Podcast appearances and mentions of clara chan

July is Dry Eye Awareness month.  In this episode, five cornea specialists each contribute a tip on how to better diagnose and manage dry eye.  Speakers includ Dr. Clara Chan, Dr. Chris Rapuano, Dr. Ashley Brissette, Dr. Tanya Trinh, and host Dr. Zale Mednick. This episode is sponsored by Sun Pharma Canada

This week, Alexandra Wolfe, daughter of the writer Tom Wolfe, reveals why her father excelled at the literary feud, skewering everyone from Norman Mailer to Anthony Haden-Guest. Then Alessandra Stanley explains why the people who just might save humanity are also the most loathed people on earth: lawyers. And finally, J. Clara Chan reports from Los Angeles on Harvard-Westlake, the prestigious prep school that has seen three student suicides in the past six months—and left administrators scrambling. All this and more make this a show you won't want to miss.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on The Download: Advertisers and audiences refute the idea that podcasts are on the wane. NewsGuard: Programmatically-placed ads for major nonprofits and government orgs on dozens of misinformation websitesWhy Black creators say brands are ‘quiet as a mouse' on Black History Month and Juneteenth this year. Quick Hits: Podscribe Launches YouTube Conversation Modeling. The new dashboard unifies RSS and YouTube metrics into one location.ARN and Magellan AI announce Top 15 Podcast Advertisers in Australia for Q1. The list includes familiar faces like Apple, Amazon, and McDonald's.‘The Turning' Podcast Studio Rococo Punch to Merge With Audily by J. Clara Chan. From the article: “When two independents come together, we can do much bigger things.” ARN uses geo-location to deliver headlines on Your News Now podcast. The new podcast uses geotargeting to create a sub-three-minute episode covering local news, sports, and weather forecast. Missing the Sounds Profitable Podcast this week? Check out the latest episode of the ANA's podcast Champions of Growth. The episode, titled Is Podcasting the Future of Branded Advertising, features both Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster talking with Matthew Schwartz

This week on The Download: Advertisers and audiences refute the idea that podcasts are on the wane. NewsGuard: Programmatically-placed ads for major nonprofits and government orgs on dozens of misinformation websitesWhy Black creators say brands are ‘quiet as a mouse' on Black History Month and Juneteenth this year. Quick Hits: Podscribe Launches YouTube Conversation Modeling. The new dashboard unifies RSS and YouTube metrics into one location.ARN and Magellan AI announce Top 15 Podcast Advertisers in Australia for Q1. The list includes familiar faces like Apple, Amazon, and McDonald's.‘The Turning' Podcast Studio Rococo Punch to Merge With Audily by J. Clara Chan. From the article: “When two independents come together, we can do much bigger things.” ARN uses geo-location to deliver headlines on Your News Now podcast. The new podcast uses geotargeting to create a sub-three-minute episode covering local news, sports, and weather forecast. Missing the Sounds Profitable Podcast this week? Check out the latest episode of the ANA's podcast Champions of Growth. The episode, titled Is Podcasting the Future of Branded Advertising, features both Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster talking with Matthew Schwartz

Herpes Zoster Ophthalmicus (HZO) can cause multiple ocular issues, most commonly in the anterior segment. What is the role of long-term antivirals and steroids? Is the potential havoc wreaked by HZO more so related to the virus or the inflammatory cascade it initiates? How long should patients be kept on antivirals? When is it safe to administer the Shingles vaccine? Dr. Clara Chan joins the podcast.

