Aural Magazines Edit
Monocle Magazine Turns a Blind Eye to Visual Stimuli

Many devoted subscribers to Monocle magazine, including myself, who also follow its accompanying video podcasts, would have noticed a slight decline in the number of video podcasts released by the publication. Monocle has also had a period in which it featured a mere slideshow of images accompanied by a narrator for its video podcasts as opposed to actual moving images.

Despite the aforementioned decline, the magazine’s weekly and summer special audio podcasts had become quite popular, and it does invoke the thought of whether that change was made due to the ease and lower cost of producing audio rather than video content.

The Independent recently interviewed Monocle’s editor, Tyler Brûlé, and asked his personal opinion on why the publication has taken their printed content to be brought into an aural and not visual experience.

In the interview, Brûlé claims that while other media entrepreneurs focus more on video, “such content is of little appeal to [our] consumers who are listening with your eyes closed and lying in the sun.” Monocle’s Summer Series podcasts are billed by Brûlé as an “audio travel companion over [your] holiday season.”

To make up for the loss of moving images, Monocle hand-picks the narrator for your global road-trip to be in the form of renowned luminaries such as “Savile Row tailor Patrick Grant, Icelandic singer Yohanna, retail guru Priscilla Carluccio,” and even Tyler Brûlé himself.