The Download from Sounds Profitable

This week on The Download: Acast buys Podchaser, PodcastOne strikes out on their own, SiriusXM and Comscore expand their deal, Disney's integrating with The Trade Desk , and Podnews caught 240 spam emails. This Monday Podnews started off the work week with a big announcement: Acast is acquiring Podchaser in a $34 million dollar deal.  “Podchaser, which will continue to operate as a separate brand and independent business, was founded in 2016 and is home to the leading global podcast database, covering more than 4.5 million podcasts and more than 1.7 billion data points — including hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, and the advertisers of the world's top 5,000 podcasts. This unique, proprietary data — which will also remain open to all — spans and powers the entire open podcast ecosystem, and is used by listeners, podcasters, advertisers and industry professionals.” Podchaser has created strong integrations with hosting platforms to receive data, exported data to podcast apps and hosting platforms, and has a competitive intelligence tool built to enable publishers and buyers alike to improve their revenue streams.  General industry sentiment of Acast currently is a bit lukewarm unless you're actively working with them as a publisher or a buyer. As previously reported, Acast has—or at least had— a marketing strategy involving unrelenting spam emails encouraging podcasters to switch to their services. With mass emails to RadioPublic users and their siloed relationships with partners like Patreon, it's hard for some podcasters to give this deal the benefit of the doubt.  We're very happy for our sponsor Podchaser, and the entire team there, and truly hope the independent nature is maintained. We still question the comfort of existing and new integrated partners providing data to a competitor. Last Friday LiveOne issued a press release announcing that their company PodcastOne, having just raised 8.1 million in funding, is looking to separate and become an independent company. “PodcastOne is the leading advertiser-supported on-demand digital podcast company, offering a 360-degree solution for both content creators and advertisers, including content development, brand integration and distribution. Acquired by LiveOne in 2020, PodcastOne has had more than 2.1 billion downloads a year since its acquisition, across the more than 350 weekly episodes it distributes.” Their talent stable includes names like Jordan Harbinger, Adam Carolla, and T-Pain. In the press release PodcastOne president Kit Gray said:  “The podcasting business has exploded over the past five years and PodcastOne is one of the largest independent podcast companies in the world. The company is one of only two independent podcasting publishers in the top 10 of Podtrac's list of Top Publishers. We believe that by trading as a separate public company, PodcastOne will have the opportunity to access the public capital markets as well as be better positioned to both acquire podcast platforms and attract significant podcast talent.”  PodcastOne offers its own self-built platform and operates as an ad sales network for its publishers. It's weathered a lot of storms in podcasting and investment like this during a recession shows confidence in the ability for them to stand on their own. It will be interesting to see how their products and services come to market faster, and who they cater toward. Much like the acquisition last story, this announcement shows podcasting deals aren't going stale. Last Thursday SiriusXM and Comscore announced the expansion of their collaborative agreement to bring predictive audience targeting to podcasts. This new expanded agreement will bring Comscore Predictive Audiences to both AdzWizz and SXM Media clients. General Manager of Comscore activation services Rachel Grant said:  “With podcast consumption skyrocketing and the regulatory environment still very fluid, it's critical to give advertisers the ability to develop privacy-forward and future-proof audience targeting on podcasts”  Prior to this AdsWizz was already working with Comscore for their contextual targeting based off of keywords for the Podscribe tool (not to be confused with the company Podscribe). The new deal expands into a targetable dataset for those buying through Adswizz programmatic offerings, either as a buyer using their demand side platform to buy anywhere in podcast programmatic, or buying directly into their open marketplace Podwave.  The continued highlighting of it being privacy-first is a bit misleading. AdsWizz is still providing the IP address to match off of, which we at Sounds Profitable do not find to be an issue. That Comscore has built a new dataset not built on cookies is a step towards the aforementioned future-proofing. The dataset looks to come from Comscore opted-in panels, which is different from universal ID solutions looking to match first party data. While podcasting is always probabilistic matching - as it's based on IP address - this is also probabilistic targeting.  It's neat to see Comscore focusing a bit more on podcasting while many other major data partners are snoozing on it. In a rare twist we only have one article posted on a Tuesday for you this week. Last Tuesday AdExchanger's James Hercher published “Disney Integrates With The Trade Desk And UID2 In Pursuit Of Better Addressability.” “This new integration with The Trade Desk, which was born from recent meetings in Cannes, will accelerate Disney's ambition to automate and target more of its overall pool of data, Barnes said. Advertisers will be able to more effectively find their audiences across Disney inventory and the added precision should help improve ROI and post-campaign results.” Disney is a major player in podcasting, both directly and through partnerships. So much of what Disney does today uses programmatic for efficiency's sake. A company of that size can't easily do manual IO's for every cookie-cutter campaign. As Disney continues to invest and grow their podcast offerings creates synergy with the majority of podcast SSPs being configured to purchase from The Trade Desk. There's  real potential for further increase in podcasting programmatic as the industry takes care of the small discrepancies and differences that stand in the way of podcasting as a main advertising channel.  While the article is worth engaging with on its own merits, script writer Gavin Gaddis wishes to spotlight the piece's cartoon of Toy Story stars Buzz and Woody selling ads with the caption ‘to automation and beyond.' Three months ago Podnews editor James Cridland laid a trap to learn more about the methods and companies using shady tactics to cold-call podcasters via email. On Wednesday he published the results in “the podcast industry's biggest spammer.”  “In May 2022, we amended Podnews's podcast RSS feed to produce a near infinite amount of trackable email addresses as a kind of spamtrap. We wanted to discover who was scraping our RSS feed for emails; what user agent they were using, when they scraped it, what tag they scraped it from, and whether the messages were legal under the FCC's rules (the so-called CAN-SPAM Act).”  Cridland's honeypot strategy attracted 240 emails over the three month period. Some fall within the boundaries of CAN-SPAM, some seem pointed in their lack of transparency.  The specific companies involved are not necessarily important to the overall story. Podcasting needs good governance as growth continues and the industry constantly redefines what constitutes ‘normal' business practices. It's on those within the industry to make podcasting better through what's considered an acceptable marketing strategy. It's perfectly legal to scrape email addresses from RSS feed tags and send them unsolicited emails as long as they follow loose FCC and other governmental regulatory rules. In an industry growing as fast and consistently as podcasting one has to question if it has a place for an antiquated cold-calling strategy perfected in the late 90s.  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's two Quick Hits are  The Most Important Things We've Learned About Making Successful Podcasts with Brands by Dan Misener. Misener, formerly Director of Audience Development at Pacific Content, provides a great list of learnings on his way out the door. One of the greatest minds at Pacific, Misener has been skilled at breaking down complex data and making it accessible to the masses. His heart has always been focused on growing all of podcasting and Sounds Profitable fully supports him in whatever he's doing next. We know it'll have an impact.  And secondly: a press release from Pushkin media: Pushkin Industries Expands Production Capacity With Acquisition of Creative Podcast Company Transmitter Media. Here we have yet another example of a podcast production company growing to the point they need to buy another podcast production company.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Blubrry brings a new spin to media kits, Twitter's building a podcast player, TargetSpot expands into Latin American audiences, Overcast's creator has beef with how podcasters use DAI, and Anchor's co-founder finds RSS standards restrictive to innovation.  While a significant portion of the United States was recovering from an excessive amount of explosive devices used over the holiday weekend, Blubrry announced a new way for podcasters to present themselves to potential sponsors and partners.  “Blubrry is introducing a podcasting industry first by providing all Blubrry paid customers a podcast media kit that updates daily with information you choose to include. The kit includes data you provide, podcast statistics and audience survey results.” Data points that can be included in the kit range from simple unchanging data points like website or show start date to granular things like social media follower counts, average monthly downloads per episode, and Blubrry audience survey results.  While not technically a media kit, this is a great step forward in helping arm podcasters with useful information they can give advertisers interested in evaluating their show. While lacking in the usual collection of logos and information ephemera a true media kit designed to be attractive to press, this sort of media kit 2.0 cuts down on a fair amount of repeat labor. To The Download's knowledge this is the first time a hosting company has automated this process and included actual download statistics in the package. Usually the process is a tedious manual one that requires regular updates by either the show runner or their representation to pull each data point.  Kudos to Blubrry for being the first to market with this dreamed-of feature.  Once again we bring news of a social media platform showing interest in podcast integration, but this time it feels more legitimate. Frontend engineer and code researcher Jane Manchun Wong did some digging. In her to-the-point tweet she announced:  “Twitter is working on in-app Podcast player.”  Attached to the tweet is a screen recording of the new player in action, showing Wong clicking on show art for Office Ladies, which prompts a new podcast player overlay.  For the younger folk in the room, it's worth noting that Twitter didn't spring forth fully formed into the world. In its primordial form the service was originally Odeo, a 2005 attempt at what we'd call a podcast social media network today. Podcasting is literally in Twitter's DNA.  This Monday Podnews shared an announcement from TargetSpot concerning a promising step towards diversifying podcasting further. The adtech company is opening a Latin American-focused office in Miami, Florida under the leadership of Angelica Potes. Chief Revenue Officer Alexandre Ouhadi said: “We are glad to finally be physically present in the Latin American Market. We have created amazing partnerships with big name publishers. This is the right moment to officially go live. Audio is growing rapidly, so it's a great opportunity for advertisers to leverage their digital media budget through this engaging medium.”  Diversity in language, ethnicity, and geographical location is how the podcast industry expands. Hispanic/Latino creators are incredibly well represented in podcasting in comparison to the overall US population. Providing revenue opportunities for those audiences provides the ability for new businesses to be built to capture that revenue. This is good growth for the industry. On Tuesday Marco Arment, creator of podcatcher Overcast, took to Twitter to address a trend in negative reviews for his app. In four screenshots provided four different anonymous users cite an abundance of jarring advertisements. Some complain about the amount and quantity of ads, one claims the ads were so poorly-optimized the volume shift was enough to burst their eardrum.  While the last review's threat of legal action might be hyperbolic, Arment is still concerned.  “Cheap, sloppy dynamic ad insertion (DAI) in podcasts continues to degrade the experience for listeners. They blame the app, and that's my problem to deal with.”  He goes on to ask podcasters who poorly implement DAI “what are you doing” in all capital letters.  Sounds Profitable's Bryan Barletta took issue with this in a quote-tweet of Arment, citing issues like frequency capping, comp separation, and other features related to poor-quality ad placement:  “...are not tech issues, they're business decisions. Your host doesn't offer it? Switch hosts. And don't buy inventory that doesn't support your needs.”  Sloppy implementation of DAI is a recipe for disaster, and there's plenty of evidence of podcasters falling for that trap. Too often that sloppiness is built in under the guise of 'automation', which often leads to odd ad breaks added by the hosting company filled with even odder ads. So what's the solution? Bad ads—ads that don't fit the context of the episode, ads that are recorded at wildly different volumes than the rest of the episode, or an overabundance of ads in an episode—are predominant in dynamically inserted programmatic ads as well as baked-in host-read ads. And solid DAI implementation can power highly relevant host-read ads that sound like they belong in the episode. In the end, it comes to having an ad strategy as well as tactics that are acceptable to the podcaster, the advertiser, and the audience as well. And it'll make it less likely for listeners to blame their listening app for something that's not their problem. We got you, Marco. On Tuesday Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano posted a Medium blog titled “The Standards Innovation Paradox.” In it, he proposes the theory that standards like RSS were useful in helping podcasting grow in the beginning, but have become restrictive over time as services all adapt the same standards and any new additions come with all previous updates as well.  “If you've ever searched the App Store or the Google Play store for a podcast app, you've likely come across a tidal wave of search results. In some ways, this fragmentation is great for users, because it means they have a ton of choice and flexibility in what product to use for their podcast listening. But at the same time, this fragmentation is bad for innovation, and makes it nearly impossible to innovate on experiences that are based on RSS, meaning the podcast listening experience has remained stale and largely unchanged for almost the entirety of podcasting.” On Wednesday James Cridland published a rebuttal in the form of “The Standards Innovation Paradox: is it real?” The piece takes Mignano's to task and seeks to add outside context to his thought process, namely the fact Mignano worked at Spotify after they bought out Anchor. During that tenure the company threw itself into reinventing podcasting without RSS, instead using the proprietary method that follows Mignano's proposal that proprietary tech is required due to the difficulty of forcing a standard to evolve.  “Yet, Spotify absolutely could evolve the standard: because by April 2022, they were big enough, with at least 30% market share, to have set the standard themselves. They could have said “here's how to signal the video asset in your RSS feed, and if you do this, you'll get video podcasts in Spotify too.” They could have looked at the currently existing solution to this, the podcast namespace's alternateEnclosure tag, and adopted that (and, possibly, molded it to their needs). But, they didn't.” Cridland goes on to point out decisions to stick with black box proprietary tech conveniently also mean any user who wishes to take advantage of that new tech is permanently locked into using Anchor as a hosting service.  The risk of an open ecosystem is the ability for aggregators to control and separate the industry. For all the dour news about a lack of profits, Spotify is currently succeeding at this to some degree. RSS is capable of doing everything Mignano's piece takes issue with; issues he has historically complained about even prior to the buyout.  Innovation is stifled not by standards, but by people and businesses with the necessary power to adopt new standards instead choosing to whine about having to share space and leverage that to release new impenetrable black boxes.  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're tentatively calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's Quick Hits are  Spotify acquires music trivia game Heardle by Ariel Shapiro. Podcasting: True or False? By Fred Jacobs.  As usual, links to everything mentioned can be found in the episode notes.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Edison Research says podcasting is more Succession than Yellowstone, Reddit launches new take on live podcasting, Google's Adtech is dropping IP, new data says podcast ads are overfishing popular ponds, and we spotlight #PodcastingSeriously.  Last Friday the Edison Research blog posted “Podcasting's Opportunity in Wide Open Spaces.” In addition to reminding readers of The Chicks' 1998 single from their fourth studio album, the post highlights a regional gulf in what counts as “popular” in podcasting.  The comparison used highlights how Succession and Yellowstone are comparably popular television series, but based on one's physical location in the country it's highly likely they won't see much advertisement or social media chatter for one over the other. More rural TV viewers will more likely to hear about and actively watch Yellowstone while Succession finds more attention in metro centers.  “New data from Edison Research's Infinite Dial study – sponsored by Wondery and Art19 – shows that as of today podcasting is more of a “Succession” story.” Consider this a tease from Edison Senior Director of Research (and, of course, my co-host on La Descarga) Gabriel Soto's talk at Podcast Movement Dallas this August.  “We in the podcasting space regularly remark that with four million titles, there's a podcast for everyone.  And while that's surely right in theory, that doesn't mean that enough of a match has yet happened to bring all the possible listeners to the space.  One might argue that indeed there are a lot more podcasts talking about Succession than Yellowstone, and that might be part of the issue.”  A lot of people got a three-day weekend in the US thanks to a national holiday, but this Monday Arielle Nissenblatt was on the podcasting streets breaking social audio news. In a Twitter thread Nissenblatt detailed the launch of social media platform Reddit's new Talk feature that shares some DNA with the social audio craze. The twist with Reddit Talk is those who use it get placement over any relevant subreddits that fit under a broad chosen topic.  “If you host a Talk from your Reddit profile and pick up to 3 topics, you'll appear at the top of Reddit to millions of users. e.g., if you pick "Finance" topic, everyone who follows r/wallstreetbets, r/personalfinance, etc will see your Talk.”  Currently, Talk is only available to those chosen by Reddit via an application form. Niche content gets niche listeners, and Reddit is the king of niche. While we've been burned as an industry before on social platforms diving into podcasting, this measured approach seems like a promising one.  Google has updated Universal Analytics and things aren't going so hot. On Tuesday Ad Exchanger's James Hercher posted “Marketers Have One Year to Migrate to the New Google Analytics - But It's Already a Mess.”  “When Google announced the expiration date on Universal Analytics earlier this year, it said it would also cease logging or storing IP address data – a crucial datapoint that qualifies as personally identifiable and thereby subjects Google Analytics to tough interpretations of GDPR. Removing IP addresses may not be enough for Google Analytics to stem the tide of GDPR suits. But privacy concerns do explain why Google will force a change across its customer base, rather than continue to offer multiple services.” While Google impression tracking pixels do work in podcasting, Google refuses to accept IP and any other client info forwarded to it, so attribution from Google was unlikely in podcasting. With IP going away on the website side, it's safe to say there will be no Google solution for podcast attribution as we know it today. However, the move by big companies like Google and Apple away from IP addresses will always be concerning for podcasting. There's evidence to suggest IP address tracking won't be outright removed from the industry, but it still will decline to the point one should expect methods of attribution to undergo a metamorphosis within the next 12 to 18 months.  This Tuesday Pierre Bouvard of Westwood One published findings that might seem easy to predict, but are important to acknowledge regardless. It seems some of the biggest spenders are potentially overfishing the pond that is podcasting.  “The number of times podcast listeners hear an ad campaign is soaring. According to Podsights, the leading podcast attribution measurement firm, average podcast ad frequency has doubled in the past year, reducing podcast conversions. In Q1 2022, the average podcast campaign ad frequency measured by Podsights was 6.32, a twofold increase from Q1 2021 [when it was] (2.97).“ Bouvard reports the Podsights data indicates this uptick in ad frequency is leading to knock-on effects, such as site visits driven by podcast ads hitting a record low in Q1 of this year. Luckily, it's not all bad news as he brings three solid strategies to encourage podcast reach growth. A consistent theme across all three is elegant in its simplicity: buy ads on podcasts beyond the same few dozen podcasts everyone is buying ad space on.  Frequency is no substitute for reach, and there are many podcasts waiting in the wings to run ads. Spreading those ads around instead of targeting the already-saturated big names in the market will quickly lead to results.  Now, if you'll indulge us in a little promotion, we'd like to take a moment to highlight Podcasting, Seriously from LWC Studios, shining the light on a forward-thinking company that continues to nurture the talent we need to make and keep a thriving podcast industry. This week, LWC Studios announced the expansion of its Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund to include reimbursements for audio production education and training for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ independent audio creators. The company launched the Fund in early 2021 with partners AIR, Pacific Content, Acast, Triton Digital, and Sounds Profitable to “support independent BIPOC, Queer and Trans audio producers in submitting high-quality work to media and journalism awards.” More money going to diversifying podcasting is always a good thing, and Sounds Profitable is here for it. Our very own Bryan Barletta is on the Podcasting, Seriously advisory board and I'm on the fund team. You can learn more about the fund and apply, as with all stories covered on The Download, via the link provided in the description. In this penultimate segment I bring you a double-stuffed story. Two international editions of the Infinite Dial have been published by Edison Research: Canada and Australia.  There's plenty to learn in both but here's some standout observations from the Canada presentation:  “Forty-three percent of Canadians 18+ listen to podcasts monthly, up five percentage points from 2021, which means that Canadians now outpace Americans (38%) and Australians (40%) for monthly podcast listening.” In addition to that, 73% of Canadians listen to online audio. Spotify currently dominates that space with 40% of the audience, but YouTube is experiencing growth in the space and has caught up with 33% reporting listening to audio on YouTube in the past month. It seems Google's moves on the market are working. Eagle-eared listeners will recall The Download on March 11th covering a story in which YouTube made a paid audio-friendly feature free for all Canadian users.  Meanwhile in Australia, monthly podcast listening for people 18 and up continues to trend up, increasing to 40% from 37% last year.  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.  First: Spotify, Netflix and Aggregation by Stratechery.  Also: Universal Music Makes Its Data-Driven Ad Platform Play by James Hercher. Finally: Mediatel's UK-focused podcast database Audioscape has launched. Usually we only recommend articles but there's not an abundance of IMDB-style podcast databases and it's good to keep abreast of newcomers.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Sounds Profitable publishes the Creators report. Slate is running provocative billboards for Slow Burn, Spotify turns its radar on podcasts, rising YouTube CPMs make the platform even more attractive for podcasters, and news organizations struggle to keep young folks around. Firstly, if you'll indulge us a bit of self-promotion, the first ever Sounds Profitable report has been delivered! On Tuesday Sounds Profitable hosted a first-of-its-kind presentation of The Creators. Here's how we billed it: “Sounds Profitable, in partnership with Edison Research, has put together the first credible study of the profile of podcast creators in America. This is an incredibly important benchmark in the history of podcasting and the first of many regular reports Sounds Profitable will be publishing to chart the future of the audio business.”  The Creators operates off a data sample of 617 people who fit the profile of having produced a podcast, were over the age of eighteen, and listened to podcasts weekly. The data was collected from Q2 2021 through Q1 of this year.  Some results put into sharp focus many assumed truths of the industry, as well as challenging others. The gender makeup of those polled showed sixty-nine percent of creators were men, twenty percentage points higher than the population of the United States. On that same token, the ethnicity spectrum shows podcasting has more diversity, with more representation of Black and Hispanic/Latino podcasters than the census reports as a national average.  These juicy stats and more are available at SoundsProfitable.com/thecreators, from the presentation's video to a spiffy 35-slide PDF of just the presentation, for you raw data nerds out there.  In an advertising campaign fitting of a flashy documentary, Slate is running a stealth billboard campaign for the current season of Slow Burn. From Ariel Shapiro's reporting on Tuesday's issue of Hot Pod:  “Slate is launching a provocative new campaign to promote its latest season of Slow Burn, which tells the story of Shirley Wheeler, the first woman convicted of manslaughter for getting an abortion. The outlet has placed billboards in states that now have some of the strictest abortion laws in the country urging passersby to “Defend Shirley Wheeler.” The billboards are up in seven states with deeply-entrenched anti-abortion sentiment that had trigger laws waiting for Roe v. Wade's nullification.  The same issue of Hot Pod also spotlighted the efforts of Earbuds Podcast Collective founder Arielle Nissenblatt to organize a massive campaign of podcasts running pre-roll message to advocate for abortion rights. Messages like the one you'll find at the beginning of this very episode. Hundreds of podcasters have signed on to the cause, including The Bechdel Cast, You Are Good, and legacy household name My Favorite Murder.  