Earlier this month, Schwartz Media, publisher of The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, announced it had entered into a heads of agreement to sell its flagship podcast, 7am, to Solstice Media, publisher of The New Daily.
It came as a shock to newsrooms around the country, particularly among a generation of young reporters for whom 7am served as a breeding ground. But it is not the only asset sold off by Schwartz Media in recent memory, nor is it the only podcast to possibly end as a result of the sale.
The Read This podcast, a weekly offering devoted to interviewing authors about their latest releases and hosted by The Monthly’s Michael Williams, has been quietly shelved by Schwartz, with Williams taking to social media to reflect on the podcast’s future.
“At the end of June, Schwartz Media are selling 7am podcast, and as a consequence, getting out of podcasting altogether. After two more episodes, Read This no longer has a home.”
Read This sat uniquely in the market as one of the few podcasts focused on the Australian literary and publishing industry. Williams told Crikey that “Schwartz Media setting up and supporting the creation of Read This just over two years ago felt … at odds with the prevailing trends in Australian media to cut back book coverage.”
“I think in no small part their belief and investment in the idea was as a natural extension of the books coverage that has been the backbone of The Monthly and The Saturday Paper since the inception of both those titles,” he said.
Williams appears optimistic that the Read This podcast will continue in some form, telling Crikey he was “determined to find a way to [continue] in some capacity soon”.
Despite that, he was cognisant of the shifting nature of Australian media when it came to the literary scene.
“There are countless examples of how hard it is as a reader to find dedicated books criticism and coverage [in Australia]. But in the two years since Read This started, I’ve counted several other new Australian books podcasts and regular Substacks devoted to readers and reading, and the proliferation of suburban and regional writers festivals attests to demand.”
“The landscape is changing, certainly, but I think people’s appetite for spaces to turn their love of reading into a communal activity is only growing.”
Australian writer Richard Flanagan told Crikey he was sad to hear about the potential death of Read This.
“Writers need readers and readers need context, excitement, background, the clamour and society of other interested voices,” he said.
“In the ever-more-parched wastelands in which Australian literary journalism struggles to survive, the loss of any outlet for talking about books is to be rued, but with the demise of Read This, we have lost not only a gifted interviewer with real literary chops in Michael Williams, but the best literary interview program in the country.”
Sophie Cunningham, chair of the Australian Society of Authors, told Crikey that the potential death of Read This was “genuinely really sad”.
“In general, it is harder and harder to get Australian literature talked about and written about. It’s becoming increasingly something that’s seen as specialist in some way, whereas it used to be generalised in the way that talking about television or movies might be.”
“Michael had a great ability to get people just talking about why they did what they did, and how they did it, and the kind of motivation for being writers, rather than just fixating on the latest book.”
“I think he was particularly skilled. That kind of long-form conversation — I’ve mainly had to go to overseas products to get that … for Australian writers, there is nothing else like it.”
7am has maintained a consistent presence as one of the country’s top news podcasts since its launch in 2019, which is why its sale raised eyebrows. It’s currently ranked 18th across all podcasts in Australia, with more than 900,000 monthly downloads. It also won news and current affairs podcast of the year at the 2024 Australian Podcast Awards.
Former 7am editor Scott Mitchell said recently on Lamestream that the program would regularly jostle with the likes of radio giants Kyle and Jackie O for downloads in its heyday.
It is not the only recent asset sale by Schwartz Media, either. The Monthly’s former column The Politics, authored by Rachel Withers, was sold in January 2024 to former Betoota Advocate publisher and The Daily Aus investor Piers Grove. Withers later left Grove’s publishing company General Publishing over a pay dispute, and the company abruptly stopped publishing in August 2024. The Politics has since resumed publishing.
The Schwartz decision to abandon audio entirely also means it will no longer produce outstanding short-form series such as Rick Morton’s special on robodebt, Daniel James’ spotlight series from Alice Springs last year, and Paddy Manning’s limited series on Lachlan Murdoch.
Crikey approached Solstice to see if it intends to expand its offerings beyond 7am, but it didn’t reply by deadline.