“One important takeaway for the team since launching NOA is that our users will happily listen at length to stories that provide them with added narrative. In fact, the data indicates that our listeners love opinion and analysis style pieces. (Many of them have also told us as much.)

“Their relationship with news, however, is one of lower engagement. A news-centric headline is unlikely to attract as much traffic on the app. And this is despite the fact that turnaround times during our morning and evening recording sessions are often as low as 30 minutes.

“Today, news has turned into a commodity that competes on both timeliness and cost. While this is a market segment that publishers must serve, the successful players will marry this coverage with stories that go beyond the headline to provide insight and perspective (the ‘oh, wow’ or ‘I never thought of it like that’ factors).”

Gareth Hickey is co-founder and chief executive of NOA, a Dublin based audio-journalism company that transforms articles from some of the world’s leading publishers into professionally narrated, spoken word stories. He will speak at newsrewired on 7 March.