This Wednesday Spotify announced a podcast version of its RADAR program, originally created to spotlight up-and-coming artists on the music side of the app. RADAR Podcasters aims to get promising young podcasts in front of wider audiences with free exposure in-app. Each quarter Spotify's content editors in participating regions will select three podcasts to spotlight with the RADAR program. Podcast Editorial Lead Brianne O'Brien goes more into the rhetoric used:  “We'll focus on creators with shows that exhibit authenticity and inclusivity, give us a reason to keep listening, and educate and entertain.”  Currently the list of participating countries is fifteen, including thirteen countries in which English is not the default language. This is encouraging news for more big company recognition of podcasting's strengths outside the North American and UK English-speaking bubble. O'Brien seems passionate about the cause, too.   “My team, and Spotifiers more broadly, are podcast enthusiasts. So first and foremost, we really want to underscore the hard work that's being done by creators to take their podcast to the next level, but also to build those long-lasting relationships with their audience.” Little is given in the way of specific details outside of which countries will be involved and how many podcasts are being selected. For example: The paragraph dedicated to addressing how the program will measure success offers no concrete ways by which they'll measure success. The main drive seems to be that the program exists and those involved are excited to execute its ambitious mission.  Currently RADAR Podcaster will only spotlight podcasts hosted on Anchor. Big Green sees the utility in embracing its creators, but for now only creators who are wholly locked into the Spotify system.  Last Thursday Phoebe Bain of Marketing Brew revealed there's a reason most YouTubers are doing baked-in influencer ads these days, and that could be excellent news for podcasts.  “According to a new report that influencer marketing agency The Outloud Group shared exclusively with Marketing Brew, influencer CPMs went up across major verticals on YouTube—from beauty and fashion to education—in 2021.” One example given is from the YouTube mainstay of gaming. The median CPM for influencers who focused on gaming content was $54.68 in 2021. Now in 2022 it has climbed to $66.48. And gaming influencers aren't even in the top five fastest-growing genre CPMs in the Outloud chart. Bain quotes Outloud Group vice president Nycole Kelly on the topic of rising influencer rates in general, the group having come to the conclusion YouTube influencers are raising rates in general beyond CPMs.  Podcasting is trying to figure out the right way to blend YouTube impressions and podcast downloads. For some, podcast CPMs are a better bet, but MarketingBrew's chart shows Youtube ads sold directly by influencers exceed podcasting average CPM by quite a bit. Yet another reason for the video-agnostic producers to consider a video strategy for their podcasts.  Last Thursday Sara Guaglione of Digiday covered a recent panel at a Reuters event in which prominent execs and editors in the news world addressed a big issue: Young people aren't watching the news anymore.  “Roughly four out of 10 people under 35 years old – 42% – “sometimes or often actively avoid the news,” according to the 11th annual “Digital News Report” report conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Albeit, that aversion is only slightly more acute than among those 35 years old and older, 36% of whom sometimes or often steer clear of the news.” Reasons for the drop in attention are numerous. The panel proposed several, including the draining effect of repetitive long-term events like politics or the pandemic. The under-35 demo is also cited as the one with the lowest amount of trust in established news organizations, and the percentage who outright distrust the media is growing rapidly.  Legacy institutions are scrambling to solve for the growing problem. Guaglione points to places like the Los Angeles Times creating a team of people whose sole mission is to repackage LA Times content for Instagram.  We bring this story to The Download because a significant portion of podcasting is news. Just because we're the cool new kids on the content block doesn't mean the issues affecting the rest of the journalism industry haven't taken root here as well, and the proposed solutions to fix the issue for online and print orgs likely contain useful strategies for podcasting.  Now it's time for our semi-recurring segment spotlighting articles worth reading that didn't quite make it into the episode. This week The Download has just one to recommend, but it makes an excellent companion piece to the story Manuela just told you about.  Top 25 US newspaper circulations: Print Sales fall another 12% in 2022 by Willam Turvill. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: a YouTube channel dives into podcasting on the video platform, the absence of podcasting's middle class, and what do IAB's measurement standards in video games mean for podcasting. Last Thursday, Creator Insider, a YouTube channel operated by a creator-focused wing of YouTube, uploaded a four minute FAQ video about podcasting on YouTube.  While the video doesn't necessarily contain new groundbreaking information for someone who is deep in the podcasting industry, it's a wonderful sign for the future of small-to-midsize podcasts unsure about perceiving YouTube as a viable podcast platform. Strategic Partner Manager Erica even backs up the size of YouTube's reach with a citation of Edison Research data.  Having good, concise resources to facilitate an easier move towards the mentality that YouTube should be treated like any other podcast aggregator is a promising step. It's also interesting to note how much importance is placed on properly arranging podcast episodes in playlists. The video takes great care to establish best practices for naming and arranging playlists. While “RSS” is never spoken aloud, it feels like YouTube's approach is to use the existing functionality of easily saving video playlists to treat playlists like an RSS feed.  Who knows, in a few months we could be hearing about updates to the platform that bridge the gap between how YouTube is consumed and audio podcasts are consumed.  Speaking of YouTube… Last Monday an exclusive from Reuters reporter Foo Yun Chee shared details on Google's newest bid to negotiate an EU antitrust probe without a substantial fine. Luckily for podcasting, this could have beneficial knock-on effects.  Google parent Alphabet has proposed to open their digital doors for the first time to allow third-party programmatic partners to place ads on YouTube videos.  “The European Commission opened a probe last year to examine whether the world's largest provider of search and video was giving itself an unfair advantage in digital advertising by restricting rivals' and advertisers' access to user data.”  If Google does end up waiving the requirement to use Ad Manager to place YouTube ads, this could both please the European Commission and open up a considerable amount of valuable inventory to podcast ad buyers. Inventory through platforms they're already familiar with and - since YouTube is pushing for more podcasts on their platform - that inventory will still be going to benefit the podcasting industry.  Last Friday, a prominent podcaster under the Spotify umbrella said the quiet part out loud. As detailed in last week's Hot Pod, sports analyst and host of The Ringer Bill Simmons revealed Spotify parts the metric curtain for creatives that sign with them. The following is in reference to a recent episode of Peter Kafka's podcast Recode, in which Simmons appeared.  “One thing he mentioned in the podcast that stood out to me was how he uses data. Although he said that he does not pay too much attention to his own show's performance metrics, he indicated that he takes advantage of Spotify's other data resources to scope out the competition and better position his shows.”  The newsletter goes on to quote Simmons' interview in Recode in which Simmons describes having the ability to see the metrics of competitor's podcasts on Spotify as having access to “an incredible war chest of intelligence on the habits of people who listen to podcasts.” This is one of those rare moments where a known fact being stated out loud makes it sound like new information. It's not particularly breaking news that a content aggregator would have excellent data. Everyone in the business can use access to the data of a podcaster's competitors, it's just not often talked about. The fear behind what Simmons says here is that Spotify owns more than just the aggregator. Big Green owns hosting platforms and one of the largest ad businesses in Megaphone.  There's nothing new under the sun. Retail giants like Walmart and Amazon have done this for retail purchasing competition in the past, but now podcasting is growing up and one-stop-shops like Spotify are becoming more common. Last Thursday Eric Nuzum published an installment of his Substack The Audio Insurgent in which he floats the question “Does Podcasting Lack a Middle Class?” The piece begins with Nuzum speaking at a conference heavily attended by GMs and CEOs of public radio stations. During a talk Nuzum hosted he asked the group of over 200 public radio heads, a demographic famous for embracing podcasting, who had at least one podcast that made 50,000 downloads a month. Fewer than ten attendees met that metric.  “Why are those numbers important? The average CPM ad rate in podcasting is about $23.16 per thousand downloads. To qualify for buys at even that average rate, you generally need to have a podcast that's downloaded 50,000 times per month. Public radio sees podcasting as a critical part of its future, yet today only eight stations in the country are capable of hitting that rate on their own.” Nuzum's piece proposes the predominant narrative for smaller podcasters has created a class divide where the majority are told the only real strategy is to create content without fair compensation long enough that a magic larger company will buy the podcast for a massive windfall. Independent podcasters are expecting to either make it huge or fail out. There is no middle ground.   “Podcasting has been around for more than 18 years, and public radio has been considered leaders in its development and growth. Yet of the 200+ stations in the room, exactly one of them had figured out in all that time how to produce a show that was self-sustaining for a staff of one.”  The gulf between blockbusters and small indie projects is wide. There must be a place in the middle for creators and providers alike to make a good wage producing podcasts. There's adequate amounts of gold in them there hills, if the industry will stake claim to it.  This one's for the gamers in the audience, though as per usual we're looping back around to podcasting by the end. Marketing Brew's Ryan Barwick covered some interesting new updates from the IAB regarding measurement standards in video games.  The standards, which hadn't been updated since 2009, used to consider an impression to have happened once a player had been exposed to an ad for at least ten seconds. Barwick says: "That's been cut down drastically to one continuous second for in-game display ads and two continuous seconds for video ad units, so long as at least half of the advertisement's pixels are in focus. Those are more or less the same guidelines for online display ads.” These are more or less the same metrics applied to online display ads, but with the added consideration of ads existing in 3D space. The IAB's guidelines take into account viewing angle and pixel clarity in an acknowledgment that modern gaming is capable of placing ads inside game worlds. It's about time, too. The Download script writer Gavin Gaddis remembers when the Obama election campaign purchased billboard space from open-world racing game Burnout Paradise in 2008. Fashion brand Diesel bravely bought ad space on the side of vans that drove around the city. Vans that could be destroyed by players ad nauseam.  Quoting Barwick again: “The IAB's new standards should be finalized by the fall. To Francesco Petruzzelli, chief technology officer at the in-game advertising firm Bidstack, the standards feel a bit like a minimum. One second isn't enough time for an impression, he argued, and that it could lead to an oversupply of inventory.” How does this relate to podcasting? In a world where seeing a Pepsi logo on a street sign while playing a multiplayer match of Halo: Infinite counts as an impression, there's no room for arguments about the validity of considering podcast downloads “real” engagement.   This last full story is a Ryan Reynolds tweet, of all things. On Tuesday the actor posted a video in which he professes his love of shooting ads, describing them as mini-movies with the same creative process and crew requirements. And, like movies, ads are shot in places other than Hollywood without many initiatives to ensure diversity and inclusivity in many of the necessary career paths.  “Almost two years ago we started the Group Effort Initiative to increase inclusion in the entertainment industry amongst BIPOC and underrepresented communities and it's just been hugely rewarding. That's why I'm proud to be co-founding the Creative Ladder.”  The new nonprofit will, like Group Effort Initiative, work to make careers in the advertising creative space accessible to everyone. We love to see more diversity in every corner of the industry.  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.  A must-read issue of Stratechery: Spotify's Investor Day, Spotify's Music Aggregation, Podcast Anecdata.  My Lifetime Ban from the Podcasting Cool Kids Club by Neil Hedley  And a reminder that the 2022 edition of the Infinite Dial Canada is June 30th and you can register right now at the link provided in the show notes.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Spotify's building a new brand safety tool, Google Podcast removed an episode under suspicious conditions, and Apple tells us how their podcast search works. It's been a rollercoaster of a week for Acast news. Let's start with the positive. This Monday Acast announced a global Audio Pride Parade, celebrating Pride month for the LGBTQIA+ community via a series of podcast live shows in major cities across the world. Senior Partner Manager Alexandria Fuller said: “It's also one day where you feel safe to be yourself. With hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people on the rise, we're always wondering when it's safe to hold hands. But there's safety in numbers at Pride, and it's really freeing.” Fuller's heartfelt blog about the importance of celebrating queerness was undercut the next morning. Tuesday Acast announced a partnership with Spring to provide on-demand merch options for producers hosting on Acast, including Spring's so-called Mint on Demand NFT service.  According to Hot Pod, most of the 11 podcasts in the pilot program have elected to not use Mint on Demand. Also on Tuesday, multiple tweets were posted providing evidence Acast is data mining email addresses tucked in the RSS feeds of podcasts to send an advertisement email suggesting the podcaster would be better off switching to Acast. So far podcasters on Podbean, Captivate, Blubrry, and Transistor have reported being targeted by this aggressive marketing push.  Transistor co-founder Justin Jackson has reported Acast to their email service provider, who Jackson reports have said this cold-calling approach is against their terms of service. Jackson - who previously worked for an email company - considers the Acast emails to be illegal under Canadian law and has filed a formal complaint under the government arm created to enforce Canada's Anti Spam Law (also know as CASL).  A spokesperson for Acast told Podnews the emails targeting podcast of competitor hosting services are “... part of our continuing marketing strategy, which we don't currently plan to change.” At Sounds Profitable, our goals are to lift up and improve the entire industry. Based on the actions and response from Acast, we do not feel like they share those goals. Until Acast discontinues these practices, we will no longer be covering Acast in Sounds Profitable or The Download. --- This Wednesday Integral Ad Sciences announced a joint project with Spotify to develop a new third-party brand safety tool for podcast advertisers, with UM Worldwide signed on to be the first company in line to stress-test the project. From the press release: “The companies will embark on a rigorous analysis to help the industry understand the tools and resources necessary to effectively deliver brand safety in podcasting and digital audio writ large.” Given IAS already has these tools for both the web and apps, we can infer this announcement refers to a net-new production. An overwhelming majority of podcasting operates on RSS outside of Spotify's control, so this product is exclusively a brand safety play for content Spotify sells ads to on their own platform.  From the beginning of the press release:  “Ultimately, the firms intend to create the industry's first third-party brand safety and suitability reporting tool to bring more transparency and confidence to podcast advertising.” And then, later on:  “In the future, the results will be used to create a first-of-its-kind brand safety and suitability tool to aid in campaign planning, management, and reporting.” Spotify is no stranger to courting controversy when flirting with that safety, be it the actions of acerbic talent or the upcoming return of political ads. Brand safety is hot right now, but so is Spotify announcing things that don't go live. Should we hold our breath? In keeping with Pride month-adjacent stories: Google has provided a cautionary tale in the unexpected consequences of using automated systems to filter inappropriate content. On Tuesday the tabletop roleplaying game actual play podcast RPG: Realms of Peril and Glory posted a screenshot of their newest episode showing an error on Google Podcasts indicating the content is unavailable for people under the age of 18.  As Podnews covered in October of last year, this is not necessarily new. Google Podcasts, in an effort to remain in compliance with some laws in Europe and the UK addressing children accessing age-inappropriate content, began restricting certain podcasts from being visible to users with underaged accounts or users who weren't logged into a Google account while attempting to access.  This particular interest is noteworthy as the episode isn't just blocked from users who aren't logged in to Google Podcasts. As of Wednesday it was inaccessible to anyone on Google Podcasts. From the original tweet from RPG: “There is nothing adult in this episode. The only difference from our other episodes is the word Lesbian in the title.” RPG's missing episode was the first of a Pride month-themed campaign titled Spooky Sword Lesbians. The description also mentions the indie tabletop roleplaying game Thirsty Sword Lesbians used to make the show. The game's official description describes it as “a roleplaying game for telling queer stories with friends.” Evil Hat Productions, the game's distributor, lists it as being appropriate for ages 13 and up. This unfortunate incident sparks memories of similar issues on YouTube, on which Google restricts videos from trending or getting traction in the recommendation algorithm if they're deemed 18+. In recent years LGBTQIA+ content creators have widely reported basic words such as ‘trans' or ‘gay' are automatically flagged as adult, regardless of the video's content.  Regardless of Google's inevitable response to this issue, it stands as a cautionary tale to all podcasting companies: automation technology is a wonderful tool but it is also prone to developing unintended biases based on its creators and training. Unintended consequences such as removing the first episode of a podcast about gay characters halfway through the month dedicated to commemorating the birth of the gay rights movement in the United States.   Spotify's gone shopping again. According to Tech Crunch's Ingrid Lunden on Monday, Spotify is purchasing Sonantic, the company behind the AI speech synthesizing tech used to voice Val Kilmer's character in Top Gun: Maverick.  While AI voices are the new hotness in entertainment, including Disney's partnership with Respeech to synthesize younger versions of Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones for The Mandalorian and Obi Wan, Spotify hints at more grounded visions for Sonantic's tech. The blog post cited by Lunden hints at it being used across Spotify, not in one specific application of a synthetic voice. “One example that Spotify gives of how it might use the tech is to use AI voices to bring more audio-based recommendations and descriptions to users who are not looking at their screens — for example, for those driving cars or listening while doing other activities and not able to look at a screen.”  It seems Spotify might be aiming at constructing their own version of Siri or Alexa moreso than dipping their toes into synthetic podcasters. At least, not yet.  Once again, we bring you useful news directly from Apple. On Wednesday Apple posted a guide on the Apple Podcasts for Creators website simply titled “Search on Apple Podcasts.”  While the information contained therein is more directly useful for podcast creators more so than the wider industry, it's important to understand the nuts and bolts of how such basic things work. Especially when large companies like Apple voluntarily step up to the plate to be more transparent about systems usually kept locked in secrecy for fear of bad actors exploiting the transparency for gain.  “The more listeners engage with your new shows and episodes, the higher they will rank for relevant search terms, so make sure to promote your shows and episodes on Apple Podcasts when they launch. Make sure your channel name, show titles, and episode titles are specific and unique so they may appear in relevant searches. Be distinctive and avoid using names that are too generic or too similar to existing shows. Avoid using emojis and repeated episode titles.”  While aspects of these two paragraphs have been known from public statements by Apple employees - Apple's frustrations with people putting repetitive things like episode numbers in titles has been a long-running affair - now they're distilled into one official location where newer producers are likely to find concrete proof Apple hates emojis.  That said, this might lead to changes in how podcast networks present themselves in future now that the industry has been made aware Channel names are a potential source of SEO in addition to individual podcast names. Place your bets on which network will be the first to work a punchy tagline into their Channel name.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Spotify's earnings call happened, Apple improves podcast statistics, and podcast pros weigh in on how many ads is too many ads. Podcast statistics are about to get better, thanks to a recent update from Apple that'll help take a bite out of AppleCoreMedia's presence on podcast statistics. Anyone who just opened the linked source and doesn't have a background in coding: we promise that page makes sense. User Agents are how we truly understand what specific app is being used to play a podcast. AppleCoreMedia is the default displayed by iOS apps if they haven't built their own player from scratch. Few do. This leads to a snowball effect of either over or under-counting Apple's presence in the market. As James Cridland explained in Tuesday's Podnews:  “Buzzsprout's global stats don't include AppleCoreMedia, under-estimating downloads from Apple Podcasts. On the other hand, Libsyn's stats wrongly attribute all traffic to AppleCoreMedia as Apple Podcasts.” This new update from Apple solves for that. For a more detailed breakdown on AppleCoreMedia, we recommend the Podnews article from April “Mythbusting: are downloads from 'AppleCoreMedia' mostly from Apple Podcasts?” Edison Research's 2022 edition of the Smart Audio Report is slated for June 16th.  In 2017, for the original Smart Audio Report, NPR and Edison surveyed smart speaker owners to learn how the technology was being integrated into their lives.  “The 2022 installment of the Smart Audio Report will not only offer an update on some of those original families, but also fresh data from a recent national study that measures attitudes around voice tech among those who use it and those who don't.” For those listening in time to register, one can do so for free at the link provided in our show notes.   This Wednesday Bloomberg's Ashley Carman live-tweeted the Spotify earnings call. The music powerhouse had a fair bit to say about their podcasting efforts, including some numbers that come as a bit of a surprise after such heavy investment over the past few years. As reported by Carman:  “A number! Spotify had 200 million euros in podcast revenue in 2021. They expect it to be a $20 billion opportunity.”  If that number feels low, that's because it is. In a reply on Carman's thread Podnews editor James Cridland pointed out that $220 million USD of profit amounts to only fifteen percent of the total podcast ad revenue for just the United States in 2021.  In addition to the revenue number, Spotify teased some details of their upcoming audiobook offerings that'll put them in a market mostly dominated by Amazon's Audible wing. In a bit of mixed messaging, much hay was made about Spotify branching out into three new businesses but they also claim they're a music-first company.  CEO Daniel Ek said: “That's the thing you just have to get about Spotify. We'll put out these big, audacious targets.” The irony of this being the official position of a company with a history of announcing big, audacious projects only to blow past the intended release window by months, if not cancel them, is not lost on The Download.  The earnings call also featured a section criticizing the limitations of RSS distribution, including calling it outdated tech. This is a curious change in tack given a substantial amount of ad service on Spotify is handled through RSS by Megaphone. It remains unclear as to why Megaphone is being left out in the cold while doing a not-insignificant portion of the business that got them to their percentage of 2021 global ad revenue.  Every podcast with ad breaks has struggled with an eternal, unanswerable question: how many ads is too many? On Monday MarketingBrew's Alyssa Meyers published “What's the perfect number of ads in a podcast episode?”  Spoiler alert: Meyers' quest involving interviews with 14 marketers doesn't turn up a magic formula that'll change the industry. Some questions can never be concretely answered, but there is wisdom to be found in a big-picture view of the current podcast advertising landscape.  In general, Meyers found short-form podcasts with episodes shorter than thirty minutes featured four ad slots populated with three to six ads. Long-form podcasts had the same potential slots for ad breaks but increased the maximum threshold up to eight potential ads per episode.  “As of the first quarter of 2022, about 5.5% of a podcast episode was made up of ads, according to podcast media planning platform Magellan AI's quarterly benchmark report.” Big takeaways from those interviewed include acknowledging the power of host-read over pre-recorded, fewer quality ads beat out quantity, and inevitably the best ad is the one the host knows will work with the audience they've cultivated.  Finally, a quick-hits rundown of two articles we think are well worth your time that came out this week:  Crooked Media adds speech-to-text podcast captions with Adobe partnership, by Brad Hill. And, in our continuing mission to bring news of global podcasting:  Podcasts more popular than ever as ‘a reliable source of information,' study shows by The Brussels Times. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Podcast profits on the rise in the UK, white noise podcasts prove profitable, and the first Sounds Profitable Business Leader's Summit is headed to Podcast Movement. As is true of many episodes of The Download, we start with an article published on Tuesday. Bron Maher of the Press Gazette published “The Economist considers audio paywall as podcasts reach 3 million people a month.”  