BBC Studios and ARN’s iHeart have signed a multi-year partnership deal that will see iHeart represent BBC podcasts in Australia. iHeart will sell inventory across hundreds of hours of premium BBC podcasts as well as amplifying content in market.
The BBC’s podcasts are widely listened to by Aussie and Kiwi audiences, including BBC Global News Podcast, Football Daily, The Infinite Monkey Cage and History’s Youngest Heroes. Earlier in 2024, a dedicated audio division was created in BBC Studios, to fully realise the commercial opportunities in the global audio market.
This partnership provides advertisers with access to over 900,000 Australians who listen to BBC content every month, broadening the reach and scale of campaigns across ARN’s comprehensive audio network.
“The BBC has a big and loyal podcast fan base in Australia. We’re delighted to partner with market leader iHeart for representing the BBC’s rich portfolio of shows including World of Secrets, The Global Story and You’re Dead to Me to the ad market in Australia where iHeart has enormous scale, deep expertise and a proven track record of representing premium brands,” Louise la Grange, senior vice president, BBC Audio, Digital News and Streaming BBC Studios said.
“The BBC is renowned for producing some of the world’s most compelling and high-quality podcasts, and we’re thrilled to bring their premium, brand-safe podcast slate to Australian audiences while delivering valuable opportunities for advertisers. By leveraging our local expertise and scale, we’re excited to amplify the reach of BBC podcasts and further cement iHeart’s position as Australia’s leading destination for audio entertainment,” Corey Layton, ARN’s head of Digital Audio added.
“iHeart is an industry leader in ANZ. This partnership opens the door to advertisers looking to access scale deals in the audio space across BBC and other inventory represented by iHeart. For brands who want the very best of BBC audiences in Australia & New Zealand, we now have even greater capabilities to incorporate BBC Podcasts alongside campaigns accessing the rest of the BBC Studios portfolio including BBC.com, BBC News & BBC Studios channels on YouTube, our TV channels on Foxtel and Fetch, TopGear.com, BBC Social channels, and the recently announced FAST channels on 9Now,” Jamie Chambers, vice president of ad sales and BBC StoryWorks, BBC Studios ANZ said.
The deal follows BBC Studios’ recent announcement that it has partnered with Triton Digital.
As the commercial arm of the BBC Group, BBC Studios is responsible for the international distribution and monetisation of the BBC’s unrivalled catalogue of premium audio originals across news, technology, sports, travel, science, true crime, food, finance, and more.