Manuela: This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Manuela Bedoya. Shreya: And I'm Shreya Sharma.Manuela: The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now. You can find a link in the description or visit Magellan dot AI.Shreya: This week: Podcasts are coming to YouTube Music, Digiday breaks down the Google antitrust case, Podnews publishes a deep dive on podcasting in Japan, and how marketers are looking at Q2. Let's get started.Podcasts are coming to YouTube MusicManuela: Since the release of the YouTube Podcasts webpage last year, there has been little in the way of concrete feature announcements from YouTube, leaving some skeptical of Google's commitment. After all, podcasting has been burned by companies veering away from podcast support at the 11th hour. Last Thursday, during the Hot Pod Summit at On Air Fest, YouTube Podcast Lead Kai Chuck took to announce YouTube is releasing a beta version of podcasting functionality for YouTube accounts, as well as adding podcasts to YouTube Music in the near future. A quote from Chuck, pulled from J. Clara Chan's coverage: “The message that I would hope folks are taking away is YouTube, at large, independent of YouTube Music, is looking to better support podcasters and [recognizes] that podcasting is generally an audio-first medium.” Once implemented, YouTube Music listeners will likely have a comparable podcast listening experience to current offerings with Spotify and Apple. As reported on the official YouTube blog in August, YouTube Music has a subscriber base of around 80 million users split across YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Not bad, but it pales in comparison to YouTube's over two billion users. According to Chuck, there are intentions to bridge the gap between the platforms. A quote from Chuck, pulled from Ariel Shapiro's coverage: “I don't expect podcasts to only live on YouTube Music, that's the only way that people consume podcasts on YouTube,” Chuk said. “We expect there to be kind of a back and forth between the two.”Shapiro then says Google product lead for podcasting Steve McLendon gave an explanation of how the feature would ultimately work, describing seamlessly continuing a podcast episode that had been started on a desktop computer watching YouTube to an audio feed while driving home from work. While not directly related to podcasting, another promising audio feature was announced for YouTube last week: multi-language audio tracks. Currently in beta and piloted by popular content creators like Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, the feature will allow creators to upload alternate audio tracks to dub new and existing videos in different languages. If properly supported and implemented, this could have interesting implementations for podcasting in future.In the February 21st issue of the Sounds Profitable newsletter, Bryan Barletta detailed several ways Google could win back trust from skeptical podcasters and show they're committed to integrating with the industry. One way mentioned was a commitment to RSS ingestion and integration. While a step in the right direction, Chuck's announcement didn't completely deliver this. A quote from Chan's presentation: “Definitely support for RSS is something we are looking at. I would say, probably initially, we will leverage RSS to make it easier for podcasters to bring shows to YouTube. In terms of future plans, things like that, we're sort of exploring what should our goal be.” So podcasts are coming to YouTube. Kind of. As Chuck said, the current vision for RSS integration is less integration and more an automatic import to bring the file into YouTube's ecosystem. Promising steps are being made towards YouTube integrating into podcasting, instead of YouTube turning podcasters into YouTubers who occasionally upload audio elsewhere, but we're not out of the woods yet. WTF is going on with the Google antitrust case? Shreya: Back in late January the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging the search engine giant had created a monopoly in the ad tech market as well. The 155 page lawsuit argues Google has used a combination of ad tech tools like their ad exchange and publisher ad server to corner the market on programmatic ads. Last week Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson published a brief piece collecting together the first three installments of a series of videos explaining the DoJ's lawsuit, as well as the basic fundamentals of ad tech needed to understand the situation. In general, the crux of the lawsuit centers around Google having a DSP in the form of Display & Video 360, an ad exchange platform in AdX, and a publisher ad server in Google Ad Manager. A tech stack that, if leveraged a certain way, would give preferential treatment to Google's interests. A quote from the DoJ lawsuit: “By allowing only its own publisher ad server effective access to important, unique Google Ads' demand, Google could force publishers to adopt and remain on its publisher ad server; other ad servers could not compete to offer a similar product.” The situation is further exacerbated by Google's sheer size in the adtech industry. According to the lawsuit's allegations, Google's market share for ad servers jumped from 60% in 2008 to 90% in 2015. The DoJ cites a 2016 customer presentation in which Google stressed this 90% market share, describing their publisher ad server as the quote-unquote “defacto” choice. Even now, as alleged by the lawsuit, header bidding can't escape Google's first-look clauses. From the lawsuit: “Critically, through dynamic allocation, Google's ad exchange always received this “lastlook” advantage, essentially a right to buy any impression as long as it had at least one advertiser willing to match the competing bid price from the header bidding auction.” Podcasting as an industry has many paths in front of it right