The lede is somewhat buried, as the interesting information lies not in the framework of The Economist's future plans to paywall podcasts, but in just how much traffic those free podcasts bring in. Prior to the launch of the publication's flagship podcast The Intelligence, The Economist had seven full-time employees dedicated to podcasting. As of 2022 that number has ballooned to thirty of the paper's nearly 320 staff. Quoting the article:  “The Intelligence gets approximately 350,000 downloads an episode. In a month, Prideaux said the podcast can now reach as many as two million listeners. During peak coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, the figure hit two and a half million. Across its entire podcast stable, The Economist is now being listened to by more than three million people a month. That compares against 1.2 million print subscribers – while its digital circulation in the second half of 2021 was 995,228, according to its ABC report.” John Prideaux, director of podcasts for The Economist, notes that the podcasting wing's success brings an unexpected level of familiarity with one's audience. The Economist's longstanding policy on not publishing bylines does not extend to their shows, allowing parasocial relationships to blossom where they wouldn't in articles of identical information without an author attached. Maher quotes Prideaux: “I mean, it's a bit of a surprise – some of our people, who are on the podcast, they suddenly get not exactly recognised, but internet famous in a way that is new for a place with no bylines. And some of them find that a bit alarming.” Regardless of whether the publication paywalls previously free content, nearly two decades of embracing podcasting has lead The Economist to a point where a fraction of its staff bring in more impressions via podcast audience than the actual published paper.  Jacob Kastrenakes, writing for Hot Pod Insider, covered several iHeartMedia higher-ups appearing at Tuesday's J.P. Morgan Global Tech, Media, and Communications Conference. The main takeaway of the talk? iHeart believes there's a finite window in which one can determine if a podcast can be made successful purely through promotion. “First off, a show has to be good, according to Bob Pittman, iHeart's CEO and chairman. ‘We can't make something that's not a hit a hit,' he said. From there, it comes down to marketing. ‘What we can generally find is probably in two or three weeks, we can see if we've got a hit or not with heavy promotion.'” Though, unlike radio, a lack of success during launch window doesn't spell death for the product. Kastrenakes quotes Pittman as saying podcasts have “unlimited shelf space.” Without a limited amount of bandwidth on which to program, iHeart is able to take risks on relatively cheaper production costs and - even if it doesn't take off in the 2 to 3 week launch period - allow the product to exist on its own in hopes outside forces lead to a free resurgence in popularity.  Once again we circle back to the global story of podcasting doing well everywhere, not just in the North American markets. Quite well, in fact, according to Aisha Majid's article on the latest Digital Publishers' Revenue Index for the Press Gazette.  “Among the sample of 12 publishers included in the report, which was produced by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) and Deloitte, audio revenue hit £4.2m in the first quarter of this year. This was six times what they made in the first quarter of 2021.” Deloitte's Dan Ison claims daily podcast listening has caught up to online radio in the UK, growing to the point one in ten adults under 25 pay for at least one form of premium podcast subscription.  AOP managing director Richard Reeves, as quoted by Majid, said:  “We've seen revenue for digital audio grow steadily over the last few quarters, driven in part by what's being deemed the ‘golden age of podcasts'. The 500% revenue growth reported for this channel in Q1 2022 demonstrates that publishers are now successfully monetising this type of content.” This next bit of news is home-grown as it comes direct from Sounds Profitable founder—and former host of The Download—Bryan Barletta. In partnership with Podcast Movement, the first Sounds Profitable Business Leaders Summit will take place August 23rd in Dallas, Texas.  “On its own, a one-day business-focused event would be a hard sell to just about anyone, even in NYC or LA. But as an industry, we absolutely need one. A day dedicated to the real tough conversations that the industry needs to have in order for us to drive the progress that leads to a $4bn US podcast advertising industry and then some. So, for an event like this to thrive, it would need to be attached to the undisputed leading podcast industry event in America.”  The summit is slated to kick off with the Sounds Profitable quarterly research report.  “Measurement, video, and programmatic are words we hear in conversation every single day. Sometimes positively, occasionally from a negative perspective, and most often from a place of curiosity. So we've gathered the best and brightest to make sure we're all on the same page, as each of these three topics continue to grow in popularity and importance.” While the quarterly report will be available publicly, the rest of the Summit - keeping in line with a key goal of fostering candid conversations on where to take the future of podcasting - will only be accessible to members of companies that sponsor Sounds Profitable.  For our last full story of the week we turn to Ashley Carman's Bloomberg piece from Wednesday: Spotify Podcasters Are Making $18,000 a Month With Nothing But White Noise.  Carman's brief journey into the world of white noise podcasting reveals a surprisingly healthy field of competing products all fundamentally designed to serve up calming soundscapes to put audiences to sleep, all while running occasional ads to their slumbering subscribers. Quoting Carman: “Those who did respond to interview requests say they are making good money, winning over fans and marveling at the power of podcast distribution. Collectively, the shows represent a burgeoning and lucrative podcast genre.” Take, for instance, the story of Brandon Reed: a man whose podcasting career started by using Anchor more as a file hosting platform for white noise to soothe his own son rather than intending on distributing the files globally. Three years later things are extremely different. Quoting Carman again: “His inadvertent hit has also made the charts on Apple Inc.'s Podcasts app and has reached over 26.6 million total listens, he said. Reed now offers a $2.99 monthly subscription, which gives paying customers access to additional sounds and the ability to request new ones. When a chiropractor needed railroad clacking for an anxious patient, Reed went out and captured it. So far, he's made over $10,000 through subscriptions.” At the risk of reigniting years-old social media arguments as to what it means for a piece of media to qualify as a podcast, these snippets from the world of calming noise serve as a reminder that restrictive views of podcasts both in format and content can leave niches unserved.  And finally, befitting of a short episode we only have one article for our semi-recurring segment spotlighting articles worth reading that didn't quite make it into the episode. This week The Download recommends The Podcast in Quebec in 2021 by Bruno Guglielminetti.  Fair warning, the post is in French, but it contains statistics relevant to The Download's ongoing coverage of podcasting's growth in global markets. Time to dust off that vocab textbook from college.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Spotify erroneously serves liquor, platforms continue to snap up content houses, and RSS.com shares how they beat podcast spam. Last week Spotify experienced the mother of all brand safety mistakes, and for now it has cost them the ad dollars of a major liquor distributor. As originally reported by Tanner Cambell in Saturday's issue of Dispatches from the Booth, sometime on Saturday Spotify began serving a banner ad for bourbon distillery Wild Turkey to the profile of every podcast. This led to numerous screenshots demonstrating just how unfortunate such a slip-up can be, including children's entertainment and podcasts discussing sobriety. On Tuesday Wild Turkey made an official statement on the matter. Quoting their statement:  “We are disappointed that the implementation of the campaign by Spotify was inconsistent with our advertising code and have paused all media with Spotify pending results of the investigation. We are members and partners of DISCUS and Responsibility.org and unequivocally support a responsible marketing agenda.”  The Download has covered numerous stories involving new tech designed to ensure brand safety when it comes to problematic podcast hosts or suspect content in an existing brand's catalog, but this slip-up shows brand safety doesn't stop at the content of the podcast itself. Which leads to a decision that might set up further problems in the very near future. This Monday Issie Lapowsky published an article for Protocol highlighting Spotify lifting its two-year ban on political ads. Quoting the article: “In an email the company sent out to potential partners this week, Spotify said that political ads will appear “across thousands of podcasts on and off Spotify.” An accompanying presentation promises political advertisers the ability to target niche audiences and tap into AI-driven “contextual targeting,” which allows advertisers to place ads in podcasts when they are discussing issues relevant to their target audiences.” Lapowsky highlights the uphill struggle Spotify has ahead of them. While competitors like Meta and Google have made efforts to be open with political advertisements by maintaining large public archives, Spotify's starting from scratch.  The Wild Turkey slipup isn't enough to raise alarms at Spotify's ability to run ads ethically. Mistakes happen. That said, it does highlight just how impactful a mistake can be when made by a massive player in the industry. A player now dabbling in an area of advertising infamous for its ability to spread disinformation.  It's been a week of big-name acquisitions of talent in the podcasting world. The massive long-running interview podcast WTF with Marc Maron signed with Acast, according to a Brad Hill article published Tuesday.  “‘Entering into a partnership with the podcast giant Marc Maron is a big win for Acast and for the open podcasting landscape, as this deal guarantees that the podcast can continue to be listened to by everyone, everywhere and on their preferred listening platform,' said Ross Adams, CEO of Acast.” WTF, which previously operated as an independent production with a paywalled back catalog available for a fee on its website, will now switch to offering older episodes to Acast+ subscribers as bonus content. For the audience little will change, but Acast has just inherited one of the biggest names in podcasting outside of Spotify's walled garden and gets to handle ad sales.  Establishing the trend for the week, Monday saw a press release from SiriusXM announcing the acquisition of Team Coco, most notably bringing aboard Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Like the Maron buyout, Sirius has purchased the production house whole hog, including a five year talent agreement with O'Brien. Longtime fans of the former late-night comedian will understand the gravitas behind convincing O'Brien into an exclusivity deal after his messy breakup with NBC.  Rounding out the trio of announcements, Monday also saw RedCircle's announcement of acquiring rights to travel influencer Drew Binsky's upcoming podcast Roots of Humanity. Binsky is making the popular move for influencers by starting a podcast guaranteed to court a built-in audience from his existing audience, sporting 3.3 million YouTube subscribers alone.  “Roots of Humanity celebrates the beauty and diversity of the world, which is aligned with RedCircle's vision of helping podcasters of all sizes and shapes across the globe to get rewarded for their work. RedCircle is excited to be part of Drew Binsky's journey and help him to achieve his goals with its modern podcast hosting and monetizing technology.” It seems the trend continues with podcast platforms looking beyond simple exclusivity rights for an individual podcast to focus on acquiring production houses and existing brands that can act as content engines beyond the popular podcast's lifespan. Full creator/talent packages are the current hotness and there's no signs of them slowing down. This Monday Sounds Profitable's own Bryan Barletta covered the launch of Buzzsprout's new ad project in a thread on Twitter. In simple terms, the Buzzsprout Ads beta gives podcasters the ability to use Buzzsprout's dynamic ad insertion tech to implement midroll ads in a way previously only available to signed talent or shows with crew who've worked in advertising.  Producers entering the beta can manually review ads to decide which would be the best fit for their podcast and whitelist them for inclusion. Buzzsprout's tech by default uses a music jingle slowly increasing in volume to signal an ad break is approaching, attempting to emulate the five second timer announcing ad breaks on video hosting platforms like YouTube. Users are given a surprising amount of customization with this feature, offering five stock transition options as well as the ability for hosts to record their own ad break and ad return bumpers for the automated system to use.  Accessibility has also been taken into account. The Buzzsprout Ads platform is designed to drop chapter markers around each inserted ad and automatically time-shift the SRT file for podcasts with transcripts to accommodate the inserted ad changing timecodes for any portion of transcript that takes place after.  Bryan sums things up best at the end of his thread, saying:  “Ad monetization empowers many podcasters to grow their show into a business. Sponsorships will always take the cake, but out-the-gate options for a skilled creator without sales experience changes the game. DAI Marketplaces and Programmatic are how we hit those IAB numbers.” A few days ago a string of spam podcasts were published to major platforms, all containing a single episode of unrelated audio aimed at using the show art and description fields to promote escort services in various locations in the United Arab Emirates. They had the legitimacy of the spam texts one gets at 2:00 a.m., but they were produced by the dozen. On Monday RSS.com co-founder and managing director Alberto Betella published a writeup on Podnews detailing how the hosting service tackled their new spam problem.  “We had two options: a. “Throw humans at the problem”, hire 1 or 2 extra people to counteract this misbehavior (perhaps also implementing a moderation queue for newly created podcasts). b. build tech to address and mitigate the problem. We chose option B because it works at scale, it doesn't need food and drinks, and because it's a lot more fun! A few people in our team, in fact, have a strong AI/Machine Learning background and it doesn't happen very often to have the opportunity to leverage this skill set in the podcasting space.” What's important here isn't necessarily the fact RSS.com was able to quickly fix the issue with neart machine learning and clever implementation of tools to prevent false positives from getting stuck in the system, it's the fact that we the public know the broad strokes of how they accomplished it.  “We cannot share our current ML model as open source because it is part of the unique value proposition of our company. However, we have described the methods and provided actionable recommendations for anyone that wants to build something similar. Hopefully, this is our small contribution to keep podcasting spam free!” Sharing methodology used to overcome issues that could affect anyone with similar services in the market is useful, embodying the spirit of open source communities even when dealing with proprietary creations. We need more sharing like this across the industry.  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.  Streamers are creating companion podcasts for superfans of their shows by Alyssa Meyers Do You Have a Development Deal with Audible Yet? By J. Clara Chan.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Premium Podcasting on Apple just got easier, Media Monitors slips up on methodology, and Podfest Africa's annual study is here. Publishing content to a premium subscription feed on Apple Podcasts is about to become far less painful. This Tuesday Techcrunch's Sarah Perez summarized the new Apple Podcasts Delegated Delivery system in a rundown of Apple's new announcements. Quoting the article: “Starting this fall, a select number of hosting providers will support the Delegated Delivery system, including Acast, ART19, Blubrry, Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Omny Studio and RSS.com. Apple says these providers represent around 80% of listening for premium content on Apple Podcasts, and more services will be added over time.”  Additionally: “The feature will be available at no additional cost to all creators through Apple Podcasts Connect and creators won't need a membership to the Apple Podcasts Program to publish their free shows — only to publish premium content.” Prior to the introduction of the delegated delivery offerings, uploading a premium file to Apple for one's monthly subscribers was an arduous and time-consuming process. Now the process will be smoother, at least for those on hosting platforms included in Apple's rollout.  On Twitter, Ashley Carman noted the divide possibly forming between providers when comparing who supports the new Apple feature and who is partnered with Spotify's similar premium service. The tweet read: “Spotify works with third parties to support its subscription offering, too. The only overlap is Acast, at least according to the initial partner list. [I'm] curious if this means there's now additional stratification in [the] podcast world: team Spotify or team Apple.” In what is pleasantly becoming a weekly segment on The Download, we bring news of podcasting flourishing on a global scale. Last month Podfest Africa published the 79 page report titled “Discovery Tour, Data Edition: Mapping out the present & future of African audio storytelling.” The study is built off research collected in part with in-depth interviews with podcast producers and industry stakeholders, reviewing existing literature on relevant topics, and a survey of 370 podcast listeners across the study's target areas of Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Unsurprisingly, podcasting seems to be doing well. “These results build on existing evidence of the rapid growth of podcast usage in allt hree countries and the evidence that South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are the most developed podcasting markets on the African continent.” A quick rundown of some interesting statistics provided: on average over 50% of respondents were women. With all results aggregated the idea podcast episode length across the three represented countries is 30 to 40 minutes. Spotify has a significant advantage over its competitors for distribution in the three countries studied for apps most used to listen to podcasts, clocking in at 35.1%. Apple comes in at a close second with 18.1% of the market share. Google Podcasts, YouTube, Anchor, and Afripods make up the rest of the top contenders.  In its key takeaway section, the study makes a point of stressing that their findings suggest - unsurprisingly - audiences want content influenced by local creators and local companies.  “A key growth opportunity identified is educating media companies to not rely on Western expertise for guidance on podcast production but instead to generate key insights through research from the African continent.” Continuing the trend of podcast news favoring Tuesdays, for some reason, Alyssa Meyers of Marketing Brew published “Here's What You Missed at the 2022 IAB Podcast Upfront.” Quoting the article: “If you couldn't make it last week (or if you were already burnt out from NewFronts), we tuned in and rounded up some of the most important announcements and themes of this year's event, which positioned pods as ‘mainstream, prominent, and influential.'” Meyer's reporting condenses a substantial amount of IAB content down to three main points plus a bonus regarding Disney - ever a fan of conglomerating - consolidating podcasting brands under one banner. The three common topics focused on diverse hosts and audiences, statistical dumps in the form of podcast trend reports, and quite a few mentions of brand safety.  That last point might perk up the ears of long-time Download listeners, as brand safety is a recurring topic in more places than the IAB UpFront. Even last week's episode included coverage of a story involving ethics in adtech and its impact on brand safety.  This Monday Media Monitors published the results of a listeners survey conducted over two weeks in March, all bundled with the enticing headline “NPR Slips as Smaller Publisher Capitalize.”  The findings begin with a ranking of the top ten publishers from the top 200 podcasts for the first quarter of 2022. The iHeartPodcast network comes in first place, followed by Spotify in second with Amazon Music and SiriusXM tied for third. NPR doesn't place in the top ten publishers. Editor James Cridland adds vital context in Monday's issue of Podnews:  “To suggest that NPR isn't in the top ten of US podcast publishers is obviously untrue; but helpful narrative for its competitor iHeartMedia. Coincidentally, iHeartMedia owns Media Monitors, a fact not disclosed.”  Accountability is key when presenting data like this.Media Monitors analyzed the top 200 podcasts mentioned by respondents in their survey, that conveniently shuffled the deck so their parent company place first while a legacy competitor was shuffled off the list entirely. It was then followed on Tuesday by Edison Research's Q1 breakdown of US Top Podcast Networks By Reach. Edison's findings show a fair difference in ranking, with SXM Media coming in first, Spotify in second, and iHeartRadio placing third. NPR rejoins the group and places fourth.  In the interest of full disclosure, the following quote from the press release is from Director of Research at Edison Research Gabriel Soto, who is also be co-host of The Download's Spanish sibling show La Descarga.  “Edison Podcast Metrics is the only dataset that covers the entire U.S. podcast space. By surveying listeners and measuring their actual consumption, the data doesn't depend on opt-ins from networks and isn't subject to the various issues with counting downloads. These top networks offer a diverse range of shows that appeal broadly to listeners.” Methodology matters. Who owns the ranking company matters. Opt-in will always be incomplete and the techniques used to fill those gaps matter.  Another Tuesday article joins the episode with James Hercher's AdExchanger piece on changing attribution tech and brand reactions.   New models of attribution are coming for all of advertising, challenging the incumbent Multi Touch Attribution. Companies like Measured, Triple Whale, and Northbeam are all taking new approaches as old ones fail to deliver. The following quote contains a nested quote from Parachute's VP of Growth Ian Yung. “One social media platform stuck out as an early win for Measured, according to Yung. Parachute was spending in the low six figures per month on the platform. “And they were obviously giving us reporting that it was very profitable.” Upon closer inspection, Measured found Parachute's spending on the unnamed platform could be cut to zero and show no impact on sales. An all-too familiar adtech story. Quoting the article again: “Podcast advertising is another category that Parachute rethought once it had a measurement testing regime in place. Podcast attribution often banks on listeners redeeming a particular code, which under-credits the channel. “Podcasting is one [rarer] example where we have to take the reporting and increase what it has on our end to capture the true value,” Yung said.” Companies outside of podcasting are coming into the adtech space, and fast. It just so happens the podcasting industry has been operating steadily without widespread MTA adoption in the first place.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: US podcasting revenue is up, Google launches new way to collect data, and a new partnership aims to bring ethics to advertising. One of many podcasting social media staples is sharing platitudes about how the industry is always growing, always doing better. This Monday offered a wonderful moment where one gets empirical data to back them up. The United States podcast ad revenue market hit a billion dollars for the first time in 2021 and shows no sign of slowing down. Anthony Vargas writes for AdExchanger:  “At $1.4 billion – up 72% from roughly $840 million in 2020 – podcasting is now one of the fastest-growing digital media channels, and it's growing twice as fast as the internet advertising market as a whole, according to a report on podcast ad revenue released by the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers on Monday.”  Growth has developed so quickly just the US market's 2021 revenue matched podcasting's global 2020 revenue. Vargas attributes a bulk of this growth to the increase of dynamic ad insertion leading to better ad placement. Regardless, things are looking good on the business side of podcasting.  This Tuesday Rain News' Brad Hill reported on the Q1 earnings call of audio distribution platform Audacy. CEO David Field cited strong growth in digital revenue but as far as The Download is concerned, we're interested in their reported 37% podcast revenue increase  Audacy's apps offer a generational divide-bridging service, offering a place to access both terrestrial radio stations and on-demand audio in the form of podcasts in the same place. And it appears Audacy is aiming to take advantage of their broad audience. Brad Hill reports from the earnings call:  “A key forward-looking emphasis of the call was the Audacy Digital Audience Network, a scale-and-reach initiative which was launched during the quarter. Field described it as ‘an addressable and aggregate of over 60 million listeners across our app, streaming content and podcast lineup, enabling precision targeting at scale, coupled with real-time optimization and reporting.'” Up next: a bit of nostalgia looking back at the world that allowed podcasting to exist. Last Thursday Ben Thompson of Stratechery posted an interview with Tony Fadell, the designer known as the father of the iPod.  On the off chance there are members of The Download's audience who aren't old enough to rent a car: the very word podcast is a portmanteau of iPod and broadcast, originally created specifically as a way to share spoken word to Apple's wildly successful MP3 player via their iTunes digital media platform. With Wednesday's announcement that Apple has officially discontinued the iPod Touch, a vestigial remnant of the iPod brand, it's a good time to be nostalgic for the early days of the industry and reflect on how much has changed.  Thompson's interview with Fadell gleefully partakes of nostalgia, rehashing key moments from both Fadell's career and that of the iPod's development. Steve Jobs' leadership style from Apple's 2005 flash memory gambit, the interview evokes memories of a time when touch screens were still exotic futuristic technology.  Last Thursday Olivia Morley, writing for Adweek, covered the announcement of Havas Media Group partnering with the Institute of Advertising Ethics. According to Havas, they intend to offer an advertising ethics certification course to over 9,000 clients and employees.  