As part of its ever-expanding slate of services, Apple is betting on original podcasting with its newly announced daily news program, Apple News Today.
The daily news podcast was part of a series of new offerings Apple announced in a blog post on Wednesday and follows a report from Bloomberg last year that the company was preparing to pony up for podcast originals — incidentally, just months after Spotify started snapping up podcasting companies for its own service.
The services game is a real rat race these days, with just about everyone and their mum launching a new streaming product of some kind. And with Apple expanding its services to include gaming, news, entertainment, and music — and given that it has an entire app for this kind of thing — it makes it would lean into original podcasts as well.
Apple News Today, hosted by Apple News editors Shumita Basu and Duarte Geraldino, will be available Monday through Friday morning in the News and Podcasts apps. No specific coverage plan was revealed, but the company said the podcast would “guide listeners through some of the most fascinating stories in the news — and how the world’s best journalists are covering them.”
The company also announced that it’s rolling out Apple News+ audio stories beginning Wednesday and moving forward at a clip of about 20 per week. These are audio versions of long-form stories from Apple’s publishing partners and will be available on Apple News+, the company said. Apple News, meanwhile, will get additional local news curation from regional publishers for users in select cities, including the Bay Area, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.
“Apple News showcases so much great journalism, and we’re excited to help bring it to life in new ways with Apple News+ audio stories and a new daily news show, Apple News Today,” Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of Apple News, said in a statement. “We also greatly value our many local news partners — our new local news feature highlights their work for readers who live, and are interested, in those communities.”