Guardian to carry ads in its podcasts

The Guardian is planning to launch adverts in its podcasts later this year.

Speaking at a Radio Academy event on podcasting, Matt Wells, head of audio for Guardian Unlimited, said the media group was developing software to allow the sale of 'spot ads' in Guardian podcasts.

The software, he said, would allow advertising on podcasts in a similar format to banner ads across downloaded web pages. However, Wells could not confirm at what point in the podcasts the ads would appear.
 
"We are working on ways of making this pay. Because of the way that the Guardian is funded we have had the luxury of developing and spending the money in an area that we are not mandated to make a profit in - yet," said Wells.
 
He described the strategy of adverts in the site's podcasts as 'a gradual tiptoe in the water'.

"Because we have done so much, for so long, with no ads, we are having to be careful about how we use them," he said.

"Also it's a new market, and I don't think that advertisers are going to be battering down the door to fill podcasts with ads. We're going to have to persuade agencies and advertisers to come into this."

Last month the site recorded 1.5 million downloads across all of its podcasts, Wells said, with 15-20,000 downloads of the Media Talk podcast over a week and 80-100,000 weekly downloads of its Football Weekly show.

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