A quote from the founding COO of IAE, as reported by Morley:  “‘Our industry, astoundingly, is virtually the only professional industry—unlike law, medicine, architecture, engineering, et cetera—that doesn't have any sort of industry code of ethics or certification for ethics,' said Andrew Susman, noting that this will now change.” As Susman said, the IAE has identified a marked lack of training and focus on ethics in advertising. This has a trickle-down effect on the podcasting industry, as we've seen before with various sticky situations companies and creatives alike create with brand safety or unintentional side effects of unethical systems.  “Ethics, according to Downing, can extend to many things. Some include issues of brand safety and ensuring that clients are not using discriminatory ad filters that impact minority creators. For example, putting “LGBTQ+” on a blocklist.” One needs only look at the tech industry's laundry list of issues with their army of engineers with no ethical training creating wildly unethical digital ecosystems. A more ethical advertising industry, if it takes advantage of the IAE and whatever competitors might arise, is a better one.  Speaking of weird ethics: The Download is going to take a brief moment to report on someone reporting on our mothership Sounds Profitable. Tom Webster is leaving Edison Research to join Sounds Profitable as a partner. Webster goes into detail on his motivations and goals for the new position in Tuesday's edition of his newsletter I Hear Things. Quoting Tom: “On June 1st, I am joining Sounds Profitable as Partner, teaming up with Bryan Barletta to help build something to make the podcasting space better for everyone. As a part of that, I Hear Things and its companion podcast will then be under the umbrella of Sounds Profitable, where I'll be a regular contributor.” Webster aims to pursue his and Sounds Profitable founder Bryan Barletta's common goal of making podcasting better. Being a veteran of research and presentations, he's broken it down into an easily-digestible four pillars: insightful content, industry-leading research, unmissable events, and peerless advisory services.  Welcome aboard, Tom. This Wednesday Google announced a new service titled My Ad Center during their annual I/O event. Greg Finn covered the announcement for Search Engine Land.  "All Google users will now have the ability to choose the brands and topics most germane to them that they want to see. This is much different than the Topics targeting within the Privacy Sandbox now being tested, as the inputs are dictated directly by the user.” At launch My Ad Center will only be compatible with Google's search results, YouTube, and Google Discover. On its surface the service promises better transparency with users receiving more granular information as to why they're being served a particular ad, and giving them the ability to fine-tune what topics they would prefer Google cater to. Of course, that's the corporate line. One of the recurring stories that's changing the industry and keeps appearing on The Download is that of advertisers adjusting to stronger privacy on mobile devices and desktop browsers. People serving ads simply don't have access to the hyper-specific data they once did, and conveniently Google has now put out a product designed to get users to give them similarly hyper-specific data points for free under the premise it'll make their online existence better.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: potential new IAB standards are revealed, advertisers reflect on a year of iOS-enforced privacy, and Facebook is losing the confidence of its customers.  Last Thursday Ryan Barwick, writing for MarketingBrew, published a look at some promising new standards the IAB Tech Lab is toying with in anticipation of a, as Barwick puts it, “cookieless future.”    With the evolution of online privacy advertising must change with it, and the IAB is experimenting with replacing existing data-collection structures with seller-defined audiences, or SDAs. Instead of adtech using tracking methods to use collected data to serve certain ads to certain users, publishers would use first-party data to decide how to categorize their own audience and take ads targeting those categories. Quoting the article:    “Using this data, SDAs would, theoretically, let publishers place their audiences into groups—whether by behavior or interest—which would then be shared with advertisers to help them run targeted programmatic ads. So far, there are roughly 1,600 available labels for publishers to choose from.”   Barwick and others at MarketingBrew have taken a liking to the hyper-specific example label of “potatoes/onions” as an example of how granular the SDA system would be if fully implemented.   Michael Nuzzo, Vice President and head of Hearst data solutions at Hearst Magazines is quoted from the IAB Tech Lab event in February: “It's a very positive indication that publishers are gaining more control in the open web. We were only seen as supply. Now, we're seen as supply, identity partners, as well as data providers, and that's an exciting shift.” This signals a significant boon for podcasting. The IAB has created a world where podcast producers determine their audiences and present them to advertisers. An open world with power in the hands of producers is a good thing.   Last Thursday Digiday's Kimeko McCoy published an article covering the thoughts of advertisers on the anniversary of Apple publishing the industry-changing iOS 14.    “In this last year, Apple's crackdown on in-app tracking upended the digital advertising industry and crippled advertisers' ability to know whether their mobile ads were working. It forced them to look elsewhere to spend their dollars.”   iOS 14, along with other similar privacy-boosting offerings from web browsers and Android devices, changed the game. Platforms reliant on the old buffet of collectable data have had issues adjusting, as we'll cover in a Facebook-heavy story shortly.    “But those 12 months of acclimating to these shifts have made it clear to media buyers that Apple's ATT is an attribution problem, not an advertising one. In other words, the effectiveness of advertising hasn't gone away as a result of it being harder to track people. But it has become more difficult to know how effective those ads are.”   McCoy's reporting paints a promising future. Every step the industry takes in this direction is a glowing endorsement for podcasting. While the rank-and-file are just now dealing with tricky attribution, this industry has been successfully serving ads with tricky end-game attribution for the better part of a decade.    On Monday AdExchanger's James Hercher published “Facebook Advertisers are Itching for Change as Bugs Infest Its Attribution Tech.” The piece begins with an anecdotal story of a marketer beset with costly glitches in the aging platform's adtech. Things don't get much better for Meta from there. Quoting the article:   “Facebook is heads-down trying to fix the ad platform as gears and springs fly out of it like a cartoon pocket watch.”   Facebook faces huge troubles as its advertising empire built on a tracking pixel now has to operate in a world where said pixel can't immediately report back data on a user browsing outside websites. Instead of instantaneous granular updates, Facebook adtech operates in batch updates once every few days.    “Facebook's consistent response has been to be patient and, well, to slow down. In February, Facebook acknowledged that it was still underreporting attribution, but said it had cut the error margin from 15% to 8%. Says who?” Walled gardens, especially Facebook, are starting to show cracks in their foundations and are losing the faith of buyers as they struggle to course-correct for industry-wide changes. Facebook may have tapped out of the podcasting game entirely, but we still have Spotify. What has happened to the likes of Google and Meta could happen to Spotify in the future. Especially now that they've purchased some of the biggest names in podcast data attribution, setting themselves up as potential gatekeepers of proprietary data not wholly dissimilar to Facebook.    Speaking of attribution tech: This Thursday BusinessWire revealed Veritonic's new audio-first Attribution solution. Exact details are thin on the ground in the press release but Veritonic is confident its new attribution solution - simply called Attribution - will be an advertiser's best friend. A quote from Veritonic CEO Scott Simonelli:    “As advertising dollars increasingly flow into audio, brands need the assurance that only Veritonic's end-to-end measurement and analytics can provide. Attribution is the perfect addition to our platform of audio research and measurement solutions, providing data-driven advertisers, brands, and agencies with the tools and insights they need to optimize their campaigns for greater ROI.”    The press release promises Attribution will do the basic ad-tech things one would expect, tracking potential customers when they land on a campaign's bespoke URL until they leave or purchase the relevant item. It's nothing too flashy or industry-shattering from a technology standpoint, but the important context to consider is that Veritonic became the first company to get to market since Spotify's acquisition of Chartable and Podsights.    Spotify created a power vacuum in reliable third-party attribution. Now companies are stepping up to fill that gap.    With that, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.    First: Facebook Pulls the Plug on Podcast Business After a Year by Ashley Carman.   And, second: Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano to leave Spotify by Ariel Shapiro.   As always, the links to every article mentioned on an episode of The Download can be found in the episode details.    Finally, a quick roundup of the finance-related news this week that's worth discussing, but not big enough to necessitate individual stories.. First up: James Hercer - in a rare three-time appearance in one episode of The Download - covers the Amazon earnings call last Friday.    Amazon posted a 3.8 billion net loss in Q1 of this year, though reported a 25% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue.    Following that we have Ted Gioia's Sunday issue of The Honest Broker titled Spotify Shares Now Selling at Less Than the IPO Price 4 Years Ago. While an aggressive headline, Gioia's coverage takes care to point out the lower share price is likely due to Spotify's growth not being as world-dominating as expected, posting a 25% gross profit margin.    ---   The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted byShreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ICYMI: Warner Music launches a podcast network, Spotify weathers the storm, and personnel changes at Edison Research. Warner Music Group is dipping its toes into podcasting with its first network: Interval Presents. The new network's slate promises a variety of content lead by popular musicians and celebrities who work with WMG.    “The initiative marks the first major music label to follow in Sony Music's lead; Sony entered the podcast arena five years ago in May, 2017.”   WMG Senior VP of Digital Strategy & Business Development Allan Coye has stepped into the role of General Manager of Interval Presents content. CDO and EVP of Business Development Oana Ruxandra set the tone for what Interval Presents intends to accomplish.    She says, “There's a hunger for more inclusive and authentic podcast content and, with Allan leading the charge, we're thrilled to launch an audio platform that will connect with this growing audience and spotlight a breadth of voices and perspectives.”   While this might initially look like simply another company jumping into the field of celebrity podcasts, that itself is enough to help grow the industry. With more celebrity-hosted podcasts comes a higher chance of graduating those who only listen to music into full-fledged podcast listeners who seek out content beyond their initial introduction, be it with a Jason Derulo-hosted fiction podcast or a Lupita Nyong'o series on African diaspora.   ---   This week Spotify's Q1 numbers became the subject of much discussion as they became public. On Wednesday Bloomberg's Ashley Carman published “Spotify Tumbles as Investors Question Podcast Investments.”    “Spotify Technology SA has spent more than a billion dollars in an effort to become the No. 1 name in podcasting, but investors' patience is wearing thin on how much that will cost.”    Carman's article paints a cloudy sky for the big green dot with investors getting antsy at the amount of money invested in podcasting intended for long-term growth over short-term returns, including a gross margin of 25.2% that falls short of the 30 to 40% target. That said, both paid subscriptions and unpaid ad-supported users are up despite locking out Russian users and much-publicized Joe Rogan backlash. Sarah Perez writes for a TechCrunch article on the same subject this Wednesday: “Despite losing 1.5 million users in Russia, Spotify's premium subscribers grew 15% year-over-year in the first quarter to reach 182 million, largely in line with analyst estimates. Ad-supported users, meanwhile, grew 21% to reach 252 million.” The #deletespotify movement, sparked by a transphobic conversation in his latest Jordan Peterson interview, a history of COVID-19 disinformation, and a compilation of him saying a racial slur lead to musicians and podcasters alike pulling their content from Spotify or threatening to cancel contracts. As Sarah Perez reports:    “But app store data at the time indicated rival streaming apps were not getting a boost from this latest PR headache, as Spotify's app had continued to see millions of weekly downloads — a significantly larger figure than its nearest rivals — even amid the #deletespotify campaign on social media.”   That lack of attention to rival apps likely stings especially hard for Neil Young, a figurehead of the Rogan backlash who pulled all of his music from Spotify in protest of Rogan's COVID disinformation. Young, a vocal critic of low-quality MP3 streaming on services like Spotify, also happened to be releasing high-quality versions of his discography on Amazon Music shortly after the much-publicized stunt.    As with all things, Spotify's growth remains a complicated beast. Subscribers are up, stock value is down, all while successfully weathering a weeks-long PR storm.   ---   Last Thursday Spotify dropped an article on their official blog announcing Spotify's big entrance into video podcasting.    Quoting the article, “Last fall, Spotify began activating Video Podcasts for creators on a limited basis. Since then, we've found that podcasters love having the option to accompany their audio with visual components, and fans love having the opportunity to more deeply connect with the content.”   As of Thursday creators in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK gained access to the feature, as well as a handful of new features to help the transition for video podcasters with backlogs. The new system requires a podcast be hosted on Spotify's service Anchor, meaning any existing video podcasts interested in trying out the service will either need to make a Spotify spinoff feed or wholesale transfer from their existing service to take advantage of this new feature.    Once integrated into Spotify the video podcasting appears to function identical to simply watching a video podcast on YouTube, with those who prefer pure audio able to leave the app or lock their phone to background the video.    Video in podcasting challenges an open ecosystem to consider themselves creators, agnostic of any one medium, while also pushing them into siloed solutions. Podcast-first creators exploring video as a channel is powerful, even if the current options dead-end into proprietary solutions. Spotify's requirement that a show must be hosted on their own service. Anyone currently producing videos with their podcasts have to weigh the pros and cons of porting everything over into Spotify's silo purely to have one more place to upload the same video content already going up on YouTube and social media. There's promise in the concept of podcasts-with-video, but current offerings are lacking as they all appear to exist to push an open podcasting world into producing siloed content.    ---   And finally, while we don't often cover personnel changes here on The Download, this one is important enough that we mention. Tom Webster has just today announced that he is leaving his position with Edison Research. But Tom and Edison will both still be with us in the podcasting industry. As Tom says in his newsletter, I Hear Things:   "My work with Edison is far from over, and we have established an agreement to partner on many things in the future."   So what will Tom be doing with his time? That's not been announced just yet, but again quoting from today's newsletter:   "I want to continue to work to establish a podcast industry: a place where established networks and independent podcasters alike have fair access to information, revenue, and opportunity. I think there are some structural issues in podcasting, and a some information arbitrage, as well. I want to work on both of these issues, and help to create the sandbox I wish to continue to play in for years to come.   I'm excited about what is next, and I'll have more to say on that in the next edition of I Hear Things, which isn't going away, by the way. Just as I am doubling down on podcasting, I am also going to be evolving I Hear Things into something very exciting, broad-reaching, and ultimately useful for podcasters of every stripe."   The podcast industry might be grateful for everything Tom has done at Edison Research to grow the platform, but I'm personally grateful for everything Tom has done for me. See what you may not know is that I have worked closely with Tom for five years at Edison Research. Now he's said before that he wishes he could have been a better mentor, but to him I say: you did an incredible job. Clearly, your wisdom is invaluable and I've absorbed a lot, but it is your confidence in my abilities that has allowed me to face challenges I didn't think I was capable of facing. Suggesting I take the lead on presenting research for the first time or asking for my advice as if I were the expert served as ammo to fight off my imposter syndrome. As you did for much of the podcast industry, you opened doors for me to bring my own passion projects to life, my own research on Latino and Black podcast audiences. You helped me evolve from a project coordinator to a Director of Research, and listen to me now, a host of a podcast. I don't think there's a better way to say that I'm forever grateful than on audio that will forever live in the world you've helped build. Thank you for everything.   ----   The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Gabriel Soto and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download; data scraping is officially legal, recent Spotify purchases prove concerning for some, and what fiction podcasters can learn from their non-fiction cousins. Collecting data just got legally less questionable in the United States. On a Tuesday news roundup for ExchangeWire, Hanna Dillion covered a huge decision by the US court of appeals. The suit, brought by LinkedIn to prevent a rival company from scraping their publicly-available data, has ended with the Ninth Circuit of Appeals declaring the act of data scraping legal.  The act of scraping - using software to automatically collect data hosted on the public internet - is now legally defined as an act that is not classified as hacking with the court's decision. Scraping, thus, does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.  The landmark ruling should come as a relief to academics, journalists, researchers, and archivists, for whom scraping publicly available information from the internet is an integral part of their day-to-day work. The decision, however, could also renew privacy and security concerns, as web scraping has been used for nefarious purposes in the past; in May 2021, several tech giants filed lawsuits against Clearview AI, a facial recognition startup which claimed to have scraped billions of social media profile photos, without the consent of users. What does this mean for the podcasting world? One can legally scrape data, but what they do with it remains a legally gray area. Scraping publicly-available RSS feeds for academic purposes is fine. Scraping those same feeds for email addresses with intent to spam anyone who isn't using a certain company's hosting service with offers to switch to said service is subject to other pre-existing laws. For more on the state of data scraping, see our March 11th episode coverage of a story about a similar lawsuit. Up next, in yet another recurring thread that has resurfaced: last Friday a Morning Brew article by Alyssa Meyers went live, titled “Spotify's acquisition of podcast analytics firms has some in the industry concerned.”  The piece acts as an industry reaction to the February acquisition of Podsights and Chartable (see The Download's February 18th episode for our coverage at the moment). In the interest of full disclosure, we must note one of the industry voices quoted by Meyers is Sound Profitable's own Bryan Barletta.  The week after Spotify announced the acquisitions, Mike Kadin, CEO of podcast hosting and monetization platform RedCircle, told Marketing Brew it “had folks reach out to us from major publishers and ask if we have attribution technology. I'm not super worried about it, but it does sadden me to see more chunks of the ecosystem getting centralized.” It's no secret the official position of The Download is pro-third party analytics to keep the industry honest and prevent further walled gardens of information in adtech. The concerns continue to be real and the industry will continue to fret until more options exist. Once again we return to highlighting the global nature of podcasting outside of English-speaking markets. On Saturday Luis Pablo Segundo, writing for Milenio, broke down the results of a recent study. The flashiest piece for our audience is the reveal that ad spending on podcasts in Mexico has risen fifty percent from 2019 to 2021, though it still represents a small market share in comparison to traditional radio.  Traditional radio is expected to reach an advertising revenue by 2025 of $480 million, 10.6 percent higher than what was recorded in 2021, while podcasting will remain almost 11 times lower at $44 million, according to consulting firm PwC. A quick note for our Spanish-speaking audience: this story, as well as every other story covered each week, is covered in our Spanish sister podcast La Descarga! Hosted by myself and Gabriel Soto. Before we leave the realm of global podcasting growth, a small bit of news from Canada. eMarketer's Paul Briggs shared last Monday data predicting almost two-thirds of the Canadian population will listen to some form of digital audio by the end of 2022.  Last Thursday media critic and podcast producer Wil Williams guested on the Hot Pod newsletter with a column titled “What fiction podcasters can learn from nonfiction podcasters.”  Their piece aims to provide fiction podcast producers, aspiring and existing alike, tools to build stories with techniques that are second nature to their nonfiction cousins. Over three sections Williams explores story flow, following a thesis, evocative sound design while providing three examples of existing podcasts that best embody these traits.  But while fiction is finally getting its due, nonfiction is still considered the primary mode of storytelling in podcasting. This can cause some understandable contempt from fiction creators, but there's creative gold to be found in nonfiction. If you want your stories to have realistic goals, realistic sounds, and realistic characters, listening to real stories about real people can help you find those roots. Their piece heaps praise on high-quality nonfiction podcasts while also identifying what they do to be high quality. Podcasting needs more successful shows made by well-read producers. Williams effectively provides an entry-level reading list covering everything from a critically-acclaimed episode of Radiolab to the pilot of the hyper-niche podcast The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls 2. Consider their nine to be an extended version of The Download's occasional suggested reading sections. Knowing why and how podcasts work is the key to making more podcasts that work. For our final full story this week: Matt Deegan's recent article “Tech Trying to Do Radio & Consistency.”  Posted on Wednesday to his Matt on Audio newsletter, Deegan circles back to the topic of live audio and interrogates why the trend has swiftly fallen out of public favor despite multiple platforms. A consistent trend Deegan notes, similar to that of Facebook quietly abandoning podcasting endeavors, is a lack of follow-through and consistency. The vast majority of radio's success comes from consistency and I'd argue that most successful podcasts are consistent too. If you take out the short-run documentary series, the vast majority of podcasts at the top of the Apple Podcast charts are long-running shows (and that's with an algorithm that focuses on new). Meanwhile, the majority of flagship podcasts and content creators meant to push new services, such as Spotify's forgotten Podcasts with Music feature, have faded away months after launch. Flashy tech does not make a successful long-standing platform. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week On The Download:  the IAB cites digital audio as the fastest-growing digital ad sector, Anchor language update embraces global podcasting, and Adweek launched their own podcast network. Let's get started. Good news for those in the world of digital advertising: your efforts are working extremely well, according to the International Advertising Board. On Tuesday the IAB published an article titled “Digital Advertising Soared 35% to 189 Billion in 2021, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report.    Not the catchiest of headlines, but the article is full of good news.    “The growth is consistent with a recent study from Harvard Business School, commissioned by IAB, which showed the internet economy has grown seven times faster than the U.S. economy over the past four years and now accounts for 12% of the U.S. GDP.” Digital advertising in general might be up, but there's a tiny bit of news for the world of podcasting. Digital video, social media, and search revenue are all trending upward but digital audio has outpaced them all. According to one of the IAB's highlights, digital audio took home the highest year over year growth at 57.9%, totaling $4.9 billion.  There's a lot changing in the world of advertising. Both this and previous episodes cover the small evolutions required to adapt to new tech, legislation, and industry standards. Despite it all, podcasts are still bringing in the money.    One of the big-picture stories we've been following on The Download for months is that of podcasting as a global medium, not just something for English-speaking markets. The biggest news on that front was posted last Thursday on the official blog of Spotify's podcast hosting platform Anchor. As of Thursday, Anchor web supports thirty five languages. “One of our biggest goals is to ensure that creators everywhere have access to all the robust tools and features Anchor has to offer. And while creators around the world have been able to record, host, and grow their podcast on our platform, Anchor on web hasn't always been available to everyone in their native language.” As podcasting grows its infrastructure needs to grow with it. Localizing websites built for a different language is difficult under the best conditions. A major player in the podcasting industry allowing sites built on their service to be built in the native language of thirty five languages is a big step forward in supporting a world where the idea of a podcast does not automatically default to something produced in English.   On Tuesday Al Mannarino, writing for the Adweek blog, announced Adweek has leveled up their podcasting capabilities with the help of Acast.    “We are excited to announce the launch of the Adweek Podcast Network, the first-ever podcast network for advertising and marketing professionals, brand enthusiasts and anyone curious about what the heck that ad they saw was about.”    