The way people consume audio has fundamentally changed. Podcasts are no longer a purely listening experience — they are becoming a hybrid format in which video plays a central role in distribution, discovery, and audience engagement. With 2 billion monthly users on YouTube and 1 billion monthly video podcast viewers as of early 2025, the platforms have shifted, and newsrooms need to shift with them.
This third CARL initiative leaflet examines how European media organisations are rethinking their content strategies in response to this change. From adopting a “video-first design” mindset already at the production stage, to building multi-layered strategies that span long-form YouTube episodes, short social clips, and native audio on Spotify — the leaflet maps out the approaches being tested across the CARL partner network and beyond, with benchmarks from BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, and El País.
To discover the key data points, explore the strategies observed in European newsrooms, and learn from the experience of CARL partners including Louie Media’s Mélissa Bounoua, download the full leaflet below — available in all six project languages.
