The Betoota Advocate to launch podcast with Acast Australia
Satirical news website The Betoota Advocate will launch its first podcast in the coming months, through the Acast Australia platform.
The specific details of the podcast are yet to be confirmed, but the Akubra-wearing editors ‘Errol Parker’ and ‘Clancy Overell’ (otherwise known as Charles Single and Archer Hamilton), have hinted they will expand their sport and crime categories.
Editors Archer Hamilton (L) and Charles Single (R) will launch their first podcast
Overell and Parker will run the podcast weekly, with each episode running for between 30 and 40 minutes. It will be led by the two editors, who will bring to listeners “topical” conversations and “zeitgeist”, as well as special guests.
The artist known as Overell, told Mumbrella the podcast works well alongside the online and ‘print’ publication.
“We thought we’d diversify. We already have the online sorted. We thought we’d get into this other space. It works well alongside what we already do,” he explained.
On what would differentiate The Betoota’s podcast from other news publications, Parker added:“What’d set us apart is that we have already established our tone and our core sort of message and that’s resonated well with the existing audience. Along with the great demand we’ve had from some of our partners to do this it was the natural next step for us as an online news provider.”
Overell joked the publication’s ‘balanced reporting’ would translate well into the audio medium.
Parker and Overell said the podcast will offer new opportunities for their commercial partners
“No one approaches us for a hot take,” he said.
“That’s the difference between us and most other media organisations. No one is looking at what we think on any particular issue. Our balanced reporting will translate well to audio – people who are looking for that same kind of betrayal and explanation of what is happening in the world.”
“Our readers rely on us for much more than the news. They need to be told how to think. They know this too,” he added in a statement.
“They need to have both their biases and remaining independent thoughts confirmed and validated by our editors and guests.”
When asked why they were venturing into sport and crime, Parker and Overell said those were two things Australians were interested in.
“In Australia we are all about the here and now and the here and now usually involves someone with a gun or someone with a cricket bat,” Overell added.
But the editors, who tell readers they are from Betoota in Queensland, disputed the idea they had launched the podcast in response to Facebook’s algorithm changes, which sees publishers and brands de-prioritised in news feeds.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that. We haven’t actually noticed any kind of difference on socials with our online publication. We’ve never been one for subscriptions or asking anyone to pay for our content and the good way for us to spread across the board and continue what we are doing is in different avenues and different channels,” Overell said.
Henrik Isaksson, country manager at Acast Australia, said he is “a bit too excited” about the launch.
Isaksson said the response has been positive from advertisers
“We’ve been operational in Australia since August last year and ever since we’ve been on the hunt for good and well produced Australian content. At the moment we are seeing so much demand from advertisers and agencies at the moment. I am thrilled and I am so happy we have got the guys from The Betoota and came to this conclusion,” Isaksson said.
He confirmed The Betoota Advocate podcast would have two launch partners, the first to be announced today.
“Our take on this is that we will keep it quite light in the beginning, we don’t want to compromise the podcast itself and the brands that we do work with from a Betoota perspective will be brands that fit the brand really well. We are probably going to be looking at integration into the podcast to start with and then we will see how things evolve,” Isaksson said of the podcasting.
“When we fired up this conversation, one of the things that really baffled me was the engagement that The Betoota Advocate had – the engagement on social – and that’s also a perfect storm given the podcast they are about to release.”
Isaksson could not confirm the exact date of the launch, but told Mumbrella it would hopefully commence in early March.
In September last year, Acast Australia extended its partnership with Nova Entertainment. Nova now sells both Acast and Nova’s podcasting inventory in the Australian market.
This is going to be so good!
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