The new network is planned to feature twelve podcasts, featuring five new creations, four existing Adweek shows, and three pre-existing podcasts from Adweek partners.    “Through our partnership with Acast, the world's leading independent podcast hosting platform, we'll make sense of trends, tackle pressing challenges, and share top-tier insight to help you level up your career, creativity and strategy.”    Adweek joins an ever-growing group of media outlets, organizations, and others who're capitalizing on the inherent cross-promotional capabilities of a network. More content, more inventory, and a shiny new delivery vehicle for their existing ad sales team. What's not to love?   A changing of the guard is happening at Ad Results Media. On Tuesday Business Wire reported ARM CEO Marshall Williams is stepping down from his position. Chief revenue officer Steven Shanks and chief operations officer Michael Kropko are slated to replace Williams as co-CEOs.    Williams' replacements aren't newcomers to the industry, either. New co-CEO Steven Shanks laid out his bone fides:   ““I'm honored to have had the opportunity to learn from Marshall for the last decade. I've enjoyed purchasing some of the first podcast ads, negotiating some of the largest buys in the history of podcasting, developing 360-degree integrated ad concepts, building sponsorships from the ground up, and ultimately fueling the industry up to $2 billion in ad revenue. I'm thrilled to work with our team to further innovate and deliver performance for our clients.”    While ARM looks to the future with two new CEOs and a former as chairman, it's worth acknowledging William's contribution over two and a half decades. ARM has played a big part in the growth of podcast advertising and Williams' involvement was easily a large influence in how Podsights became the success they are.   The Download has covered multiple articles about upcoming privacy changes on larger platforms and how they'll affect advertising. On Monday Lara O'Reilly, writing for Insider, published an article showing projections on just how much some of the biggest ad buyers stand to lose from Apple's App Tracking Transparency update.  “The fallout from Apple's major privacy update is expected to continue well past the first year of its rollout, with a new analysis estimating the change could dent Meta, YouTube, Snap, and Twitter's revenues by almost $16 billion in total this year.”    Facebook parent company Meta is projected to take the biggest hit with a revenue impact of 9.7 %, just edging out Snapchat owner Snap's 9.6% loss. Though, where Snap is losing just under $550 million, Meta stands to lose $12.8 billion. “The change forced many advertisers to reassess their marketing and shift spend into channels that are less reliant on Apple's tracking identifier, such as offline advertising or Apple's own search ad products.” This humble podcast news aggregation podcast wishes to point out podcast ads are a pre-existing channel that are in no way reliant on Apple's tracking identifier.    On the February 10th episode of The Download we covered an Ashley Carman op-ed in Hot Pod that highlighted Facebook's apparent lack of interest in a push into podcasting, a move the company had seemed to be quite vocal about.  Carman is back, and the news isn't looking good for podcasters who favor their grandparent's favorite social media platform. In an article for Bloomberg, Carman's new headline reads “Facebook is Pulling Back from Its Foray Into Podcasting.”    “A spokesperson for Facebook said the company is still working on podcasts even as it's accelerating work on priority features like Reels and Feed. The company is seeing good engagement for its audio products, according to the spokesperson, who declined to provide specifics.” Meta's focus appears to be firmly directed towards plans to build a shortform video platform to compete with TikTok and building out their virtual reality hangout space Metaverse, where users can have meetings and buy NFTs. Meanwhile, the proposed projects to get Facebook-exclusive podcasting have been left to die on the vine.  Carman's reporting reveals multiple contractors who'd been brought on to create content for both Facebook's podcasting arm and their social audio platform have not had their contracts renewed. Facebook sponsored Podcast Movement last August, yet was absent from Podcast Movement Evolutions last month. Still, not all hope is lost. Carman's report ends with anecdotal evidence that might suggest there's still a use-case for podcasting on Facebook.    “But even Facebook's limited podcasting efforts have been a source of growth for some content providers. TYT Network, which produces political programming, said Facebook is its second-most-popular listening platform after Apple Podcasts.”  Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.    The first title: Ariel Shapiro Joins The Verge as Lead Reporter for Hot Pod by Aude White   And finally: What I Learned Teaching a NYU Course About Podcasting by Steven Goldstein. As always, the links to every article mentioned on an episode of The Download can be found in the episode details.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**This week on The Download; digital ads evolve as online privacy increases, Substack poaches podcasts from Patreon, and iHeartMedia is buying NFTs to make podcasts about them.**A fair amount of coverage has been written about the so-called death of targeted advertising. Privacy changes implemented by Google and Apple have made some waves, but said waves are having interesting effects on the industry. On Wednesday Brian Chen and Daisuke Wakabayashi published a New York Times piece called *You're Still Being Tracked on the Internet, Just in a Different Way*. A fair amount of coverage has been written about the so-called death of targeted advertising. Privacy changes implemented by Google and Apple have made some waves, but said waves are having interesting effects on the industry. On Wednesday Brian Chen and Daisuke Wakabayashi published a New York Times piece called *You're Still Being Tracked on the Internet, Just in a Different Way*. Throughout the piece Chen and Wakabayashi alternate between birds-eye views of the tech industry and personal anecdotes from small business reflecting the changing landscape of traditional digital ads. “The rise of this tracking has implications for digital advertising, which has depended on user data to know where to aim promotions. It tilts the playing field toward large digital ecosystems such as Google, Snap, TikTok, Amazon and Pinterest, which have millions of their own users and have amassed information on them. Smaller brands have to turn to those platforms if they want to advertise to find new customers.” Where in previous years a business would be able to purchase ad space on services like Instagram or Facebook, famous for their tracking providing fine-tuned results, now the pendulum has shifted. “Shawn Baker, the owner of Baker SoftWash, an exterior cleaning company in Mooresville, N.C., said it previously took about $6 of Facebook ads to identify a new customer. Now it costs $27 because the ads do not find the right people, he said.” With the devaluing of assumed default channels of advertising, more budgets are being redistributed to new avenues of advertising. Especially options with first-party data. While podcast advertising doesn't offer that data for users, the contextual nature and growth of podcasting-first data solutions are becoming appealing options for those buyers Dave Jones (no relation to the undersea legend) posted a blog to Substack Monday with intent to clear the air on Podcasting 2.0. What exactly is Podcasting 2.0? As Jones puts it: “The Podcasting 2.0 project is simply this: A vision of what podcasting experiences can be in the future, and a set of free, open source standards for how that vision becomes reality.” Jones goes on to give context for what some of these open-source standards could look like, folding them into a fictional day in the life a podcast super-listener named Joy. Throughout Joy's typical work day she uses a one-size-fits-all podcatcher app that folds features and functionality from existing first-party services into one place. Whenever a video podcast she likes goes live, Podcast 2.0 framework allows her to join in and listen to just the audio (much like YouTube's audio-only feature). When she dips into the video portion of the stream she can tip money to the hosts, causing an on-screen notification akin to Superchats on YouTube and donations on Twitch. Her app displays episode-specific links and data mentioned in podcasts manually placed by the hosts. It automatically switches to lower bitrate versions of audio feeds when traveling into areas with poor signal. In Joy's Podcast 2.0 world she can check comments and reviews aggregated from other podcasting apps. “Every bit of the above scenario is perfectly possible using only RSS and open source standards. Much of it is already functioning today in apps and services that are early adopters.” For those who've only heard of Podcasting 2.0 in passing, Jones' piece aims to explain the passion and potential open-source future the concept could provide. We move from a story posted on Substack to a story about Substack. On Tuesday Ashley Carman published the Bloomberg piece Substack Poaches Patreon Stars for Expanded Push into Podcasting. Substack now offers two resources popular with monetized podcasts: a newsletter and a private RSS feed for paying subscribers. Substack's COO Hamish McKenzie says the company is giving grants to certain podcasters who make the switch from Patreon. Though, like a recent report on YouTube offering grants for podcasters to pivot to video, Substack is keeping quiet as to which specific podcasts got grants. Currently only four are known. The grants Substack offers serve to soften the blow of abandoning an existing service. Patreon does not offer the ability to take paid subscriptions to a competitor's platform. Podcasters making the switch will lose patrons, moreso than they normally would to monthly churn. Marketers have been telling podcasters that newsletters are a successful way to create and own an audience. Substack taking initiative shows they might begin to own and understand the market of podcasts centered around communities. And, by extension, own the revenue derived from said market. That said, this introduces another hosting solution that does not appear to be following IAB standards. Substack joins Apple's subscription product, Supercast, and Supporting Cast in that crowd. This isn't necessarily an issue for the individual user because they provide first party info. Nevertheless, it does show the IAB standard doesn't have the teeth many hoped it would as this industry continues to grow ****Soon it might be time to break out the picket signs and pro-worker chants at Spotify. On Monday Ashley Carman, making her second appearance this episode, published the Bloomberg article *Spotify Podcast Union is Ready to Strike Over Contract Terms*. Barring successful negotiations, the Parcast Union is poised to execute the first ever strike at Spotify. The union cites unaddressed issues include basic concerns like pay, but also staff diversity concerns and IP rights. “The bargaining committee told Bloomberg News that Spotify specifically doesn't want to commit to a request that half of job candidates who make it past the phone interview stage be people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+ or people with disabilities. They also added they haven't agreed on acceptable salary minimums.” 97% of Parcast union members have pledged to join the strike, spanning multiple departments. “A strike would be a first for Spotify and would come at a particularly fraught time for its podcast ambitions. The company laid off the internal team at its fourth podcast studio, known as Studio 4, in January, and has struggled to get much of its headline-driving content off the ground.” For more information on that reference to unreleased headline-driving content, we direct you to the March third episode of The Download for coverage of that particular story. Here's hoping the union walks away from the bargaining table with their goals achieved. People deserve to be paid a fair living wage, and podcasting on the scale Spotify operates at is certainly big enough to handle that. For our final story of the week, something bizarre. Non-fungible tokens, a digital collectible known for being rife with pump-and-dump schemes and other classic forms of financial scams, are potentially getting their first big break in podcasting through iHeartMedia's new scheme. Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios, broke exclusive news on Tuesday: iHeartMedia is building a podcast network around NFTs they've purchased. “iHeartMedia is currently in talks to make 10–15 investments in prominent NFT collections over the next few days — including CryptoPunks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and World of Women — per Khalil Tawil, EVP of strategy at iHeartMedia.” As Tawil describes it, iHeartMedia will purchase NFTs from various internet-popular collections and then craft a slate of podcasts that retroactively create a series of stories and characters around the algorithmically-generated artwork they sort-of own. Fischer quotes Khalil Tawil as saying there is “no real precedent for this.” While technically true in the context of podcasting, it's not new in other forms of media. Most notable are the multiple attempts at getting NFT animated series off the ground, as Vice covered in November. Though, iHeartMedia has the scale needed to truly take advantage of the IP inherent in their purchases. From Hot Pod on Thursday, “One of the unique features of these character-based NFT series is that they often hand IP rights over to whoever owns them. That means if you buy a Bored Ape, you can print your Bored Ape on a T-shirt, market that shirt online, put it on a billboard, and so on. Folks who believe in the NFT hype want to turn these collections into a sort of decentralized Disney, which, I suspect, will overshoot reality by at least a few orders of magnitude.” Whether iHeart's decentralized Disney will profit or not remains to be seen. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download from Sounds Profitable; podcast CPMs blow digital out of the water, a leaked document reveals YouTube plans for podcasters, and iHeartMedia breaks into kids podcasting. In a development some industry veterans might not have seen coming when they got started in the industry: The Wall Street Journal has an article about podcast advertising. And what's better: podcast CPMs are doing well. Last Friday WSJ's Megan Graham published “Streaming Audio Climbs the Charts With Marketers, but Some Want More Certainty.” Graham's 900-word report combines interviews with advertisers with data from sources like the Infinite Dial to give a birds-eye view of the industry. “In early 2021, some 68 percent of Americans aged 12 and older said they listened to online audio in the previous month, up from 47% who said the same in 2014, according to surveys conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital.” Graham goes on to cite a Standard Media Index study showing podcast CPMs rose to $26 in Q3 2021, up four dollars from 2019. The piece covers some of the inherent issues with confirming the reach and success of a given podcast ad, but primarily presents a bright future to the industry through quotes from ad buyers big and small. While it's not full of brand-new information that'd shock someone with an eMarketer bookmark, it does reflect a healthy and growing industry. And did we mention the Wall Street Journal is talking about podcasting? Last week we covered the developing story of TV ratings giant Nielsen, their pack of evolution, and a rejected buyout offer of six billion dollars. According to InsideRadio this Tuesday, Nielsen has sold for sixteen billion to a collective of private equity firms. “The Nielsen board voted unanimously to support the acquisition proposal, which represents a 10% premium over the consortium's earlier proposal and a 60% premium over Nielsen's stock price before the potential sale surfaced in early-March.” Barring any unforeseen interruptions, the deal is expected to close in the latter half of 2022. Now we wait to see if, as said last week on The Download, yet another third party incumbent for measurement and research becomes a proprietary service under new ownership. YouTube's planning big things for podcast integration, monetization, and analytics, according to an exclusive scoop on Wednesday from Podnews. “Despite no announcement from YouTube's director of podcasting, Kai Chuk, at Podcast Movement Evolutions last week, Podnews has been sent an 84-page presentation produced by YouTube, intended for podcast publishers. In it, three slides marked ‘Looking Ahead' allow us a view into what YouTube is planning.” The most notable features of the leaked deck are a promise of RSS feed ingestion, monetization both through Google and approved larger partners, and they're open to accepting podcast measurement solutions. The final comes with a promise to integrate YouTube data into “industry-standard podcast measurement platforms.” This is paired with the logos for Podtrac, Charitable, and Nielsen. Podnews offers the insight with “Chartable was bought by Spotify in February, so perhaps this slide shows companies that YouTube have worked with, rather than companies it might work with in future.” Shreya:Spotify is testing out one of its new toys in a new test integration of discovery platform Podz. As reported by Tech Crunch's Sarah Perez on Monday, a Twitter thread from early adopter Chris Messina showcases the new feature. The Podz integration as of this writing is visually similar to algorithm-driven vertical feed apps like TikTok, providing Spotify users with a seemingly infinite virtual feed of sixty second audio clips from podcast episodes matched to show art, animated transcript, and episode information. “What made the company's technology interesting is that it didn't rely on podcast creators to produce their own clips for its feed. Instead, it used a machine learning model that had been trained on some 100,000 hours of audio to help automatically select clips to showcase.” As Perez points out in the article, Podz isn't the first company to try and fix podcast discovery, but they were the first to be bought for almost fifty million dollars. Now their tech is being deployed for field testing on iOS devices. Time will tell how Spotify's new automated TikTok for podcasts works out. Followers of The Download might remember our March 18th episode in which we covered a Hollywood Insider article about the booming business of making podcasts for children. That story continues to blossom as a big name in the industry has tossed their hat into the ring. As reported by Brad Hill on Tuesday for RainNews, iHeartMedia has teamed up with Collab Incorporated to create podcast network Curativity. The network has partnered with Jim Jacobs, known as Mr. Jim to his young audience, creator of Kids Animal Stories and Kids Short Stories. According to iHeartMedia's press release, both of Jacobs' existing series net over a million monthly downloads. In addition to onboarding existing content, Curativity has a new Jacobs-hosted Mr. Jim property called Spyology Squad scheduled to launch April 4th. This new announcement signals not only is children's content catching the eye of big players in the podcasting industry, it's interesting enough to provoke a rare iHeartMedia collaboration with a creative agency. Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn't make it into today's episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading. New Education Platform for the Audio Industry, all Delivered via Podcast - a press release via Podnews. A frustratingly difficult question about your podcast audience is about to get a lot less frustratingly difficult by Dan Misener Webby Awards spins off podcast award program for 2023 by Brad Hill. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download; A new article shines light on unsavory developments at Stitcher after their buyout, Chartable is shuttering SmartAds, and this year's edition of The Infinite Dial was unveiled at Podcast Movement: Evolutions. Last Friday, Tom Webster published an installment of I Hear Things titled Podcasting's Most Controversial Statistic. The statistic in question relates to an experiment run by Edison Research's Podcast Consumer Tracker. The parameters of the experiment were simple: discern how many networks an advertiser would have to buy run-of-network spots to reach at least half of weekly podcast listeners, accounting for unduplicated reach. Webster goes into great detail explaining unduplicated reach, something The Download's writer does not feel qualified to condense further. “When we ran these numbers a year ago, we discovered that you could reach 50% of weekly podcast listeners if you bought every show on the top seven podcast networks.” Webster has run the same experiment again using Q4 2021 data and that number has now dropped to one only needing to buy out ad space on four podcast networks to confidently reach fifty percent of podcast listeners. Webster stresses the importance of collective action for smaller, independent podcasters who don't have the same ad-buying power of the bigger players in the industry. “I have a day job (I am sure you do, too), but if indie podcasters don't find a way to organize and consolidate their buying power, some monetization options are just not going to be available for them. For you.” On Tuesday The Verge published How SiriusXM Bought and Bungled a Beloved Podcast Network. **With extensive reporting by writer Ashley Carman and bespoke illustrations, the piece tells the story of SiriusXM's acquisition of Stitcher from the founding of comedy podcast network Earwolf in 2010 to today. The 2020 SiriusXM and Stitcher merger came with many beneficial changes for both companies. SiriusXM gets all the benefits of a successful podcasting company while the producers get access to SiriusXM-level budgets, enabling podcasts under the Stitcher banner to grow and improve. “But according to 13 former corporate employees across Stitcher who spoke with The Verge anonymously because of nondisclosure agreements and fear of retaliation, the merger was marked by confusion, culture clash, and shifting objectives. Around 145 people worked at Stitcher when it was bought, and since then, more than a quarter of them have left, The Verge found through LinkedIn.” Carman's article continues at length to detail systemic issues plaguing all but the most successful content creators through the multiple buyouts that lead to SiriusXM's difficult transition period. A period plagued with mismanagement and miscommunication to the point one Stitcher employee had to explain to a SiriusXM team member that RSS feeds aren't constantly-live feeds. The piece is a masterclass in how not to handle merging two completely different companies. A new post on the Chartable blog has announced the inevitable: Chartable has made the first step in winding down services available to users not on Spotify's Megaphone. Chartable co-founder Dave Zohrob writes: “With Chartable now a part of Spotify, we will be shifting our focus to building world-class publisher tools as part of the Megaphone platform. For our advertiser customers, that means that we will soon be deprecating our SmartAds product and will no longer be supporting advertiser campaigns on the Chartable platform.” SmartAds campaigns can still be booked through April 21st. The final day for new impressions tagged with SmartAds will be June 30th. In the final paragraph Zohrob clarifies Chartable publisher products aren't going anywhere, as these shutdowns only affect advertising products. For those wondering why this wasn't a surprise announcement, we recommend checking out February 18th's edition of The Download when we covered an article about the Chartable-Spotify acquisition. Now for a pivot away from acquisitions: Nielsen has not been acquired by a private equity firm. The original story, posted last Thursday to The Drum by Hannah Bowler, details the struggles facing the aging monolith and asks if a buyout would help. Neilsen, once synonymous with television monitoring, has been slow to adapt to the rapid evolution of what people watch and how they watch it. Now their older methodology combined with pending lawsuits alleging inaccurate counting and fraud by concealment threatens the company. “For the industry to trust Nielsen again, president and chief executive at the VAB Sean Cunningham says it needs to deliver - here begins a nested quote from Cunningham - “deep disclosures and real transparency, commitment to the modernization that sharply increased competition demands and increased collaboration versus increased collision with their major clients.” Then, this Monday, the story developed further. Frank Saxe, writing for InsideRadio, reported the proposed deal was dead in the water. Nielsen referred to the offer as "unsolicited”. The company remains public. Even so, the near-miss of a buyout remains a sign of the times. We're seeing the chipping away of a third party incumbent for measurement and research. With current trends there very well could be a future where a service even as big as Nielsen becomes a gated proprietary service. And finally, the one you've all been waiting for: on Wednesday,Thursday Tom Webster took to the Podcast Movement: Evolutions stage to present the 2022 edition of Edison Research's The Infinite Dial. Over the hour-long presentation Webster and Wondery CEO Jen Sargent covered the plethora of industry data, a lot of which continues to trend upwards. “Seventy-three percent of the U.S. 12+ population (an estimated 209 million people) have listened to online audio in the last month, up from 68% in 2021.” Casual engagement with podcast listening is up as well, with sixty-two percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12 having ever tried a podcast, compared to just eleven percent in 2006. The seventy-side pdf and fifty minute video of the presentation might sound like a daunting task, but the Infinite Dial remains an invaluable source of data for the podcasting industry. Since The Download doesn't have a must-read article recommendation segment this week, consider combing through the Infinite Dial to take up that space of three or four articles you'd have read otherwise. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download from Sound Profitable; Beer gets into video podcast advertising, kids podcast business is booming, and an appeal to private marketplace deals over FAANG, and more. Production company Crooked Media has kicked off a campaign incorporating a purely visual sponsorship into Offline with Jon Favreau, and it's from a sector not frequently seen in podcasting. Morning Brew's Alyssa Meyers covered the story last Friday, shining light on a YouTube-focused partnership between Crooked Media and Blue Moon beer, a subsidiary of Molson Coors. “For Blue Moon, Crooked agreed to add title cards that say ‘presented by Blue Moon,' along with the brand's logo, to the start of each Offline YouTube episode, Crooked Media VP of commercial marketing and creative strategy Joel Fowler told Marketing Brew.” In addition to the title card and host-read ads in each video, Blue Moon will also buy YouTube ad space specifically on Crooked Media's YouTube channel. Joel Fowler told Marketing Brew Blue Moon is the first “bigger blue-chip brands that you're seeing come into the podcast space.” Fowler foresees more Fortune 500 companies embracing multi-media podcast ad campaigns in the near future.  