noa secure differentiated catalogs of prestige journalism for their paid apps, with Audm charging $8.99 per month for actor-read articles.
Second-order effects
- The aggregators become gatekeepers owning the listener relationship, which is exactly what the Times' Audm acquisition responds to — large publishers would rather own the audio layer than rent it out.
- Medium's earlier move of reserving narrated stories for subscribers sets the bundling template other publications now face pressure to match, pushing narrated articles toward paywalls rather than free feeds.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the boundary between podcasts, longform audio articles, and e-books keeps dissolving — the Nieman-sourced argument that this blurring helps preserve in-depth and investigative reporting by giving it one more monetizable format.
- Independent audio-journalism apps face a structural squeeze: either consolidate under big publishers, as Audm did under the Times, or compete against publisher-owned audio stacks.
The trend: Longform journalism is being reformatted into licensed audio through third-party apps, with major publishers ultimately absorbing those apps to own the format themselves.