now. If we choose to go down a handful of current options available, we might find ourselves in the same situation Digital found themselves in with Google. Let's hope podcasting doesn't get to a point where even header bidding can't break free of one company's control. It has been said before on The Download and it will be said again: independent third parties are vital for a healthy industry. Japan: A Podcasting Deep DiveManuela: The first in a series of deep dives into different East and South-East Asian podcast markets by Guang Jin YEO was published last week on Podnews. A sequel to January's Japan: a country overview, this deep dive examines the driving factors behind an industry-defining podcast (such as Serial), explores Japan's existing podcast industry, and explores what could be a podcast category driver in Japan to the point of reaching a similar impact to Serial. It's an uphill battle in Japan, for sure. A snapshot of podcast listener statistics out of the internet population in several countries shows podcasting's weekly reach is just four percent of the total population in a country with an 83% internet-connected population. For comparison, the same graph's data for the US shows 26% weekly reach to the population.Some significant barriers to entry do stand in the way of a thriving Japanese podcast industry. Popular commercial radio syndication apps like Radiko undercut the motivation of radio to repackage segments as podcasts, Japan has far stricter content copyright laws than the US, and most how-to guides built for educating new podcast listeners are only available in English. From the article: “But is it all doom and gloom? Not exactly, TBS - Tokyo Broadcasting Station, the first radio broadcaster in Japan is planning to release a large number of new original podcast programs on all the mainstream podcast outlets - which means that they see value outside of Radiko. Covid also encouraged a surge of creators globally, including Japan which means more people are willing to tackle the complicated copyright laws and more people are willing to explain them to creators.” Global podcasting is growing, and as this deep dive shows, some markets remain full of untapped potential with only a few speed bumps in the way of mainstream adoption. Mixed outlook for Q2, marketers hold hope for second halfShreya: This week Digiday's Kristina Monllos published an article exploring marketer's tempered expectations for the upcoming quarter, as well as hopes for Q3 and Q4. “Marketers are spending, and there are signals that spending could pick up in the second half of the year with more new business pitches happening now, according to agency execs. But there's still a “cautious optimism,” as one agency exec put it when asked to sum up marketers' current mood. At the same time, spending is down compared to the second quarter of last year — agency execs say that it's down roughly 10%, a smaller percentage than many had expected earlier in the year — and marketers are holding onto dollars longer and seeking more flexibility rather than longer-term commitments.” As covered in similar stories over the past few weeks in The Download, the general tone of the industry is that brand building has taken a back seat to performance marketing. Stacey Stewart, U.S. Chief Marketplace Officer at UM, told Digiday the marketers are focusing on short-term planning and flexibility over signing long-term deals. Creative agency Mekanism CEO Jason Harris reports some marketers have adopted a “keep calm and carry on” strategy by continuing to spend and accepting lower profits for higher revenues. Stewart's comment about flexibility is backed up by Harris, who also reports having seen it bleed over into new business pitch practices. While new clients are focusing on taking baby steps with test projects, he also sees promising indications for the future. A quote from Harris in the article: “Pitch activity tells me clients are planning the back half of the year to be busy,” said Harris. “I think this year will turn into a good year.”2023 rolls onward. Q1 has developed into something far less terrifying than predicted four months ago, and the vast majority of us are still alive and kicking. Despite it all, it's hard not to have hope for the rest of the year. It might not be the most stellar year on record, but signs point to good things. Shreya: 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: The 2023 IAB Australian Audio State of the Nation Report released yesterday and is now available for download. Check it out now for the latest data from down under, including the finding that 78% of media agencies intend to increase investment in podcast advertising this year. And in Sounds Profitable's weekly series Data Decoded with Tom Webster, Tom looks at a graph from Podsights' newest quarterly Benchmark report. Preroll ads now have higher conversion rates than midroll. What could that mean? Tom breaks it down in five minutes on the Sounds Profitable YouTube channel.Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.comI know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Manuela Bedoya.Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.