Disinformation detection company NewsGuard is looking to provide brand safety by uprooting disinformation in podcasts. According to reporting by MediaPosts' Joe Mandese: “NewsGuard is said to be in talks with at least three of the ad industry's big holding companies to fund the new podcast rating service, and would reap a six-month exclusive window as part of the deal.” Mandese connects a renewed industry interest in new brand safety tools for podcasts to the latest controversy surrounding the resurgence of COVID-19 disinformation on Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience. NewsGuard aims to provide a personal touch with physical human analysts to employ prior knowledge and context to determine a podcast's veracity, building lists of safe or problem podcasts as time goes on. While initially NewsGuard's attempt to adapt their blog fact-checkers for podcasting sounds noble, it raises some eyebrows. It's a proprietary tool that'll have six-month exclusivity for the anonymous holding companies funding the project. Their chosen hands-on approach also isn't scaleable like other solutions currently in production, like that offered by Barometer. Unlike NewsGuard, Barometer is using the publicly-auditable GARM framework and isn't focusing on exclusivity with a particular investor. It is *The Download'*s opinion that the brand safety problem needs not be solved with proprietary solutions, but with accessible and easily-replicated frameworks.  Once again J. Clara Chan over at Hollywood Reporter has some fun developments in the podcasting world. Published last Tuesday, Chan's The Booming Business of Kids' Podcasting gives a rundown of the big-name attention kids podcasts are getting. “Podcasts in the kids and family category have seen a 20 percent increase in listenership since 2019, according to NPR and Edison Research's 2021 Spoken Word Audio Report. Podcast adaptations of hit children's shows are proliferating, while, conversely, film and TV studios are becoming involved earlier than ever to snap up podcast IP catered toward kids.” That 20% number is likely quite low, as discussed in Lindsay Patterson's Medium blog on how the Kids & Family category needs an overhaul. Regardless of where the number's at, it's good enough to get some big movers interested in kids' podcasting content. Spotify has produced a podcast spinoff of the viral hit toddler sensory videos CoComelon. GBH Kids is producing an adaptation to continue the recently-retired PBS Kids series Arthur. On the opposite side of the equation Warner Brothers is optioning the TV rights from Gen-Z Media's unreleased podcast 20 Million Views. According to Ben Strouse, CEO of Gen-Z media while speaking to Hollywood Reporter: “Everyone's looking for great IP, especially great family IP, which is what we're counting on.” As YouTube, television, and every other form of media has discovered: making content to entertain kids is profitable. Now podcasting just has to thread the tricky needle of advertising to younger audiences with legislation like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act severely limiting traditional advertising practices. On Wednesday Michael Korsunsky published the incredibly thorough op-ed “How Publishers Can Lessen Their Dependence on FAANG” in a Wednesday op-ed for Adweek. Korsunsky opens with a quick recap of the alleged handshake deal in which Google offered Facebook perks like lower digital ad fees in exchange for Facebook's support of Google's Open Bidding program. News that gives the appearance the F and the G of FAANG are colluding. For those not looking at the transcript: FAANG is an initialism of the five biggest players in tech consisting of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. Well, technically with Google becoming an Alphabet company the last letter should be A, but FAANA doesn't have the same flair. Quirky names aside, Korsunsky's not happy. “[T]he news is a betrayal of publishers' trust and highlights yet again the overdominance of the walled garden; it should therefore be treated as a bellwether moment for all digital marketers.” Korsunsky thinks its high time to kick shadowy open marketplaces to the curb and embrace transparent, more direct transactions on private marketplaces. For more background on the perils of open-market programmatic, check out Michael Bürgi's Digiday piece “Open-market video programmatic is rife with fraud, say buyers, further complicating an already-difficult marketplace.” What does this mean for podcasting? As an industry it's best poised to expand with programmatic through private marketplaces, providing more transparency and better relationships than open marketplaces. If advertisers get on board with finding this solution more preferable outside of podcasting, it will likely bleed over to increased programmatic sales in podcasting Once again we bring shocking news posted to Twitter. On Monday Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint posted a Twitter thread analyzing developments in a sizable privacy lawsuit against Google in Northern California courts. The court order calls for Ernst & Young, Google's independent auditor, to immediately relinquish all files relevant to the suit. Google is also ordered to show cause as to why they should not be sanctioned in light of new information suggesting Google allegedly ordered Ernst & Young to withhold over six thousand sensitive documents relevant to the case. “It's a bad look for E&Y to be playing this way for Google considering they perform much of the auditing across the advertising industry.” In addition to the advertising industry implications, Ernst & Young is one of the primary auditing firms for certifications, like those through IAB. Continuing The Download's tendency to experiment and grow, we've got two new segments that don't quite have names just yet. We're working on it. First up, a brief recap of podcast company funding rounds of note over the last week. On Tuesday Libsyn landed 4.75 million in new equity financing. And as broken in Monday's Podnews, podcast startup Kaleidoscope secured 3.5 million in funding, as well as a six-show deal with iHeartMedia. For this second and final segment, we want to branch out our occasional honorable mention into a regular highlight of multiple stories we couldn't fit into today's episode but are absolutely worth your time to read in full. With that in mind, here are this week's three must-reads: The Care and Feeding of a Podcast Audience by Tom Webster. Women Podcast Listeners: What We Know Right Now by Caila Litman. Big Tech Always Fails at Doing Radio by Matt Deegan, which might be of special interest to those who remember our coverage of the Amazon AMP app last week. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download from Sounds Profitable; ad tech firms are under fire for data scraping, Amazon joins the social audio market, YouTube is paying podcasters to incorporate video, and more. Morning Brew's Ryan Barwick reports that trade groups acting on behalf of publishers from the US, UK, and Canada are accusing ad-tech firms of unfairly scraping metadata from websites Once collected, this allegedly ill-gotten data is used to create contextual advertising segments for clients without the publisher's consent, also undercutting the publishers' attempts to directly sell contextual advertising deals. “Now that third-party cookies are dying and some ad dollars are shifting to contextual advertising—ads based on the content of the media, not on personal information—publishers want a (better) seat at the table and stronger terms as the industry adopts new technologies.” Richard Reeves, managing director of the Association of Online Publishers, summarized the issue of companies scraping data. “What we are now seeing is people almost brazenly walking through your home, and removing your furniture, and selling your assets elsewhere. And you don't even know that they're doing it, or you can't receive any value for it. Just because you can doesn't mean to say you should.” Data scraping isn't new to podcasting, either. Transcription happens in podcasting, with and without a publisher's consent. It's likely however this wider publisher issue plays out will have trickle-down effects to what companies can do with unlicensed podcast transcripts. Amazon has a new social audio app to make podcasters' dreams of being a DJ come true. Brad Hill of Rain News reports: “While early reports compare Amp to Clubhouse, Amazon's promotional emphasis is on building interactive music shows, something like live, interactive radio.” Amp brings to mind an obscure podcasting tool Spotify launched for Anchor in late 2020. The feature, titled Shows with Music at launch, allows podcasters on Anchor to slot any song in the Spotify catalog between any pre-recorded podcast segments. Listeners with Spotify Premium would experience a seamless transition as if the music was baked into the podcast, while free listeners would hear a thirty-second preview of the song. Shows with Music still exists, technically, but has fallen by the wayside to become a feature hidden in the Anchor interface. Much like the forgotten podcasts from big-name creators covered last week. Amp, conversely, only requires listeners to sign up for a free Amp account to listen to creators. The Verge's Jack Kastrenakes writes: “Amazon is positioning this as more of a radio-style service than a live chat service (there's even a five-person cap on callers right now), which is probably for the best.” Shows with Music was a cool feature that enabled podcasters to live out their radio DJ dreams in a copyright-friendly manner. Another platform with a massive collection of licensed content at their disposal playing in this podcasting-adjacent space might just lead to more creativity and innovation in the social audio sphere. On Tuesday, podcasting ad tech company Gumball announced they had raised ten million in Series A funding. Brad Hill of Rain News reports, “Gumball, which was started by podcast comedy network Headgum, allows advertisers to programatically buy pre-recorded host-read ads. The system offers real-time inventory browsing, demographic audience targeting, and verification of placement and listening. The company lists a few brands which have used the system — Casper, CBS, Netflix, OkCupid, Squarespace, Warby Parker, and others.” Naturally, the Gumball system is deployed across the entire Headgum network, serving ads on flagship podcasts like The Doughboys, Punch up the Jam, and We Hate Movies. YouTube is taking podcasting seriously enough to put their money where their mouth is. Last Friday Bloomberg's Ashely Carman reported both independent podcasters and podcast networks, all of which asked for anonymity, received offers ranging from $50,000 to $300,000 to create filmed versions of their episodes, as well as “other kinds of videos.” Video podcasts on YouTube historically have done well. As the platform matured from cat clips to encouraging content creators to make longer and longer content, the unedited video chat show took off. Productions like The H3H3 Podcast and The Joe Rogan Experience saw great success embracing the platform. That said, as Carman said, “However, the cost to build a studio, hire editors, and develop a fully functioning video publishing pipeline can deter networks and shows from adopting the platform.” In addition to these cash injections implying YouTube wants to seed more of a professionally-produced podcasting atmosphere, there are small infrastructure moves to suggest this is a long-term plan. Alex Castro at The Verge reminds readers that back in October YouTube began allowing Canadian users to listen to videos while the device was not focusing on the YouTube app or was locked. As YouTube power users in the US can attest, this feature is pushed very hard in YouTube Premium advertising as a good reason to sign up. Without putting on a podcast-branded tin-foil hat, it seems like making the ability to use YouTube like a podcasting app would be a huge step towards YouTube courting more podcasters and their audiences. On Tuesday The Hollywood Reporter's J. Clara Chan published an exclusive announcement that UTA has launched Audio IQ, a data analytics service to facilitate podcast deals. The service will make use of social media, search results, and other open-source data to inform both clients and agents of a podcasts' health to facilitate dealmaking. “While podcast analytics can often rely on historical data points like number of downloads or past ad revenue, UTA's Audio IQ analyses also offer future projections — a tool that is particularly key in negotiations for shows that have not yet launched or for identifying emerging talent.” Audio IQ comes onto the field as massive podcast outfits buy up previously third-party analytics companies - see our February 18th episode for coverage of the Spotify acquisition of Chartable - and that atmosphere has UTA IQ lead Joe Kessler concerned. As Kessler is quoted by Chan's article: “I'm hopeful that this announcement serves as a wake-up call for the podcasting industry to somehow coalesce around a common source of truth and data for the industry, because it's sorely needed as it's maturing.” Finally, a smaller bit of news that's not technically a full news story yet, but we feel is worth keeping an eye on as things develop. There was something about Tuesday this week that lead to podcasting announcements. Ashley Carman tweeted the exclusive scoop that three senior leaders at Megaphone are leaving. CEO Brendan Monaghan, CRO Matt Turk, and COO Jason Cox, all in their positions prior to the Spotify buyout, have been confirmed to be leaving the company after their one-year contracts expired. The three are now starting a blockchain company. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download from Sounds Profitable; big names in podcasting are pulling down big numbers in ad revenue, Meta and Mozilla have teamed up to change advertising privacy, and TikTok might not be the #1 place to take short-form podcast content. On a sober, world-news note: Advertisers are weathering unintended consequences from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ryan Barwick of Morning Brew wrote a brief rundown of the situation last Friday. According to a Business Insider report, Google AdSense has been found on publishers of Russian state propaganda. “While on those sites, BI observed Google-served ads from Best Buy, Progressive, and Allbirds, and a handful of other brands. Marketing Brew also saw ads for brands on these two sites, but a banner ad atop several stories was blocked by Integral Ad Science, a brand-safety firm.” Barwick then pairs this evidence of brand safety kind-of working with the infamously-timed Applebee's promotion that aired in a split-screen ad break with footage of Kyiv under siege. The ad, featuring footage of a man in a cowboy hat gyrating his butt in glee over $1 boneless chicken wings, went viral on social media for its grim pairing with footage of burning buildings. “What do these stories have in common? Funding journalism. Advertisers often don't want to fund inflammatory, hateful, or controversial content. While brand-safety tech might help marketers avoid having their ads showing up on propaganda sites, it can also direct their ads away from legitimate coverage of political or other sensitive topics, inadvertently hurting newsrooms as a result.” Both the propaganda site ad serves and Applebee's pulling from CNN serve as evidence of extremes of what could happen in similar spheres of podcasting. To ignore brand safety and the messaging of associated programs is a recipe for being associated with disinformation and propaganda. To overcorrect and leave the space entirely could leave journalism podcasts without the stability of CNN in a financial pickle. Continuing the Morning Brew coverage: last week Alyssa Meyers rounded up the earnings highlights of some giants in the podcasting industry. SiriusXM, Spotify, Acast, and iHeartMedia all show significant growth. Both Spotify and Acast posted a 40% year-over-year increase for ad revenue while SiriusXM-owned Pandora experienced a 30% growth. The biggest headline-grabber of the bunch, though, is iHeartMedia “Q4 revenue grew 59% in iHeartMedia's ‘Digital Audio Group' division, which encompasses iHeartMedia's podcasting business, digital service, and ad-tech companies. Podcast revenue alone increased 130% YoY. The company said the growth was partly due to ‘general increased demand for digital advertising' and ‘the growing popularity of podcasting.” It appears the industry-wide trope of saying podcasting ads are fast-growing is less of a marketing pitch and more a truism as more companies rake in those fast-growing profits. Up next we have a story shuffled into the digital stack of news and left by the wayside: Spotify appears to be better at announcing podcast deals than actually publishing podcasts. While a Business Insider article was published on February 18th, much of the original reporting on the subject was done by Podnews' James Cridland in the December article Missing: the shows from these big Spotify announcements. As Cridland and others report: a great deal of splashy Spotify projects announced since December of 2020 have yet to come to fruition. Some announcements were vague deals akin to a popular actor signing a multi-picture deal with a prominent movie studio. Others, however, appear to have died on the vine. Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment's celebrity-studded Batman audio fiction series has fallen off the radar since announcing its cast last June. British royalty power couple Meghan and Harry signed up in December of 2020. The most concerning is Kim Kardashian West's partnership with Spotify and Parcast. Cridland writes “In March 2021 she hinted she was ready to release her episodes. Where are they?” eMarketer's Sara Lebow shared some fascinating data last week with a chart of the day post titled TikTok isn't the No. 1 US app for shorter videos. In fact, the data gathered by CensusWide in late January puts TikTok in third place with 53.9% of respondents sixteen and up. The top two are Facebook and YouTube with 60.8 and 77.9% respectively. As podcasters explore video podcasting, or simply video clips promoting their shows, TikTok is constantly brought up. The format of what makes a successful Facebook or YouTube video are far different than what pleases TikTok's famous algorithm, making it difficult to reuse assets. The results of this study seem to imply that while TikTok is valuable, those new to video as an advertising medium would have a better shot at developing content and skills that are useful in the long run. Another interesting facet of this story is CensusWide got these numbers before YouTube launched their TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts, effectively cloning Tiktok's endless stream of short-form content in the existing YouTube ecosystem. But then news dropped to complicate things further: Monday TikTok announced they will be allowing users to post videos up to ten minutes in length, more than doubling the original limit of three minutes. Sara Fischer, writing for Axios, broke the news of German publishing company Axel Springer investing in a new podcasting company Spooler. Working with Insider, Spooler will co-produce daily news podcast The Refresh from Insider with a special trick: Spooler's proprietary tech will allow the hosts to add new segments to that morning's episode as the day's news progresses. “For news companies, the expectation is that producers could build ‘playlist programs' that Spooler automatically stitches together to make the podcast sound seamless, even though it's being repeatedly updated. The bespoke player on Insider.com and Insider's app will allow users to skip over segments they've already heard.” Meanwhile, last week iHeartMedia announced Talk Back, an in-app feature allowing podcast-listening audiences to send voice messages to show hosts. There must be something in the Spring air as podcast companies seem to be in the mood to experiment and innovate, pushing the limits of what podcast tech can do. A social media network and an internet browser have teamed up to make ads less intrusive. Trey Titone writes for Ad Tech Explained: “When Meta and Mozilla team up to improve digital advertising, you should probably pay attention. The two companies joined forces to create Interoperable Private Attribution or IPA, a framework for attribution measurement without tracking users.” The teamup shows changing times and attitudes between the companies. Back in 2018 when Meta was still Facebook, Mozilla developed an extension for their Firefox browser with one goal: keep Facebook from watching users' web activity outside of Facebook. Now the two are teamed up with a proposed framework that could follow pro-privacy trends formed by Google and Apple to find a way to provide useful advertising data while protecting the individual's privacy. Titone's breakdown of what Meta and Mozilla have proposed IPA will be, as well as what its constituent parts might actually do, is incredibly thorough. Thorough enough to necessitate a table of contents. Check it out. For more thoughts on the subject of podcast advertising and a quality-over-quantity approach, The Download recommends Brian Morrissey's Substack newsletter piece “End of an era of ad targeting: Publishers will need closer ties to their audiences.” We should know, we covered it last week. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download, Libsyn grows monetization, LinkedIn launches a podcast network, and what the new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android means for marketers. Let's get started. Libsyn has bought another podcast representation firm, this time acquiring PAR - Podcast Ad Reps. With the acquisition LibSyn brings around 120 podcasts that were currently under representation with PAR under the LibSyn-owned AdvertiseCast banner, further building out the company's monetization arm. According to Libsyn CEO Brad Tirpak in the official press release: “With the acquisitions of AdvertiseCast in June 2021 and now PAR, Libsyn is well-positioned to continue to rapidly scale in the podcast advertising market, which PWC estimates will reach around $3.5 billion by 2025. We plan to continue to invest in our award-winning hosting platform, expand both our host-read and programmatic advertising efforts, and look for new ways to make Libsyn the preferred destination for both creators and advertisers.” All of this continues to show another side of Libsyn, a company that previously swore it would never have a free hosting platform and was anti-targeted advertising is now a large, tech-focused ad platform. Australian podcast producer LiSTNR has branched out into audio fiction. From Radio Today's Kim Napier: “LiSTNR is investing in audio fiction with book adaptations by Australian authors to bring audiences compelling audio stories, with Bryden Media casting Australian actors to deliver the stories in different podcast formats as episodic series or audio movies.” Both LiSTNR's slated audio movies and standard serialized audio fiction podcast adaptations reflect a building synergy and momentum between podcasting and publishers, two factions that've circled each other since before the coining of the term podcast. Until now audio fiction as a genre has remained a largely under-utilized sector of podcasting. With industry moves like this, we could be seeing enough momentum building to change that for the better. Over on The Rebooting's Substack newsletter, Brian Morrissey has published a piece titled “End of an era of ad targeting: Publishers will need closer ties to their audiences.” In addition to being an excellent overview of privacy on the web and how business has worked to take full advantage, Morrissey stresses the importance of adapting with changing tech. “Primary-engagement media will gain. As I've written, I believe the next phase of digital publishing will favor quality over quantity in terms of audiences. Those publishing brands that put community at their core will thrive since it easily lends itself to a direct relationship that will make those audiences far more valuable than a random collection of people who mindlessly tapped a link on their Facebook feed. There's a reason that Squarespace found podcasts such an efficient way to acquire customers. The newsletter boom is a signal of where publishing is going.” Morrissey reflects on the very first ad sold on the internet circa 1994 as a reflection of how much online marketing has changed and what modern advertising can learn from the mistakes made back then that're still made today. It's time to update that profile you've been neglecting. Business-focused social media network LinkedIn launched a podcast network on Wednesday. The network has a dozen shows at launch that, according to protocol's Veronica Irwin will, “...cover topics ranging from mental health to startup trends. With the announcement, LinkedIn joins the ranks of tech companies attempting to become the favorite hub of content creators and influencers.” The social network's launch appears to have gone incredibly well, with their flagship show “Hello Monday,” gaining 4 million downloads in its first day. Over on Digiday, Ronan Shields and Seb Joseph have made a post aiming to decode the implications of Google's nebulous new Android feature Privacy Sandbox for advertisers. “The main takeaway: Google says it will work with the industry to establish a set of technical standards that will enable ad targeting and measurement online after traditional targeting tools, like mobile identifiers, are retired on its Android devices. Why is this important? It's pitched as the inverse of Apple's own scorched earth plan to do something similar.” While Privacy Sandbox might be of some concern eventually, maybe, Shields and Joseph's interpretation of existing news suggests: “...marketers needn't panic over the latest announcement.” At the risk of this becoming a regular segment, we've got another article the staff of The Download recommend checking out. This week:  “What is Podcasting 2.0, and why is it important” by Podcode's Mark Steadman. While ostensibly written for podcasters, namespace changes are something the people in the business of podcasting need to be aware of, if not outright adopt. Steadman's primer on podcasting 2.0 is a great start. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download, Amazon continues their streak of signing exclusivity deals, agents are becoming more of a common site in podcasting, and Spotify buys both Podsights and Charitable. Good news for those who missed Ad Result Media and Edison Research's big webinar on 2021 data from Super Listeners: Caila Litman live-tweeted the event! Litman, author of Sound Profitable's column #GoodData, posted a thread of 17 tweets containing screenshots and quotes full of juicy data. According to the thread, podcast power users are eagerly engaging with podcast advertising. 74% Super Listeners are visiting a product or service's website after hearing it promoted on a favorite podcast. 