> "Imagine how lame a podcast version of time magazine would be, with an audiobook-like, minimalist adaptation. About as good as watching a recorded play."
In fact, the minimalist podcast version of The Economist magazine (technically a weekly newspaper) is very good, where presenters read articles word-by-word. In 2018, "only 10 percent of its app users listen to audio, but they tend to be very loyal." [1] I'm one of the regular listeners, because otherwise, I find it much more difficult to keep up with the magazine (it's easy to listen to while exercising or commuting, but when I have the free time to sit down and read, I usually prefer enjoying my time some other way).
Similarly, The New Yorker and The Atlantic also have audio versions of a good number of their articles, too. Out of all the publications mentioned, The New Yorker's audio recordings sound to me, with the most distinctive with music and a radio drama-like voice actor. But overall, the adaptations are essentially indiscriminate from the written word.
The goal of recorded news and magazine readings to understand the material to roughly have the same experience as the readers, where you can have your hands free to focus on something else. I never choose the audio version of the news because it's more entertaining, but rather because it's more convenient. So, the focus is on utility more than entertainment, though the material itself can be interesting.
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Perhaps that is why audiobook listeners generally don't have a distinct taste apart from book readers. If the audiobook deviates noticeably from the content of a book, it no longer becomes an audiobook, but an adaptation inspired by the source material. Then, book readers and audiobook listeners can no longer closely relate, due to the changes in the story.
At most, I do like audiobooks with a narrator with great voice acting to differentiate between the characters—for example, in an audiobook for Jane Austen's "Emma," the voice actor sounded very different for Emma & Harriet, and , Mr. Knightley & Frank Churchhill. The audiobook can also deviate from the source material in this sense, as the emotions expressed in dialogue are interpretations of the writer's intention (like the famous acting of "Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?" in the film versus the book).
But once more, if the audiobook deviates too much, the reader can feel cheated as the experience is too different from the original material. At that point of deviation, a producer would best promote this as a "re-imagining"—which would be fairly separate from the original.
[1] https://digiday.com/media/economists-new-app-tries-keep-peop...