Manuela: This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Manuela Bedoya. Shreya: And I'm Shreya Sharma.Manuela: The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now. You can find a link in the description or visit Magellan dot AI.Shreya: This week: Podcasts are coming to YouTube Music, Digiday breaks down the Google antitrust case, Podnews publishes a deep dive on podcasting in Japan, and how marketers are looking at Q2. Let's get started.Podcasts are coming to YouTube MusicManuela: Since the release of the YouTube Podcasts webpage last year, there has been little in the way of concrete feature announcements from YouTube, leaving some skeptical of Google's commitment. After all, podcasting has been burned by companies veering away from podcast support at the 11th hour. Last Thursday, during the Hot Pod Summit at On Air Fest, YouTube Podcast Lead Kai Chuck took to announce YouTube is releasing a beta version of podcasting functionality for YouTube accounts, as well as adding podcasts to YouTube Music in the near future. A quote from Chuck, pulled from J. Clara Chan's coverage: “The message that I would hope folks are taking away is YouTube, at large, independent of YouTube Music, is looking to better support podcasters and [recognizes] that podcasting is generally an audio-first medium.” Once implemented, YouTube Music listeners will likely have a comparable podcast listening experience to current offerings with Spotify and Apple. As reported on the official YouTube blog in August, YouTube Music has a subscriber base of around 80 million users split across YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Not bad, but it pales in comparison to YouTube's over two billion users. According to Chuck, there are intentions to bridge the gap between the platforms. A quote from Chuck, pulled from Ariel Shapiro's coverage: “I don't expect podcasts to only live on YouTube Music, that's the only way that people consume podcasts on YouTube,” Chuk said. “We expect there to be kind of a back and forth between the two.”Shapiro then says Google product lead for podcasting Steve McLendon gave an explanation of how the feature would ultimately work, describing seamlessly continuing a podcast episode that had been started on a desktop computer watching YouTube to an audio feed while driving home from work. While not directly related to podcasting, another promising audio feature was announced for YouTube last week: multi-language audio tracks. Currently in beta and piloted by popular content creators like Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, the feature will allow creators to upload alternate audio tracks to dub new and existing videos in different languages. If properly supported and implemented, this could have interesting implementations for podcasting in future.In the February 21st issue of the Sounds Profitable newsletter, Bryan Barletta detailed several ways Google could win back trust from skeptical podcasters and show they're committed to integrating with the industry. One way mentioned was a commitment to RSS ingestion and integration. While a step in the right direction, Chuck's announcement didn't completely deliver this. A quote from Chan's presentation: “Definitely support for RSS is something we are looking at. I would say, probably initially, we will leverage RSS to make it easier for podcasters to bring shows to YouTube. In terms of future plans, things like that, we're sort of exploring what should our goal be.” So podcasts are coming to YouTube. Kind of. As Chuck said, the current vision for RSS integration is less integration and more an automatic import to bring the file into YouTube's ecosystem. Promising steps are being made towards YouTube integrating into podcasting, instead of YouTube turning podcasters into YouTubers who occasionally upload audio elsewhere, but we're not out of the woods yet. WTF is going on with the Google antitrust case? Shreya: Back in late January the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging the search engine giant had created a monopoly in the ad tech market as well. The 155 page lawsuit argues Google has used a combination of ad tech tools like their ad exchange and publisher ad server to corner the market on programmatic ads. Last week Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson published a brief piece collecting together the first three installments of a series of videos explaining the DoJ's lawsuit, as well as the basic fundamentals of ad tech needed to understand the situation. In general, the crux of the lawsuit centers around Google having a DSP in the form of Display & Video 360, an ad exchange platform in AdX, and a publisher ad server in Google Ad Manager. A tech stack that, if leveraged a certain way, would give preferential treatment to Google's interests. A quote from the DoJ lawsuit: “By allowing only its own publisher ad server effective access to important, unique Google Ads' demand, Google could force publishers to adopt and remain on its publisher ad server; other ad servers could not compete to offer a similar product.” The situation is further exacerbated by Google's sheer size in the adtech industry. According to the lawsuit's allegations, Google's market share for ad servers jumped from 60% in 2008 to 90% in 2015. The DoJ cites a 2016 customer presentation in which Google stressed this 90% market share, describing their publisher ad server as the quote-unquote “defacto” choice. Even now, as alleged by the lawsuit, header bidding can't escape Google's first-look clauses. From the lawsuit: “Critically, through dynamic allocation, Google's ad exchange always received this “lastlook” advantage, essentially a right to buy any impression as long as it had at least one advertiser willing to match the competing bid price from the header bidding auction.” Podcasting as an industry has many paths in front of it right now. If we choose to go down a handful of current options available, we might find ourselves in the same situation Digital found themselves in with Google. Let's hope podcasting doesn't get to a point where even header bidding can't break free of one company's control. It has been said before on The Download and it will be said again: independent third parties are vital for a healthy industry. Japan: A Podcasting Deep DiveManuela: The first in a series of deep dives into different East and South-East Asian podcast markets by Guang Jin YEO was published last week on Podnews. A sequel to January's Japan: a country overview, this deep dive examines the driving factors behind an industry-defining podcast (such as