53% of those listeners agree they have a more positive opinion of a company when it's mentioned on a podcast they regularly listen to. A 9% increase from 2019 data on the same question. After last week's Amazon-heavy coverage we're mixing things up with... another Amazon acquisition! Amazon Music and Wondery have signed How I Built This with Guy Raz. The deal gives Wondery exclusive ad sales and YouTube distribution rights for simulcasts while all new podcast episodes will have Amazon Music exclusivity for one week. Meanwhile, NPR keeps radio distribution rights and underwriting credits. In addition, How I Built This will ramp up to a twice-weekly upload schedule. Amazon's just getting started in podcasting and deals like this indicate podcast ads are clearly working for them. In addition, their premium Wondery+ subscriptions in their own bespoke app and through Apple Podcast subscriptions are working well enough to continue obtaining more timed exclusive content. Now we find Amazon at an interesting moment in regards to acquisitions. They've got Art19 for tech, Amazon Music for distribution, and Wondery to produce and publish content. Their biggest space for growth is ad sales, something that might change if their offer to buy Audioboom is chosen over competitor Spotify. If big green gets the company, they effectively buy a company that does something they can already do well. Buying Audioboom would effectively eliminate competition in their field. If Amazon gets the purchase they get closer to a full package of podcast monetization that will become incredibly hard to compete with. For brevity's sake, we've combined two stories into one segment, as iHeartMedia appears to be in the mood to form partnerships this week. Partnership number one: iHeart partners with Sounder to bring brand safety to audio. At the moment, all current brand safety and suitability solutions are built for text. If one wants to turn one of those services on for podcasting, the podcast has to be transcribed. This partnership provides similar value to what Adswizz and Acast implemented with Comscore to contextually categorize their inventory for targeting and brand suitability. This is just a first step, though, as the data has to be actionable by buyers, sellers, and planners in their tools directly. As things currently stand, it feels like the overall podcast industry would benefit more from building a unified framework to tackle this problem than everyone splitting off and doing duplicate work to build their own solution. And partnership number two: iHeart is looking to broaden its global podcast outreach by partnering with Veritone to use their translation and synthetic voice AI tech to, as Brad Hill reports on RAIN News “translate and synthetically voice iHeart's leading podcasts for Spanish-speaking markets.” With this Veritone partnership, iHeart is on track to be able to have their more popular podcasts available in global markets via synthetic translated voices. Our Valentine's gift this year is an article from The Hollywood Reporter's J. Clara Chan interviewing talent agents tasked with signing big podcasts. Podcasting is growing fast and a big sign of that is the prevalence of agents. Behind every big acquisition story is an agent getting into a relatively new field and helping the producer. With the industry growing at an exponential rate podcasting has a growing need for representation and agents seem to be stepping up to rep shows big and small. Chan reports: “As Hollywood fully buys into podcasting, multimillion-dollar deals are the norm for the crème de la crème of shows, while a growing audio advertising marketplace has allowed more podcasters to make a good living off their work as the industry is expected to exceed $2 billion in ad revenue next year. The major talent agencies have jumped on the train and are building out their audio divisions, with agents increasingly working on podcast deals with clients.” The big players in podcasting are chasing the new trend of acquiring IP to adapt, and agents are taking notice. Finally, the biggest news in podcasting this week: Spotify has purchased both Podsights and Chartable. With the acquisition, the podcast measurement service Podsights will remain available to the public. Quoting from Tech Crunch's Sarah Perez: “After Chartable is fully integrated into Megaphone, Spotify will deprecate the standalone Chartable platform. Until then, however, it will remain available to both new and existing publisher and advertiser clients.” Here's what Sounds Profitable's own Bryan Barletta had to say in Podnews: “Third-party analytics and attribution are critical to a growing advertising ecosystem. In podcasting, Chartable and Podsights were two of the three core providers that helped drive that point home. Spotify has bought great technology and acquired an all-star technical and sales talent, but these companies are no longer third-party solutions due to Spotify's role as a publisher, hosting platform, and ad seller. Just like with Adswizz's attribution pixel and the Triton ranker, these solutions can still add value, but with this acquisition, they now lack the ability to be seen as truly neutral.” And finally, in a rare ‘honorable mention' section, The Download tips its proverbial cap to Alyssa Myer. Thanks to her efforts, we're seeing more detailed coverage of podcast advertising. If you haven't checked out her coverage of advertisers experimenting with programmatic ads over on The Morning Brew. Get to it! The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download: Today: Amazon inherits a celeb-powered podcasting company, new ad revenue numbers forecast good news for podcast investment, and a new op-ed asks where has Facebook's fervor for podcasting gone? Celebrity chat podcast Smartless, hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes,recently launched production house SmartLess Media. With former Jon Stewart-era Daily Show producer Richard Korson at the reins as president, SmartLess Media is poised to add multiple new stars to the relatively small constellation of Amazon-owned podcasts.  The new company has sprung into existence following a prior deal in which the trio of celebs licensed the podcast SmartLess to Amazon Music and Wondery in a deal, as reported by Deadline's Peter White, “thought to be valued at between 60 million to 80 million.” According to White, this deal also extends to shows created by the fledgling production house, meaning SmartLess Media's promised slate of “weekly series, narrative, and limited podcasts,” are subject to first-look exclusivity with Amazon.  It appears through careful future-proofing and investment during the licensing deal when SmartLess was just one podcast feed, the shopping and streaming conglomerate has inherited a celebrity-fronted production company wholecloth. And they continue to have rights to the original product's momentum, which currently fuels a cross-country live tour set to wrap up this weekend.  Speaking of Amazon: in a first for the company, Amazon has broken down its advertising revenue as a distinct category instead of bundling it with other earnings. The decision to do so now and not last year when they posted a ten billion profit increase from 2020 to 2021 remains unseen, but we'll take it. According to Business Insider “at $9.7 billion in the quarter, up 32% year-over-year, ad revenue was one of Amazon's fastest-growing areas.” With their fostering SmartLess from a simple podcast acquisition into a brand-new source of content production, Amazon appears to show no sign of slowing growth in media properties that can help fuel this advertising boom. Amazon's continued heavy spending in podcasting could be an indicator they believe in the medium's ability to help continue ad revenue growth.     Continuing the theme of growth: eCommerce is on the rise globally. Sara Lebow of eMarketer provides statistics breaking down the top ten countries with the biggest increase in ecommerce made over any internet-capable device that excludes travel, bill payments, gambling, food service, or anything that falls under the “vice good” umbrella.  To quote the article: “The Philippines and India will lead the world in retail ecommerce sales growth this year, with respective increases of 25.9% and 25.5%. Countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia will make up most of the top 10 list, while the last spot will go to the US, the only advanced economy to slide into the rankings, with 15.9% growth.”  A significant portion of podcast advertising is still direct-to-consumer and significantly focused on the US. The country that's coming in tenth out of the top ten. That, combined with emerging podcast markets or strong pre-existing histories with audio in countries represented in the top nine shows podcast advertising has room to grow. Growth that might shift to bucking the existing status quo of purely targeting North American customers.  New podcasting app Fountain aims to make things easier for podcasters to receive tips from their audience in the form of Bitcoin Lightning, a system simplifying the process of transferring one hundred millionths of Bitcoin between users.  The biggest barriers to entry for such a scheme have been the need of a digital wallet, the process of buying crypto for said wallet, and the ID of another person's wallet to be able to transfer the crypto to an intended recipient.  While those hurdles still exist for the person intending to send the money, startup Fountain solves the initial problems for podcasters on the receiving end of Value 4 Value transactions by creating a wallet on their behalf. Several larger podcasts have embraced the service, including Jack Rhysider's Darknet Diaries. In this week's Hot Pod Insider, Ashley Carman published an op-ed about Meta (nee Facebook), their profit woes, and the question mark that leaves for Facebook podcasting.  Carman writes: “I wondered if brands would start spending more money on podcast ads simply because Facebook's aren't as powerful. Maybe that's worth another check-in, but instead, I'm now wondering how this tech informs Facebook's decision to pursue podcasts on its platform.”  With the social media giant reporting a decline in users for the first time in its existence alongside declining profits, a second “pivot to video,” and a full-throated commitment to rebranding VR gaming headsets as office supplies, Facebook's previous interest in embracing podcasts seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Quote “I'm unclear where that team stands or what they're doing. Did they pivot to the metaverse?” The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was hosted by Evo Terra and Manuela Bedoya.Bryan Barletta is the executive producer. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download: is the IAB on borrowed time?, podcast ads see big gains again, Google makes misinformation less profitable, podcasts grow globally, SXM enters the identity game, and Spotify stands behind Rogan even as earnings fall. Let's get started. Neilsen spells doom for IAB In the world of TV, Nielsen measurement has been the defacto solution that deals are guaranteed against for decades. But now, according to Tim Peterson of Digiday, alternative measurement solutions are gaining traction in tandem with Nielsen metrics and for some publishers and campaigns, replacing them completely. Nielsen took its fair share of lumps last year, with the Media Ratings Council board voting to strip them of their accreditation for local and national TV viewership due to undercounting audiences during the pandemic. And with their newly announced plans for Nielson One, a cross-measurement product, there is a lot of comfort in using new measurement partners in parallel to compare to current Nielsen reporting, while publishers determine their path forward. Incumbent measurement solutions are incredibly hard to shake, and this change in the TV landscape doesn't mean that overnight, Nielsen won't be the primary solution or that they'll ever necessarily lose that top spot. But it does mean that any measurement solution that represents an industry can and should be challenged, to better represent the industry and all those participating in it. IAB measurement of podcasting may be the default today, but we should always keep an open mind to better opportunities. Podcast Ads See Big Gains—Again! Good news for the podcast advertising industry! According to AvertiseCast, the effective rates brands are paying for podcast ads have increased once again, and for shows of all sizes. Their most recent study of the 2,515 podcasts tracked shows that aggregate or the average CPM is now $25.37, which is up from $22.50 this time last year. Doing the quick math shows that's an increase of 12.7%. Nice And the news is even better for shows with the largest audiences. According to AdvertiseCast's data, shows that see over 100K downloads are getting an average of $23.08, up from $20.09 a year ago. That's a 14.6% increase year over year, and great news for the growing value of podcast advertising. CheckMyAds Makes Misinformation Less Profitable The nonprofit adtech industry watchdog CheckMyAds continues to gain traction on holding platforms accountable for monetizing disinformation content. Writing in MediaPost, Karlene Lucovitz reports that Google has decided to stop serving Google Ads on Fox News' host and Cumulus Media radio and podcast host Dan Bongino's own website. This comes just a week after YouTube permanently banned Bongino from the platform for, you guessed it, repeated violations of YouTube's COVID misinformation policy. Quoting from the piece: It is not clear how much revenue Bongino will lose as a result of the Google Ads and YouTube bans. However, as Engadget noted, Claire Atkin, co-founder of the digital disinformation-fighting nonprofit Check My Ads, tweeted that Gateway Pundit lost $1.1 million in annual revenue after its Google AdSense account was revoked for spreading COVID and election misinformation. Quick side note: Clair Atkin is my guest on the next episode Sounds Profitable: Adtech Applied, if you are not already subscribed. What's most interesting is Google, at least with their ad platform, doesn't have to make a decision on whether to censor content or not. Instead, they make the decision whether or not to fund it through their ad solutions. So sure, you can say anything you want on your own platform. But with this move, Google is saying pick someone else to make it profitable, a trend we hope to see echoed through all of media. Growing Podcasts Globally Every indicator shows podcasting has had a heck of a growth trajectory over the last few years. But even though we count our numbers now in the millions, it's still dominated by English-speaking podcasts. But that may be changing. In Digiday, Sara Guaglione investigates how podcast publishers and platforms are working to grow non-English language audiences. Quoting from the piece: Of the 600,000-plus podcasts that launched in 2021 [that had declared] a language [in the RSS feed], a majority – 53% – tagged a non-English language, according to [Dave] Zohrob [of Chartable]. By contrast, in 2020 less than half of the 900,000 new podcasts debuted in 2020 were in non-English languages. Knowing that the majority of new podcasts launched last year are presenting information in a language other than English is a huge turning point for the global-ness of podcasting, which should be welcome news for any podcasting business looking to expand their global footprint. SMX's AudioID The impending death of the third-party cookie and the degradation of mobile device IDs has been the backbeat of the advertising industry for the past two years. But until this week, with Facebook shares dropping over 20%, the impacts have been far more fearmongering than fact. Technology's focus on privacy means a more transparent world, and at the forefront of data collection for advertising is the concept of unified ID's, which relies heavily on consensually provided data from signed-in users, something we tend to assume doesn't apply to the greater podcasting space, as Apple, Google, Spotify, and Amazon aren't keen on sharing that data. But according to SiriusXM's SXM Media's latest press release, they're actively testing their proposal for an industry-wide framework that would enable the podcast player space to provide that data. “We are entering a new era of identity – both in culture and in technology – that defines us not by who we are on paper or the cookies we leave behind, but by our interests and passions. AudioID is a consumer-first, privacy-conscious infrastructure that will deliver our audiences the best experiences and give marketers access to data-driven capabilities like never before,” said Chris Record, Senior Vice President and Head of Ad Product, Technology & Operations at SXM Media & AdsWizz. While the reach has yet to be determined, and public access to the framework has not yet been made available, this is incredibly encouraging growth in an area of podcasting we've previously considered stagnant. Spotify Stands Behind Rogan Even As Earnings Fall And finally, yes… some news on Spotify's Joe Rogan “problem”. We know you've heard all about it, but we were waiting for Wednesday's scheduled earnings call to bring it up. And we're glad we did. According to Marketwatch's Jeremy C. Owens: “Spotify Technology SA executives said Wednesday they expect fewer subscriber additions in the first quarter than Wall Street expected, sending shares spiraling lower, but they contended the forecast miss was not because of recent controversy. Spotify guided for 1 million fewer net subscriber additions in the first quarter of 2022 than analysts expected, and did not provide an annual forecast as they have in the past. Shares dove more than 18% in after-hours trading immediately following the release of the report Wednesday, though they rebounded to a loss of less than 10% after Spotify's chief financial officer gave a bit of color on expectations for the year in a conference call.” But the big question we have in podcasting is how much, if any, of the miss in projections can be attributed to protestors who take exception to Rogan's comments? When Spotify founder Daniel Ek was asked specifically is these misses were impacted by recent customer cancellations related to the Rogan controversy, Ek said “Um, no.” and that “the easy answer is we don't reflect any churn from the recent Joe Rogan thing in general. What I would say is it's too early to know what the impact may be. And usually when we've had controversies in the past, those are measured in months and not days.” But Owens goes on to note: “Spotify stock has suffered during the controversy, falling 18% so far this year, but that continued a previous downward trajectory. Shares have declined 44.4% in the past 12 months, as the S&P 500 index gained 18.8%” Watch this space as this continues to unfold. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was hosted by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download: is the IAB on borrowed time?, podcast ads see big gains again, Google makes misinformation less profitable, podcasts grow globally, SXM enters the identity game, and Spotify stands behind Rogan even as earnings fall. HBO Max is Hiring For Their Podcast Marketing Team Subscription streaming video service HBO Max continues to prove its serious about podcasting. Their first venture into the space dropped last summer with Batman: The Audio Adventures, an exclusive podcast that could only be listened to in HBO Max app itself. While HBO maintains podcast channels on Spotify and Apple for related content, just like their peers at Netflix, this is the first podcast to be exclusively hosted in a subscription video streaming app. Now, they're looking to hire a new role, specifically for podcasting under the HBO Max brand. The role is for a Sr. Analyst, Direct-to-Consumer, Podcasting Strategy & Operations, and will “provide strategic and analytic support on various projects covering direct-to-consumer and HBO Max Podcasting initiatives.   Interactive Voices Lack Diversity If you missed CES 2022 because... well, reasons; you probably saw a plenty of breathless reporting of new prototypes and maybe-coming-in-the-future tech. Steve Keller, Sonic Strategy Director for Studio Resonate, SXM's audio-first creative consultancy has an in-depth piece on things he noticed at the event of interest to audio people like us. Like a lot of tech around the explosion of interactive voice systems. But he also noticed something else: Quoting from the piece: But something was missing. Innovation aside, the lack of sonic diversity in the voice sector was disturbing. [P]ractically all the AI voices we heard at CES 2022 were female—and white. In fact, the only voice assistant of color heard was during a series of sessions focused on voice technology, curated and moderated by attn.live CEO, Ian Utile. Multiple panelists affirmed that there's an underlying problem with the overwhelmingly white, male demographics of the AI world who are unconsciously programming biases, sonic color lines, and digital discrimination into voice systems. As a result, the default voice of automotive assistants, connected homes, and a plethora of other devices is white. The issue is compounded by the fact that these assistants, designed to serve us, are also predominantly female. It's a systemic problem, and developers and brands need to work harder to sonically diversify their voice systems, as well as the designers, engineers, and developers who create them. With DEI so high on the priority list for most companies, it's surprising this problem exists. No, wait. It's not surprising at all, is it?   Google's Federated Learning of Cohorts Replaced by Topics While third-party cookies aren't part of the information we receive from listeners in podcasting, they are a big part of the device graphs we use to augment what we do receive and improve how we run attribution. So while Safari and Firefox kicked them completely to the curb in 2020, Google has pushed out their deadline for when they're twilight third-party cookies until 2023. And their original pitch, Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC for short, has now been scrapped for what they're calling Topics. FLoC grouped audiences based on their browsing activity at a very granular level, where Topics focuses on applying a list of topics, starting at around 300 but expected to be in the thousands, directly to the individual. Only the top three most prevalent Topics will be available for targeting and identification, but what's really interesting is that they expire every three weeks, keeping them increasingly fresh and relevant. Topics fit in nicely with the contextual offerings that podcasting is primed to offer advertisers if we continue to prioritize transcription and contextual targeting.   Podcasting Only Looks Hit-Resistant If you somehow avoided the kerfuffle over the Bloomberg Article where Lucas Shaw reported on podcasting's inability to generate a current hit... well, I'm not sure how you did. There have been a lot of hot takes on the article, but one worthy of your attention was penned by Tom Webster in his weekly newsletter, I Hear Things.It's a fascinating read, with Tom pointing out that other mediums, like movies, television programs, and music all have the same “problem”. They just present differently. Examining the top movies from last year, Tom notes: Even if you go further down the list from the top 10, it's sequels, movies based on existing properties, and remakes. Is it fair to say that the movie industry hasn't produced a new hit in years? No--all the above movies are new movies, but they are familiar at the same time. He goes on to make a similar case for popular television programs - The Bachelor season 26, anyone? - and even music, going so far as to craft metaphors around melody and harmony to predict a hit. Working that back to podcasting, Tom says: Podcasting is, by its very definition, a medium that largely lacks harmony. When you can listen to a podcast anytime, there is little compunction to listen to them at any given time. They are always there--convenient, but rarely urgent. In other words, asynchronous. And they also currently (though not by definition) lack melody. The whole medium is new to so many people, and even for veteran listeners, there isn't exactly the equivalent of NCIS: New Orleans or Thursday Night Football or The Traveling Wilburys--that thread of familiarity that telegraphs immediately: if you like this, you will like that. Even some of the biggest hits of podcasting aren't easily explainable to a friend. That's part of why there is such a spate of celebrity podcasts right now. What is easier to describe to people: It's the Michele Obama podcast, or "it's the podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Check out the entire post for insights on why Tom thinks the article that made such waves was a little unfair little wrong, but ultimately right-ish. Links in the episode details, as always.   Amazon Expands Ad Sales Efforts Amazon Advertising was responsible for generating $23bn in revenue for the first three quarters of 2021, nearly double the $13.5bn generated in that same period for 2020. How'd they do it? By shifting their focus to pursuing major brands, agencies, and holding companies looking to focus on awareness with their large customer sales team. Joshua Kreitzer, founder and CEO of Channel Bakers, an Amazon-focused ad agency tells Digiday With this change, the Amazon large customer sales team is no longer focused on shopper marketing dollars — they're now responsible for breaking through to the $70 billion TV market. While selling advertising to Amazon's clients actively selling products on Amazon.com is still part of their focus, they're now providing a bigger brand play by being able to offer inventory across Twitch, Fire TV, IMDb TV, and their podcast companies Art 19 and Wondery. Amazon has an immense amount of first-party data, from all their apps and services that require a login, so coupled with the technology they integrated from acquiring attribution company Sizmek and their AWS infrastructure, they have the potential to provide insights competitive to Google and Meta. The Download is presented by Sounds Profitable and is hosted by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra. Audio editing by Ian Powell. SA81NiPbZ3KByWl3qVE3 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta.And I'm Evo Terra. Today; Audible moves away from daily news digests, Audioboom's profit soars, how podcast advertising needs to write its own future, and two more pieces you don't want to miss. Let's get started. In GeekWire, Todd Bishop reports that Audible will stop making and distributing their audio digest versions of The New York Times, a service they had been providing since 1999. Additionally, Audible's audio digest versions of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal will also be halted.Quoting from the piece:"The audio programs, which were available as a perk for Audible members, had been around for more than two decades in some cases. The decision to discontinue the digests reflects the growing number of daily news podcasts, and the rise of other services offering human-narrated audio of newspaper and magazine stories. Responding to GeekWire's inquiry about the move, an Audible spokesperson provided copies of emails alerting listeners to the change. The messages directed listeners to the lineup of podcasts on Audible, and specifically recommended NPR's Up First as “another way to get your news fix.”Audible and Amazon Music added podcasts in 2020. The New York Times is testing a new audio product of its own. The Times acquired Audm, which offers human-narrated stories from a variety of publications, in 2020."More proof-positive that podcasting is not just a disruptive force in journalism, but a valuable type of media in its own right. One that subscribers are eager to add to their media consumption diet.On Saturday, January 9th 2022, four mobile sports betting apps, including FanDuel and DraftKings, went live in New York state, with five more on the way, according to Neal Freyman of Morning Brew. In the four years since the Supreme Court ruled on legal sports betting, half the states in the US now allow sports betting, and twenty states support mobile sports betting specifically.Industries like sports betting and cannabis benefit from geotargeting to states where they're legally approved and aligning with contextually relevant content; two things that podcasting does exceptionally well. As podcasting continues to grow its programmatic advertising opportunities, expect to see these categories leading the charts.Brad Hill from RainNews has a breakdown of Audioboom's financial report for 2021. A report that showed increased revenues of over 125% for the company that produces, monetizes, and distributes podcasts. That's a big increase that looks all the more impressive when you learn that Audioboom's growth more than doubled the IAB's tracking of the overall industry growth.Audioboom's growth seemed to hit on all cylinders, with increases in total impressions, advertisers serviced, and even a big jump in effective CPM.CEO Stuart Last reports that his company already havs $45 million on the books for this year, with a “strong set” of new shows is in development as they try to ride that train through 2022 and beyond.Tom Webster of Edison Research penned a great article where he looks at the massive shift in spoken-word audio consumption since 2014 to podcasting and from where? You guessed it: radio.As with every issue Tom writes in his newsletter, I Hear Things, this one is as entertaining to read as it is educational, and I highly encourage you to give it a read.Quoting near the end of the issue:"My point here is not to "celebrate" the growth of podcasting in spoken word. It's to take notice of just how much ground commercial radio has to podcasters who have done nothing more than add back in all the colors spoken word audio can paint with. Podcasting's surge isn't only about being an on-demand medium. It's about innovation. It's about taking risks. It's about closing the pool for renovations when it's easier to stick with the swimmers you have.cededAgain, this one is really worth your time to read, and for remembering that the way to succeed with spoken word content is to not only appeal to your audience, but those who might become your audience.And finally, It's not every day that an ad agency writes an opinion piece, but Dan Granger from Oxford Road has done so. And wow, is it an opinion that will probably ring in your ears for some time.In the piece, Dan presents seven key initiatives that would, in his opinion, demonstrably expand and optimize the podcast industry in 2022. You should read the article—we've linked to it in the episode details—to get his full take on each, but here's a quick rundown: A joint effort among the top podcast networks to create standard disclosures for ads Making category exclusivity a standard for host-read ads Networks to stop forcing "combo" buys that contain unwanted inventory Local media publishers joining forces to create their own regional podcast networks Facebook leveraging its advertising toolset to benefit podcasters on the social network Airchecks and transcripts become standard And the podcast Industry finally getting serious about brand safetyDan goes into detail on each one of these needed initiatives, painting a picture of a future in which podcast advertising finally becomes a multi-billion dollar industry. And that was The Download, from Sounds Profitable! I know we went through these fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app. And thanks for sticking with us on this grand experiment to give you the best stories you might have missed from this week. I'm Bryan Barletta.I'm Evo Terra. Thanks for joining us. Robot? [Download complete!] