Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Every brand and publisher is under the same pressure right now. Show up on video. Launch an audio series. Grow a newsletter. Activate on social. Attend events. Produce more.
The pressure is real. But the assumption underneath it – that being everywhere is the same as having a strategy – is where most multi-format efforts quietly fall apart.
At the PPA Festival in May 2026, Andrew Craissati, CEO and Co-founder of Auddy, joined a panel of publishers to discuss exactly this tension: how to expand a digital footprint without losing the audience data, brand coherence, and commercial logic that make any content operation viable. The conversation surfaced a clear and practical framework – one that applies well beyond publishing.
Key takeaways
- Multi-format strategy only works when every format answers to one question: does it move people closer to something you own?
- Third-party platforms build reach – but they withhold the audience data brands need to sustain revenue
- The smartest publishers treat social and public platforms as acquisition funnels, not destinations
- Private podcasting is emerging as the format that bridges public reach and owned engagement – delivering the depth of audio with the access control and analytics that public platforms won’t
- Live events and invite-only content experiences are among the strongest proof points of audience quality for commercial partners
Speakers
- Andrew Craissati, Founder & CEO, Auddy
- Darren Styles, CEO, Stream Publishing
- Olivia Midgely, Editorial Director, Farmers Guardian
Reformatting isn’t reimagining
The opening provocation from the session moderator set the tone: adapting to a multi-format reality isn’t about awkwardly squeezing a piece of content into a different medium. It’s about treating each format as an opportunity to retell the core story natively for the environment it lives in.
Olivia Midgley, Editorial Director at Farmers Guardian, illustrated this with a detail that’s easy to overlook. Her readership spans farmers running high-tech satellite systems to communities in rural Wales with limited connectivity. What works in a long-form newsletter at 7pm doesn’t work as a video on a phone screen in a tractor cab at midday. The content might be identical in substance – the format, length, and delivery have to be completely different.
The principle holds for any brand communicating with a distributed audience: format fit isn’t a creative preference, it’s an engagement decision.
Read: Your brand needs a podcast – and here’s why
Third-party platforms are shop windows, not home
The most instructive tension in the session came from a debate Craissati framed around data ownership. The risk of building on external platforms – social channels, public podcast directories, video hosts – is that you’re renting space. You get reach. You don’t get the audience.
As Craissati put it, organisations get good at growing audiences on platforms that ultimately withhold the granular insight they need to understand what’s working. Completion rates, individual listening behaviour, content drop-off – the data that actually informs strategy – stays with the platform, not the publisher.
The counterpoint from the panel wasn’t a rebuttal – it was a clarification. Darren Styles, CEO of Stream Publishing, agreed that public platforms have a clear and legitimate role: top-of-funnel reach. The goal isn’t to avoid them. It’s to treat them as a marketing budget – a shop window that drives curious audiences back to owned properties where the real commercial relationships exist. Memberships, subscriptions, sponsorships – those live in the room behind the window.
That reframe matters. It changes how you evaluate a platform’s success. The question isn’t “how many followers did we gain?” It’s “how many of those followers became part of something we own?”
Auddy client Story: Growing a Subscription Community with Secure Private Audio
Every format has to justify its place
Midgley offered a discipline that’s harder to maintain than it sounds: if a format can’t clearly drive membership and community belonging, it gets scrutinised – regardless of how much noise surrounds it.
Farmers Guardian launched its digital transformation in 2023. Since then, the editorial team has tested formats, dropped the ones that don’t convert, and doubled down on the ones that do. That’s not a content strategy built around trends. It’s one built around a measurable model.
Styles added a practical dimension to this. When Stream Publishing co-launched a podcast with comedian Suzi Ruffell, the structure was built on shared costs and revenues – not a traditional work-for-hire model. The logic: inheriting an established creator’s existing audience is faster and more credible than building from zero. For any brand entering an unfamiliar format, that co-ownership model is worth examining.
Where private podcasting fits in this picture
This is where the conversation turned to something more specific – and more commercially useful.