Serial), explores Japan's existing podcast industry, and explores what could be a podcast category driver in Japan to the point of reaching a similar impact to Serial. It's an uphill battle in Japan, for sure. A snapshot of podcast listener statistics out of the internet population in several countries shows podcasting's weekly reach is just four percent of the total population in a country with an 83% internet-connected population. For comparison, the same graph's data for the US shows 26% weekly reach to the population.Some significant barriers to entry do stand in the way of a thriving Japanese podcast industry. Popular commercial radio syndication apps like Radiko undercut the motivation of radio to repackage segments as podcasts, Japan has far stricter content copyright laws than the US, and most how-to guides built for educating new podcast listeners are only available in English. From the article: “But is it all doom and gloom? Not exactly, TBS - Tokyo Broadcasting Station, the first radio broadcaster in Japan is planning to release a large number of new original podcast programs on all the mainstream podcast outlets - which means that they see value outside of Radiko. Covid also encouraged a surge of creators globally, including Japan which means more people are willing to tackle the complicated copyright laws and more people are willing to explain them to creators.” Global podcasting is growing, and as this deep dive shows, some markets remain full of untapped potential with only a few speed bumps in the way of mainstream adoption. Mixed outlook for Q2, marketers hold hope for second halfShreya: This week Digiday's Kristina Monllos published an article exploring marketer's tempered expectations for the upcoming quarter, as well as hopes for Q3 and Q4. “Marketers are spending, and there are signals that spending could pick up in the second half of the year with more new business pitches happening now, according to agency execs. But there's still a “cautious optimism,” as one agency exec put it when asked to sum up marketers' current mood. At the same time, spending is down compared to the second quarter of last year — agency execs say that it's down roughly 10%, a smaller percentage than many had expected earlier in the year — and marketers are holding onto dollars longer and seeking more flexibility rather than longer-term commitments.” As covered in similar stories over the past few weeks in The Download, the general tone of the industry is that brand building has taken a back seat to performance marketing. Stacey Stewart, U.S. Chief Marketplace Officer at UM, told Digiday the marketers are focusing on short-term planning and flexibility over signing long-term deals. Creative agency Mekanism CEO Jason Harris reports some marketers have adopted a “keep calm and carry on” strategy by continuing to spend and accepting lower profits for higher revenues. Stewart's comment about flexibility is backed up by Harris, who also reports having seen it bleed over into new business pitch practices. While new clients are focusing on taking baby steps with test projects, he also sees promising indications for the future. A quote from Harris in the article: “Pitch activity tells me clients are planning the back half of the year to be busy,” said Harris. “I think this year will turn into a good year.”2023 rolls onward. Q1 has developed into something far less terrifying than predicted four months ago, and the vast majority of us are still alive and kicking. Despite it all, it's hard not to have hope for the rest of the year. It might not be the most stellar year on record, but signs point to good things. Shreya: 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: The 2023 IAB Australian Audio State of the Nation Report released yesterday and is now available for download. Check it out now for the latest data from down under, including the finding that 78% of media agencies intend to increase investment in podcast advertising this year. And in Sounds Profitable's weekly series Data Decoded with Tom Webster, Tom looks at a graph from Podsights' newest quarterly Benchmark report. Preroll ads now have higher conversion rates than midroll. What could that mean? Tom breaks it down in five minutes on the Sounds Profitable YouTube channel.Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.comI know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Manuela Bedoya.Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.

This week: Opportunity in Kids podcasting as recession looms, Podcasting's ‘recession era', some audio publisher's teams still growing in 2023, and Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights.  Podcasting's Recession Era and how podcasters are approaching it. Manuela: This week our first segment is going to cover a variety of articles centering around an overall theme: podcasting's reaction to the recession in early 2023. To kick things off, we continue a throughline of covering how the Kids & Family category has quickly evolved into a juggernaut. Over the first half of 2022 the genre made itself known as a force to be reckoned with over several big deals and signings.  Now as the recession looms, along with doom-and-gloom articles about said recession, big-name deals are becoming more scarce. Tumble Media CEO Lindsay Patterson has worked in kids podcasting for years and likens the 2022 surge to being invited to a party late. Kids & Family has arrived just in time to find the host is taking down the decorations. From her January 11th Medium post:  “With a general pullback on spending on podcasts, it's likely that companies will be hesitant to invest in strategy and content for kids, who require a new approach to audience development and monetization. It's a different model than “grownup” podcasts. But the good news is kids' podcasts may be a welcome guest at other parties — and in many other industries. There are choices. Nay, there are opportunities.” Patterson proposes Kids & Family's relative newcomer status to the wider industry leaves it plenty of unpursued avenues that are already well-tread ground for others. Her article touches on concepts like adapting existing kid-friendly IP to podcasts and pursuing new platforms. Interestingly, she points to nonprofits, grants, and research studies as potentially viable funding paths. Patterson speaks from experience, having partnered Tumble Media with a non-profit organization to win a grant. The partnership has been funded to spend three years studying how both listening to and making podcasts can engage blind and sighted students in the classroom.  “In a way, the warnings and scrutiny of the podcast industry makes me more optimistic than ever before about the kids' space. We can take a clear eyed look from the outside, and see how kids' podcasts can and should be better.” Patterson's suggestions of creativity and adaptability come at a good time for smaller creators, as even larger presences in podcasting are beginning to feel the effects of hiring and investment freezes. This Wednesday the Hollywood Reporter published a piece by J. Clara Chan titled “Podcasting's Recession Era: Dealmaking Gets More Selective in Slower Ad Market.” Chan begins the piece with a big-picture view of investments made by major players in the industry before setting the article's goal answering the question: “What will podcasting's next era look like during a recession?” Her article begins with a focus on the deal-making side of the industry, sourcing two anonymous dealmakers and their observations of industry performance in recent months. Big companies seem to have covered their bases on wide demographics. Chan gives the example of Spotify's coverage of Gen Z and millennial women with acquisitions of Call Her Daddy and Emma Chamberlain's Anything Goes. BIPOC Podcast Creators co-founder Tangia Al-awaji Estrada gives a perspective from a smaller, independent side of the industry: “It feels a little bit premature at this stage because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, but it does feel like there's some panic in the air. We're seeing companies who'd normally be investing in up-and-coming talents, indie creators — smaller companies are pulling back and saying, ‘Well, we're not doing that right now. We're not doing that at all.' So, there's definitely a feeling like folks are holding their breaths to see what's going to happen.” Last Friday Sara Guaglione, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering the phenomenon of smaller production houses growing as larger entities condense their audio teams. A tally of jobs on sites like Indeed with the word ‘podcast' in the description shows there has been a downward trend of open positions since the peak in May of 2022. Still, companies are hiring. “A number of media companies posted new podcast job openings this month. Vox Media, for example, posted a job opening this week for a $200,000+ ​​executive producer position for its daily show “Today Explained.”” Guaglione also points to Tenderfoot TV, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal as places that are actively growing their audio teams.  Returning to the Hollywood Reporter piece, we reach the advertising side of podcasting. The conclusion reached by J. Clara Chan's reporting will be a familiar one to loyal followers of The Download. In general, advertisers are pacing themselves from brand awareness campaigns and doubling down on direct response and prioritizing sales conversions.  The piece ends with a final sentiment from Al-awaji Estrada, quote:  “Podcasting is going to be just fine. I really believe that podcasting is still so young that a huge market change isn't going to blow up the entire world. There's going to be some tightening of the belts, probably, across the board. But by the time we come out of this thing, I think we will have seen podcasting continue to grow through the recession.”  Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights Shreya: For this segment we're covering something of personal significance to Sounds Profitable. Last Thursday podcasting veteran Paul Riismandel joined Signal Hill Insights as the company's new Chief Insights officer. From the Signal Hill press release: “At Signal Hill, Riismandel will help solidify the company as a critical independent third-party voice providing industry-wide and custom research solutions. He will focus on furthering innovation in podcast measurement, combining ad effectiveness, creative analysis, and audience insights, in order to help partners and the industry at large understand how best to serve both listeners and advertisers, together.”  Having overseen hundreds of ad effectiveness studies since 2014, Riismandel takes research seriously. From his blog post on the Signal Hill website last Thursday:   “I cannot overstate the importance of independent third-party research in the development of any media platform. That said, publishers are a fundamental driver, and many invest in internal research, done with integrity, to build their business. In turn this elevates the whole medium.” For those newer to Sounds Profitable, Riismandel is a big figure in the company's history. It was him who got Midroll Media to become a day-one Sounds Profitable partner back in September of 2020. Now, in 2023, we're thrilled to be partnering with Riismandel and everyone else at Signal Hill Insights in producing more independent third-party research.  Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles called 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:  Magellan AI launches Spanish language podcast prospecting and competitive intelligence tool, a press release provided via Podnews. With their new Spanish language support, Magellan AI already has data on Spanish-language ads from more than 2,000 advertisers in the US. A better way to measure podcast success: Listen Time by Jonas Woost for Bumper. In which Woost tells the story of YouTube switching from using views as a metric to ‘watch time,' and suggesting a similar update to the podcasting industry as an alternative to the download.  