'Batman: The Audio Adventures' to release on HBO Max as streamer expands podcasting efforts

Washington [US], August 5 (ANI): Popular streaming platform HBO Max is expanding into the podcast market. The company will release its upcoming podcast 'Batman: The Audio Adventures' exclusively on the streaming platform as it continues to expand its audio offerings beyond companion podcasts.
As per The Verge, the company announced recently that it's planning to release its new 'Batman' podcast, 'Batman: The Audio Adventures', as an in-app exclusive, meaning it won't make its way to other podcasting apps or be available through an RSS feed.
The scripted show, which features Jeffrey Wright as Batman and Rosario Dawson as Batwoman, will premiere this fall, although no exact date was provided.
In a chat with The Verge, Joshua Walker, chief strategy officer at HBO Max, said the decision to make 'Batman: The Audio Adventures' exclusive has to do with the show being a scripted original series.
"For scripted originals, our working theory now is that they should sit aside our other scripted original content exclusively within the HBO Max environment," Walker said.
Walker added, "But because we're early days on scripted original audio content we do look at this as something that we'll learn from, and we'll see how it develops over time as we go from here."
The show won't include ads and will be part of HBO Max subscribers' included content. It won't cost extra to access the audio.
Along with that news, HBO also announced other new, forthcoming podcasts including a scripted sequel to Issa Rae's 'Looking For Latoya', called 'We Stay Looking', as well as a new OC companion podcast called 'Welcome to The OC, Bitches'.
Both of these will be available on HBO Max, with Walker declining to say definitively whether 'Looking For Latoya' would be an exclusive or not, given that it is a scripted original show.
The team also said that it plans to allow for locked phone listening at some point, but didn't commit to a date when that rollout might happen.
At the same time, it's easy to see why HBO wants to double down on audio. Its competitors, namely Netflix, have also become more invested in a more robust podcasting strategy.
Netflix hired its first podcast executive, N'Jeri Eaton, previously of Apple Podcasts, last month and uses podcasting as a marketing tool to encourage more people to come to its video app and subscribe.
The podcasts are available everywhere, though, presumably to reach people who aren't already in the Netflix ecosystem. (ANI)