NBC News is expanding its podcast roster, taking on the crowded, competitive, but large daily news podcast space.
NBC’s effort will be called Here’s the Scoop, and in a sea of podcasts that publish first thing in the morning, NBC is targeting an afternoon release, hoping to catch people on the evening commutes (you can listen to the trailer here).
“There is a competitive field, and we’re excited to compete,” says Catherine Kim, executive vp of editorial for NBC News, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The show will aim to release at 5 p.m. ET, with correspondents Morgan Chesky, Brian Cheung and Yasmin Vossoughian splitting host duties. Each episode will tackle one or two stories more deeply, and pair that with a news rundown, all with a more casual tone than you would get than, say, NBC Nightly News.
“We are trying to take a very informal and casual approach,” Kim says. “We want to reach the mass audience as they’re wrapping up or winding down their day, and fill them in on what’s happened since they’ve been away from their phones or laptops or monitors.”
The new podcast is part of a larger push by NBC News to forge relationships with its audience outside of traditional linear TV. The news division is also planning a subscription offering for later this year.
In an email to THR, NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde said the organization has been developing more direct connections with its audiences where they’re consuming media.
“You have seen us invest aggressively and successfully over the last few years in streaming and other growth platforms,” he said. “Earlier this year we announced that we’re going to launch a premium subscription service for NBC News. Next week we are launching our latest podcast. We have also been building a new sports hub leveraging all our unique NBC sports video and programming. Our priority is how do we create more direct and diverse touch points with our audiences.”
Here’s the Scoop is a key piece of that, engaging an audience that may not be getting NBC’s reporting elsewhere, or that is, but wants to get it in the more casual and intimate format that podcasts allow for.
“This is in line with where we’re going, which is to directly talk to consumers across the platforms and across the format they want to receive their news in, not only where they are, but how they want to receive it, whether it’s to read, watch or listen” Kim says. “I think the intimacy of audio, the intimacy of conversations, and the informality that we want to introduce in this podcast is really going to show a different side of NBC News, the breadth and depth and nuance that we can provide.”
That will include highlighting the work of NBC’s correspondents, seeking to bring listeners into the field, so to speak, to underscore that NBC News is not just hosts in a studio but a massive news organization with a presence around the world, be that coverage of protests, war, or other events.
“We want to take you to the scene as much as we can, and pull back the curtain and give listeners a sense of not just what’s happening inside our newsroom, but out in the field, as our reporters report out major stories that are important to the lives of our audience and make sense of the news,” Kim says, adding that enterprise reporting and investigations will also be featured. “By virtue of being in your ear, it’s a different kind of one-on-one experience. It’s really exciting to sort of engage with our audience in this kind of way, with a fresh format, a fresh approach, the tone is going to be more contemporary, more informal and sometimes playful.”
