readership during the Covid-19 pandemic, with figures reported from March 2020, 119,000 growing to 224,000, March 2021. Schwartz Media’s flagship magazine, The Monthly, has reported a 40% increase in subscriptions since March 2020. Podcasts and new media 7am In May 2019, Schwartz Media announced the launch of 7am, a daily new podcast. 7am is hosted by award-winning investigative journalist and documentary host Ruby Jones and with editor Osman Faruqi. Available every weekday morning, the podcast followed a global trend of increasing engagement, popularity and adoption of podcasting as a new medium of media, having increased by 700,000 active Australian listeners since 2015 (an increase of 70%). In May 2020, 7am announced it would be partnering with Acast the world's largest podcast company for the distribution of its growing listener base, with it now being available on all the major podcasting platforms being Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts as well as other smaller platforms such as Acast, Castbox, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean and Stitcher. Following this announcement, Schwartz Media also celebrated a new audience listenership milestone, with an average of 45,000 Australian listens each day, or almost a quarter of a million listens weekly, placing it in the top five Australian podcasts. Schwartz Media has subsequently launched two more podcasts being The Saturday Quiz hosted by Australian actor John Leary and The AFA Podcast hosted by Jonathan Pearlman, the editor of the Australian Foreign Affairs Journal. The Culture Building on the success of its flagship daily news podcast 7am, and its growing arts and culture coverage, Schwartz Media launched The Culture in May 2021. Award-winning journalist and editor of 7am Osman Faruqi is the host of The Culture. Episodes are released every Friday, taking a weekly deep dive into the latest in film, music, TV, streaming, books and art. Editorial Appointments and Changes The CEO of Schwartz Media is Rebecca Costello, who has been in this role from September 2006. In June 2018, Erik Jensen, formerly editor of The Saturday Paper, became editor-in-chief of Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. Charis Palmer was previously the CEO of Schwartz Pro, being in the role from its planning and pre-launch in June 2018 until her departure in early 2020. In March 2014, Nick Feik was appointed editor of The Monthly. Maddison Connaughton was appointed editor of The Saturday Paper in July 2018, a role she held until June 2021. Pascall Prize-winning critic