Craissati made the case for invite-only content experiences as both an audience engagement tool and a revenue stream. The example he gave: green room podcast recordings at live events, accessible only to invited guests or superfans. Not published to Spotify. Not indexed on Apple Podcasts. Delivered to a defined group, with full control over who hears it and measurable data on what they did with it.
Read more: Auddy fact sheet – private podcasting for publishers
This is the logic behind Auddy’s Campfire solution – and it sits at exactly the intersection the panel was circling. Campfire lets brands and publishers build private podcast feeds for specific audience tiers: paying members, VIP communities, franchise partners, or commercial collaborators. Each feed is access-controlled, non-downloadable, and delivers named-user analytics – completion rates, replay behaviour, drop-off points – that public platforms structurally cannot provide.
For brands already using public platforms for acquisition, private podcasting fills the gap those platforms leave: depth, exclusivity, and data. Instead of broadcasting to an undifferentiated audience and hoping the right people engage, Campfire lets brands speak directly to the people they most want to retain – and know, precisely, whether the message landed.
Auddy’s creative and editorial team manages the content pipeline, so the production burden doesn’t fall on already-stretched brand or comms teams. The result is a dependable content cadence for high-value audiences, without requiring internal resource that most organisations don’t have.
Explore how Auddy Campfire works for brands and publishers
Live events as commercial proof – and content engines
The panel closed on something that cuts against the assumption that digital distribution is always the priority. In a landscape where digital metrics can be inflated and follower counts mean less than they used to, live events remain one of the strongest signals of genuine audience quality.
Styles put it plainly: events like the attitude Awards don’t just generate media reach (the figure cited was half a billion). They give commercial partners tangible, visible proof that a real, engaged audience exists – and that it shows up. “That manifestation is reassuring to our partners that we’re talking to who they think they’re talking to,” as one panellist noted.
Midgley made a similar point about agricultural shows as a distribution channel that’s consistently underrated. The audience is captive, engaged, and self-selected. It’s also the kind of audience that, when given the right format – a short podcast recorded on-site, available to event attendees – becomes far more likely to convert into something owned.
The connection to private podcasting is direct. A green room recording at a live event, offered exclusively to attendees or members, combines the authenticity of the live moment with the control and data of a private channel. It’s reach without surrender.
Recap
The multi-format pressure isn’t going away. But the publishers and brands navigating it well aren’t trying to be everywhere – they’re building a model where every format has a specific role, and where the ultimate goal is always to move people closer to something owned.
Public platforms are acquisition. Owned ecosystems are retention. Private podcasting, positioned correctly, sits between the two – delivering the depth and exclusivity that move audiences from passive followers to active members.
The shop window is useful. But the room behind it is where the business actually happens.
Frequently asked questions
How do I decide which formats are worth investing in?
Start with a single metric: does this format drive people toward something you own – a subscription, a membership, a community? If it doesn’t have a clear path to that outcome, it’s reach without return. Test new formats with a defined conversion goal before scaling them.
Can I build first-party data while still distributing on public platforms?
Yes – but the platforms need to be treated as acquisition, not destination. Use public channels to reach new audiences, then give those audiences a reason to cross into a channel you control: a private podcast, a members area, a newsletter that isn’t dependent on an algorithm.
Where does private podcasting fit if I already have a public podcast?
They serve different purposes. A public podcast builds reach and brand familiarity. A private feed – for paying members, VIP tiers, or commercial partners – delivers depth, exclusivity, and the granular analytics that public platforms don’t share. Most organisations that run both treat the public show as the shop window and the private feed as the room behind it.
What does a co-branded podcast partnership actually look like?
At its simplest, it means sharing production costs and revenue with a creator who already has the audience you want to reach. The model works best when both parties bring something the other lacks – an established creator brings a built-in audience; a publisher or brand brings production support, distribution infrastructure, and commercial relationships.
How do live events and private content reinforce each other?
Live events generate the kind of authentic, high-trust moments that are difficult to replicate in a studio. Recording invite-only content at those events – and making it available exclusively to attendees or members – combines the energy of the live experience with the data and control of a private channel. It turns a one-off event into a content asset that reinforces community belonging long after the day itself.