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta.And I'm Evo Terra. Today, The New York Times Bets half a billion on sports, NPR doubles down on paid subscriptions, Spotify goes all-in on in-app digital ads, and I'm clearly making too many gambling references. Let's get started.NYT buys The AthleticThe New York Times has agreed to purchase the sports news company, the Athletic, for $550m. The six-year-old company, which raised $50m in 2020 at a $500m valuation, was originally in talks to sell to the New York Times last summer, but the deal fell through due to disagreements on price. With the New York Times focusing heavily on subscription content and on audio with their new app, called obviously enough "New York Times Audio", acquiring the Athletic with their 1.2m paid subscribers, which is 1/8th the total subscriptions the New York Times has, puts them on track to easily exceed their goal of 10m subscribers.Currently, the Athletic is hosted on Megaphone, part of Spotify, and participates in the Spotify Audience Network. The New York Times hosts on Simplecast, part of Adswizz, which also offers a competing monetization product. Whether we see The Athletic migrate to Simplecast or not likely depends on how integrated the two companies will be with each other.AdvertiseCast has updated their Industry Average Podcast Advertising Rates page as of January 1st, 2022. AdvertiseCast has been tracking the average CPM rates for their client podcasts since the beginning of 2020, grouping the rates charged by podcasts into three buckets—shows getting less than 10,000 downloads per month, shows getting between 10,000 and 100,000, and those seeing more than 100,000 downloads per month.And it's good news, with the average CPM of all groups at just under $24, up nearly 6% comparing December 2021 to December 2020. And the biggest shows saw an even higher increase, jumping up by more than 8% year over year.The takeaway here is clear: The actual value—not just the perceived value, but the actual value paid by advertisers on 2,412 podcasts in this sample size, is going up for podcast advertising. Reviewing the programmatic mergers and acquisitions that James Hercher of AdExchanger pointed out this week, there's a lot of trends happening in channels outside of podcasting that bode well for our industry.Hercher writes:“Historically, DSPs and SSPs have been kept separate from ad server businesses. Ad servers are the source of reconciliation data, meaning they decide whether ads were served or visible and whether advertisers should pay for an impression. Although walled gardens can often get away with bundling an ad server and grading their own homework, open programmatic companies generally could not. But SSPs need an ad server for CTV.”This need has been echoed in podcasting for quite some time. Companies like Triton Digital and Adswizz offer publishers both adserving and SSP capabilities in one package.Similarly, verification vendors like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, whose technology relies on client-side execution to verify ads, have each purchased contextual advertising companies to further their offering. Contextual verification is the easiest path for these vendors to enter the podcast space, enabling their clients to validate their purchased podcast inventory.Axios reports that NPR is taking another run at monetizing their podcasting efforts, working with premium podcast provider Supporting Cast to launch NPR+. The broadcaster plans to add a slate of new shows as well as subscriber-only episodes, including "podcast bundles" as incentives to listeners who become members of local NPR affiliates.Quoting from the article:"Subscription podcasting offers a new digital business model for NPR and its member stations. But its long-standing mission to inform the public limits how much content the non-profit can put behind a paywall.""NPR has been experimenting with podcasts for well over a decade, but it's pushing more aggressively to produce podcasts, particularly daily shows, that it can include in subscription efforts.""Podcast subscriptions will be used to drive revenue from loyalists who want to support their favorite shows and hosts, similar to radio memberships.""It's about the relationship that our journalists, our producers, our editors have with their audiences and their ability to create and craft new relationships," said Sarah Gilbert, vice president for news programming."The new NPR+ service is already live, with nine shows available at the time of this recording, each going for $2.99 per month.Spotify has released their take on a companion ad to accompany their streaming ad insertion offering, called CTA Cards. The unit works by providing a size-variable, banner-like ad, served only to listeners of Spotify's original and exclusive podcasts, and only to users of the Spotify mobile app.What's unique about this ad unit is its staying power. The ad—or "card"—will be visible to the listener on both the episode and show pages for seven days or until the end of the campaign, whichever is shorter. This feature isn't yet available to publishers who use Spotify Audience Network through Megaphone or Anchor, nor is it available to any publisher directly selling their inventory.Spotify is straddling the walled garden of advertising with their in-app streaming audio offering and their mainstream podcast advertising through dynamic ad insertion. But as they release more unique ad features solely to users of their mobile app, it will be interesting to see how Spotify responds to listener pushback for selling and running ads for their Spotify Premium customers who have paid for ad-free listening. And that was The Download, from Sounds Profitable! I know we went through these fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app. And thanks for sticking with us on this grand experiment to give you the best stories you migh have missed from this week. I'm Evo Terra.I'm Bryan Barletta. Thanks for joining us. Robot? [Download complete!] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is The Download, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta. And I'm Evo Terra. Today, why premium content won't kill advertising-supported podcasts, Facebook podcast activity is over-inflated, Section 230 under fire, and why the "average" podcast consumer is a myth you need to move away from. Let's get started. With Coca-Cola picking WPP to handle their nearly $4 billion in yearly ad spend, Business Insider ran down a list of 10 big brand accounts evaluating new agencies, from Nike to CVS Health. Their list, including Coca-Cola, covers over $7.5 billion in ad spend for next year.New agencies means new strategies. And new strategies include testing new channels, which is how many of these brands view podcasting. Podcast publishers and agencies will be the resources that enable these larger agencies and brands to buy direct podcasting ads at scale, while the adtech companies will further enable programmatic offerings directly in their tools of choice.In Mobile Insider from Media Post, Joe Mandese gives a counter opinion to what's been called The Great App Exodus, where advertisers—specifically in-app advertisers—are shifting away from ad revenue with a newfound focus on subscription revenue, particularly in a post-ATT world, or Apple Tracking Transparency.Quoting from the article:"[C]onsumers have already taken on vastly higher costs of premium media subscriptions -- especially subscription video-on-demand and music services -- over the past several years, and there is only so much they can bear.In fact, over the past couple of decades, consumers have surpassed advertisers as the primary source of media revenues, and according to estimates from industry economic tracker PQ Media, the average American now pays close to $1,500 annually accessing media and media content. How much more can they take?"So what does this have to do with podcasting, you're probably asking. Well, with both Apple and Spotify leaning heavily into paid subscription models, and other premium services from Glow, Supercast, Acast+ and more continuing to explore premium, ad-free offerings, costs to subscribe to premium or ad-free podcast feeds eats into that annual subscription budget. Which means free, ad-supported podcasts will likely remain the staple of podcast listening behavior for the foreseeable future.Bloomberg Businessweek got their hands on an internal Amazon document, the accuracy of which Amazon disputes, detailing slowed growth for their Alexa voice controlled smart speakers. Considering Amazon employs 10,000 people to work on Alexa and is attempting to move from a $5 loss per device sold in 2018 to a $2 per-unit profit by 2028, things might seem grim. But as an indicator of innovation from the overall audio space, it's incredibly encouraging.Amazon previously reported that 25% of US households currently have at least one Alexa device. The primary uses of those devices is home automation, timers, and playing music and podcasts. Amazon, Apple, and Google all offer their own voice assistants through dedicated devices, phones, and more. And all three companies are increasingly active in both the podcast and music space. These devices won't disappear anytime soon, but the rush in 2020 to build unique content specifically for smart speakers might have been a bit pre-emptive.In Podnews, James Cridland uncovers what he calls a coding bug in Facebook's on-page podcast player implementation that grossly inflates the number of counted downloads—but only if the podcast hosting company isn't providing IAB-certified stats.Quoting James:"We think that when you see a podcast in your timeline, the Facebook app is pre-downloading a little bit of the audio file to work out how long the audio is, and to ensure that it's got 30 seconds of audio ready so you can hit the play button and instantly listen to it. This is against IAB guidelines.This is a bad engineering decision by Facebook - it will cause unnecessary bandwidth use by its app, and will cost podcast hosting companies significant revenue in wasted traffic. It would be ideal if they'd confirm to the IAB standard, and only request audio files when a user has asked for them."Facebook is being a bad actor in this case for a couple of different reasons. Not doing proper fetch requests to IAB guidelines, as James points out, is one. But also is the fact that Facebook seems disinterested in engaging with podcast hosting companies or even podcasters on this initiative. Given the outsized influence Facebook has on... well, everything, a few well-placed strategic calls to some podcast media companies might have saved them this aggravation. 2021 was an incredibly rough year to look back on for many reasons. But in the adtech space, the fear of what comes next as we move away from third-party cookies and mobile device ID's was particularly vexing . A good handful of adtech partners have put forth their best solutions for alternative identifiers, building quickly and getting significant buy-in, but according to DigiDay+'s research panel, nothing was resolved.Two of the five charts in their end of year wrap up point out that with over 50% of their panel still as concerned about the impact these changes will have to attribution and targeting. Even more surprising is that, with all of that concern “[d]espite nearly a year of testing, development and dealmaking, publishers remain about as worried about the end of the third-party cookie as they were at the beginning of 2021”, “[p]ublishers are twice as likely to be using alternate identifiers in none of their ads deals than they are to be using them for a majority of their deals.”While those changes don't directly impact podcasting, a third chart highlights that contextual targeting, a mainstay of podcast advertising, is front and center for both agencies and advertisers in 2022. Focusing on contextual skips quite a few of the cookie and ID based problems whose solutions weren't enticing enough to jump on, and lets CTV and podcasting shine, both of which have been seeing incredible growth.Writing in MediaPost's Social Insider, Wendy Davis covers a bill by New York State Senator Brad Hoylman that allows for legal action to be taken against media sites that knowingly promote hateful, harmful, or medically fraudulent content posted on their platforms. And he's not alone.Quoting from the piece:"Hoylman isn't the only one attempting to control how social media companies handle users' speech. Earlier this year, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) introduced the “Health Misinformation Act,” which aims to discourage social media companies from promoting posts with false information about COVID-19. That measure would carve out an exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for users' posts with false health information, when those posts are algorithmically promoted during a national emergency."These laws face an uphill battle even if they do manage to pass, and some will likely be thrown out as unconstitutional. But these attempts seem to be chipping away at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 certainly seems to be coming under fire, and it's revocation or rewriting could have significant impacts on how all media companies—including podcast media companies—manage the content housed on their services.And finally for this week, Neisen released some very interesting demographic-specific insights on podcast listener behavior in their Seen on Screen 2021 study. Podcast companies often look at blended average of all podcast consumers. But this survey shows clear differences and affinities for different groups, a reality that businesses marketing to or trying to reach these distinct podcast audiences should pay attention to.Quoting from the press release published on Podnews:"[T]hese audiences want to hear from trusted voices with similar backgrounds or that have similar interests. Most importantly, the topics need to be inclusive and of interest—from credible sources with original voices. And as podcasts more authentically appeal to a wide range of audiences, brands and agencies can track engagement with them and leverage targeted opportunities within marketing strategies and campaigns."So your company has been taking a one-size-fits-all approach to reaching the average podcast consumer, 2022 is the time to course-correct. The Download is brought to you by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We got such good feedback a few days ago that we decided to test the waters again with another pilot (co-pilot?) episode of The Download. Just in time for Christmas! If you love it, send us a note! Matt Deegan examines Global's acquisition of podcast hosting platform Captivate In particular, he notes how Captiave's hosting solution fills a much-needed gap in Global's offering, and how their audio advertising business—DAX—should integrate nicely, giving the company "full-stack" capabilities., comparing and contrasting that acquisition to the other podcasting-related business and services Global has acquired. Quoting from the piece: Captivate definitely fills a hole, as Global have lacked their own platform for managing the hosting of their podcasts. Up to now they mainly seem to have been using Spreaker, which was acquired by Voxnest, which was snaffled by iHeartMedia last year.DAX has been spending some time over the past couple of years owning the end-to-end technology around digital audio. Its streaming ad platform was originally built on top of Adswizz's server, that's now been replaced by their own in-house tech and Captivate gives them another chunk of the tech stack. Expect to see more as Global's integration of Captivate, DAX, and Remixd continues in the coming months. Full disclosure, Evo was an advisor to Captivate up until their acquisition by Global. Spotify opened Pod City, an on-location recording and production facility as part of their newly opened LA campus.The company's choice to invest in on-site capabilities for an industry that continues to rely on remote work and distributed teams seems odd. Quoting from Wendy Lee's article in the Los Angeles Times: Beyond centralizing its podcasting business in one place, the new Los Angeles operation allows Spotify to reduce the costs of paying outside vendors, attract and nurture new talent, and produce more original shows that it can own and distribute. At least two production houses owned by Spotify, The Ringer and Parcast, are located in Los Angeles. In late November 2021, Spotify's CEO Paul Vogel said the company had earmarked $3.5 billion to spend on expansion, with an emphasis on podcasting. Will a shiny new building attract higher-profile shows to join Spotify? And if more podcast studios are built by other powerhouses, does this signal a shift away from the remote-work nature we've grown accustomed to in podcasting? The Verge The article which we've linked in the episode description is still being updated, but outside of major companies with a podcasting presence like Amazon, Google, Meta, and iHeartRadio confirming they won't be attending, a substantial portion of the tech media has also decided to opt out as well, including The Verge. Before you hop on your flight to Vegas in just under two weeks, you might want to make sure any meetings you've scheduled are still on.Sean Hollister of provided extensive coverage of cancellations from major companies for CES 2022. they made the unpopular decision to cancel lifetime accounts for their serviceBut then on Tuesday, Podnews reported an abrupt about-face.Podcast hosting company bCast found themselves in hot water of their own making this week, when purchased via AppSumo, according to Podnews on Monday. Quoting from founder Tom Hunt's social media post: After further discussion and feedback... we have decided to cancel the "cut off" and will continue to support all lifetime accounts as per the original terms. I understand that our original note from Thursday was misguided, irresponsible, and in short: a mistake. We will look to boost revenue from new subscribers, cut costs, and look for other routes of funding." Podcasters are notoriously cash-conscious. And they tend to have long memories. Keep that in mind before you start looking for creative ways to increase your MRR. Marketing BrewIn , Ryan Barwick covers the digital ad industry's inability to hire fast enough.Barwick notes that as of December 17th, Roku had 750 openings, The Trade Desk had 572 openings, Criteo had 319 openings and Google had 10,224 openings on LinkedIn. With advertising and adtech continuing to grow in the podcast industry as well, almost all companies are actively hiring for nearly all positions to cover both new growth and attrition. Reading the People category in Podnews every day shines a spotlight on an incredibly painful issue we're facing; we keep poaching from within the space instead of hiring from outside and training up. The easiest thing to teach while onboarding someone into the podcast industry is the podcast industry itself. As an industry, we need to do better, and if you're interested in collaborating on a project to fix that, reach out to me. Bryan@soundsprofitable.com The Download is brought to you by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted and Produced by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra Audio Engineering by Ian Powell This is The Download, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta. And I'm Evo Terra. Today we're covering the entirety of the podcast acquisition and funding that happened in 2021. Let's get started. Libsyn, the public podcast hosting platform founded in 2004 had an incredibly active year. They started by raising 25 million dollars and they definitely put it to work, buying podcast creation platform Auxbus, subscription and membership platform Glow for 1.2 million dollars, host and announcer read self-serve advertising marketplace Advertisecast for 30 million dollars, and longtail podcast advertising marketplace PODGO. With the leadership team from Advertisecast taking a more active role, and former board chairman and investor Brad Tirpak coming on as CEO, Libsyn has a chance to really upgrade their image if they can match the momentum of their competitors and integrate a non-trivial amount of companies into one of the oldest podcast platforms still active. Audacy, started the year as Entercom, and after 53 years, rebranded. Kicking it of by acquiring longtail self-serve ad marketplace Podcorn for $22.5m. Podcorn gives Audacy micro-influencer reach contrasting with their higher-profile owned and repped shows. For $40m, they also bought “an exclusive, perpetual license of WideOrbit's digital audio streaming and podcasting technology and related assets and operations. Audacy will continue to operate WO Streaming under the name AmperWave.” Today, Audacy builds and hosts their radio broadcast to podcasts solution with Triton Digital's Omny Studio, owned by close competitor iHeartMedia, while hosting their Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Media shows on Spotify's Megaphone. For a company reporting around $16m in revenue per quarter from podcasting alone, expect to see them fully migrate to AmperWave and bulk up the public offering for the platform. While Global, the UK-based media & entertainment group and parent company of DAX Digital Ad Exchange does offer podcast hosting capabilities, their main appeal for publishers has been monetization opportunities. So acquiring podcast hosting, analytics, and monetization platform Captivate, which is IAB certified and has strong brand appeal for indie podcasts, shows Global's drive to be more accessible. Ad exchanges thrive on inventory, so the purchase of Remixd, which “automatically converts text articles into audio files” provides Global a quick path to more ad supply. With Captivate off the table, hosting platform Buzzsprout, that serves over 100k podcasts, becomes even more appealing for a longtail inventory play. Earlier in the year, iHeartMedia acquired audio ad technology company Triton Digital for 230 million dollars from E.W. Scripps, which purchased Triton Digital for 150 million dollars in 2018 and Omny Studio, part of Triton Digital, in 2019. Like Audacy, iHeart currently uses Spotify's Megaphone to host their podcasts. Getting all their assets to their own platform is clearly on the horizon for iHeart, especially with Triton Digital offering radio broadcast-to-podcast capabilities. Coupled with iHeart's acquisition of Voxnest/Spreaker in 2020 and the announcement of their ad marketplace in both 2020 and 2021, the only offering iHeart currently lacks to compete with their direct competitors, is an attribution product. Will they build it internally like Adswizz or will they acquire a solution? With over 70% of podcasts on Spotify serving from their hosting platform Anchor, Spotify continues their plans of going wide on audio by buying audiobook distributor Findaway and podcast hosting platform Whooshkaa, which specializes in creating podcasts from radio broadcasts. Whooshkaa will be integrated into hosting platform Megaphone, which Spotify purchased last November for 235 million dollars. While Spotify is unlikely to retain Audacy and iHeartMedia as clients, as both purchased their own radio broadcast-to-podcast technology this year, Spotify will continue to attract publishers looking for those features as part of a complete offering. With Whooshkaa acquired, RedCircle is the last independent hosting platform with dynamic ad insertion and programmatic offerings. And SGRecast from StreamGuys is the only independent company offering a broadcast-to-podcast technology. How long either will remain independent is a very good question. Acast started the year by acquiring US podcast technology startup RadioPublic. Keeping inline with their creator-focused image, the main appeal was “RadioPublic's Listener Relationship Management platform, which allows podcasters to foster even deeper relationships with fans”, which played nice with the beta launch of Acast+, their subscription offering. Over the summer, Acast went public, which is it's own kind of acquisition. And though it falls slightly outside of 2021, when Podnews editor James Cridland announced Amazon's late December 2020 acquisition of Wondery for around 300 million dollars, he made the prediction that ART19 would be the logical next acquisition. After all, former CEO of Wondery, Hernan Lopez was an investor in the platform and all Wondery shows were hosted on ART19. In June of this year, the deal for Amazon to acquire ART19 was officially announced. Nice crystal ball, James. And if that wasn't enough, here's a quick rundown of some of the other deals from 2021: In the podcast player space, the Breaker podcast app team joined Twitter while Maple Media acquired the app itself, Daily Mail and General Trust or DMGT acquired discovery focused podcast app Entale, and Automattic, owner of Tumblr and WordPress.com acquired the podcast app Pocket Casts. In the hosting platform space Castos acquires another hosting platform, Podiant and Sounder acquired audio discovery and analytics company Podnods. In the technology space attribution company Podsights acquired linksharing company pod.link and podcast database Podchaser acquired chart and ranking tool Podcharts and listener review tool Podrover. And in the content production space Amaze Media Labs acquired podcast production company Jam Street Media. Finally, a lighting round of the funding deals that happened, to give you some insight into the money moving into the podcasting space. Production Copenhagen-based Podimo raised $15.3m in February and $78m in November. Audio Up Media raised $12m. WaitWhat raised $12m. Sounder raised $2.15m in March and $9.5m in December. Casted raised $7m. French-based Paradiso Media raised $5.9m. Quake Media raised $3.5m. Equity Mates Media raised $900k. UK-based Auddy raised $610k.Creator Tools Verbit raised $157m. Descript raised $30m. Podcastle raised $7m. Zencastr raised $4.6m. Podchaser raised $4m. Riverside raised $2.5m.Hosting & Monetization Instreamatic raised $6.1m. RedCircle raised $6m. Podsights raised $4m. Backtracks raised $1.6m. Castos raised $756k. Podmetrics and Podcast Network Asia raised $750k. You'll find links to everything we just covered in the episode details, and subscribe to The Download in your inbox so you never miss an episode. I'm Bryan Barletta And I'm Evo Terra See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.