A Tale of Two Bytes: Prefix vs. Host-based analytics by John Spurlock for Livewire Labs. An excellent explainer on why third-party analytics download stats might be different from the downloads reported by one's hosting 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 Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Opportunity in Kids podcasting as recession looms, Podcasting's ‘recession era', some audio publisher's teams still growing in 2023, and Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights.  Podcasting's Recession Era and how podcasters are approaching it. Manuela: This week our first segment is going to cover a variety of articles centering around an overall theme: podcasting's reaction to the recession in early 2023. To kick things off, we continue a throughline of covering how the Kids & Family category has quickly evolved into a juggernaut. Over the first half of 2022 the genre made itself known as a force to be reckoned with over several big deals and signings.  Now as the recession looms, along with doom-and-gloom articles about said recession, big-name deals are becoming more scarce. Tumble Media CEO Lindsay Patterson has worked in kids podcasting for years and likens the 2022 surge to being invited to a party late. Kids & Family has arrived just in time to find the host is taking down the decorations. From her January 11th Medium post:  “With a general pullback on spending on podcasts, it's likely that companies will be hesitant to invest in strategy and content for kids, who require a new approach to audience development and monetization. It's a different model than “grownup” podcasts. But the good news is kids' podcasts may be a welcome guest at other parties — and in many other industries. There are choices. Nay, there are opportunities.” Patterson proposes Kids & Family's relative newcomer status to the wider industry leaves it plenty of unpursued avenues that are already well-tread ground for others. Her article touches on concepts like adapting existing kid-friendly IP to podcasts and pursuing new platforms. Interestingly, she points to nonprofits, grants, and research studies as potentially viable funding paths. Patterson speaks from experience, having partnered Tumble Media with a non-profit organization to win a grant. The partnership has been funded to spend three years studying how both listening to and making podcasts can engage blind and sighted students in the classroom.  “In a way, the warnings and scrutiny of the podcast industry makes me more optimistic than ever before about the kids' space. We can take a clear eyed look from the outside, and see how kids' podcasts can and should be better.” Patterson's suggestions of creativity and adaptability come at a good time for smaller creators, as even larger presences in podcasting are beginning to feel the effects of hiring and investment freezes. This Wednesday the Hollywood Reporter published a piece by J. Clara Chan titled “Podcasting's Recession Era: Dealmaking Gets More Selective in Slower Ad Market.” Chan begins the piece with a big-picture view of investments made by major players in the industry before setting the article's goal answering the question: “What will podcasting's next era look like during a recession?” Her article begins with a focus on the deal-making side of the industry, sourcing two anonymous dealmakers and their observations of industry performance in recent months. Big companies seem to have covered their bases on wide demographics. Chan gives the example of Spotify's coverage of Gen Z and millennial women with acquisitions of Call Her Daddy and Emma Chamberlain's Anything Goes. BIPOC Podcast Creators co-founder Tangia Al-awaji Estrada gives a perspective from a smaller, independent side of the industry: “It feels a little bit premature at this stage because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, but it does feel like there's some panic in the air. We're seeing companies who'd normally be investing in up-and-coming talents, indie creators — smaller companies are pulling back and saying, ‘Well, we're not doing that right now. We're not doing that at all.' So, there's definitely a feeling like folks are holding their breaths to see what's going to happen.” Last Friday Sara Guaglione, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering the phenomenon of smaller production houses growing as larger entities condense their audio teams. A tally of jobs on sites like Indeed with the word ‘podcast' in the description shows there has been a downward trend of open positions since the peak in May of 2022. Still, companies are hiring. “A number of media companies posted new podcast job openings this month. Vox Media, for example, posted a job opening this week for a $200,000+ ​​executive producer position for its daily show “Today Explained.”” Guaglione also points to Tenderfoot TV, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal as places that are actively growing their audio teams.  Returning to the Hollywood Reporter piece, we reach the advertising side of podcasting. The conclusion reached by J. Clara Chan's reporting will be a familiar one to loyal followers of The Download. In general, advertisers are pacing themselves from brand awareness campaigns and doubling down on direct response and prioritizing sales conversions.  The piece ends with a final sentiment from Al-awaji Estrada, quote:  “Podcasting is going to be just fine. I really believe that podcasting is still so young that a huge market change isn't going to blow up the entire world. There's going to be some tightening of the belts, probably, across the board. But by the time we come out of this thing, I think we will have seen podcasting continue to grow through the recession.”  Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights Shreya: For this segment we're covering something of personal significance to Sounds Profitable. Last Thursday podcasting veteran Paul Riismandel joined Signal Hill Insights as the company's new Chief Insights officer. From the Signal Hill press release: “At Signal Hill, Riismandel will help solidify the company as a critical independent third-party voice providing industry-wide and custom research solutions. He will focus on furthering innovation in podcast measurement, combining ad effectiveness, creative analysis, and audience insights, in order to help partners and the industry at large understand how best to serve both listeners and advertisers, together.”  Having overseen hundreds of ad effectiveness studies since 2014, Riismandel takes research seriously. From his blog post on the Signal Hill website last Thursday:   “I cannot overstate the importance of independent third-party research in the development of any media platform. That said, publishers are a fundamental driver, and many invest in internal research, done with integrity, to build their business. In turn this elevates the whole medium.” For those newer to Sounds Profitable, Riismandel is a big figure in the company's history. It was him who got Midroll Media to become a day-one Sounds Profitable partner back in September of 2020. Now, in 2023, we're thrilled to be partnering with Riismandel and everyone else at Signal Hill Insights in producing more independent third-party research.  Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles called 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:  Magellan AI launches Spanish language podcast prospecting and competitive intelligence tool, a press release provided via Podnews. With their new Spanish language support, Magellan AI already has data on Spanish-language ads from more than 2,000 advertisers in the US. A better way to measure podcast success: Listen Time by Jonas Woost for Bumper. In which Woost tells the story of YouTube switching from using views as a metric to ‘watch time,' and suggesting a similar update to the podcasting industry as an alternative to the download.  A Tale of Two Bytes: Prefix vs. Host-based analytics by John Spurlock for Livewire Labs. An excellent explainer on why third-party analytics download stats might be different from the downloads reported by one's hosting 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 Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this final episode of “International Perspectives on Chronic Ocular Surface Pain,” Anat Galor, MD (United States); Clara Chan, MD (Canada); and Sheri Rowen, MD (United States) hear from a patient about her journey with chronic ocular surface pain. What were the particulars of her path to relief, what types of missteps occurred along the way, and how can stories like this better inform patient care? 

Tonight we have fossil vomit, dinosaur sentience, and Spanish Megaliths!   “Lost fossil 'treasure trove' rediscovered after 70 years”, by Harry Baker: https://tinyurl.com/38488jrj   “Did the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs have a sibling? Crater in West Africa hints maybe.”, by Stephanie Pappas: https://tinyurl.com/mt99tpe3   “Rare fossilized vomit discovered in Utah's 'Jurassic salad bar'”, by Jennifer Nalewicki: https://tinyurl.com/5n6f3axs   “Given the immense time period that dinosaurs existed for, why did none of them develop sentience?”, by Dr. Stephen Brusatte: https://tinyurl.com/2p97rdwb   “'Dinosaur mummy': Researchers believe they found one of the best preserved dinosaurs ever”, by Orlando Mayorquin: https://tinyurl.com/bdk7faz3   “Ice age children frolicked in 'giant sloth puddles' 11,000 years ago, footprints reveal”, By Laura Geggel: https://tinyurl.com/2zpk4njy   “A Study of Prehistoric Painting Has Come to a Startling Conclusion: Many Ancient Artists Were Tiny Children”, by Sarah Cascone: https://tinyurl.com/ubpfns76   “Giant Megalithic Complex of 500 Standing Stones Is Among The Largest in Europe”, by AFP: https://tinyurl.com/2tca2zbp       “Scientists Are Turning Dead Spiders Into 'Necrobots' And We Are So Creeped Out”, by Felicity Nelson: https://tinyurl.com/we8pbvyd   “An AI Just Independently Discovered Alternate Physics”, by Fiona MacDonald: https://tinyurl.com/2nsfu8m6   “Capitol Records Severs Ties With A.I. Rapper FN Meka, Apologizes to Black Community for “Insensitivity””, by J. Clara Chan: https://tinyurl.com/yc79yfm3   “An AI-Generated Artwork Won First Place at a State Fair Fine Arts Competition, and Artists Are Pissed”, by Matthew Gault: https://tinyurl.com/2s4k49jj   Esoteric Book Club can be found on: Facebook: @esotericbookclub Web: www.esotericbookclub.org Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Esotericbookclub Paypal: paypal.me/esotericbookclub Youtube: EsotericBookClubPodcast  

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.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.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.

Esta semana en La Descarga: Spotify sirve bebidas alcohólicas erróneamente, las redes grandes continúan adquiriendo casas productoras y RSS.com co mparte cómo vencer el spam de podcast. La semana pasada, Spotify cometió la madre de todos los errores de seguridad de la marca. Por ahora, les ha costado los ingresos publicitarios de un importante distribuidor de licores. Como informó originalmente Tanner Cambell en Dispatches from the Booth, en algún momento del sábado, Spotify comenzó a publicar un anuncio publicitario para la destilería de bourbon Wild Turkey en el perfil de cada podcast. Esto resultó en numerosas capturas de pantalla que demuestran la pena que viene con una falla de este tipo. Los anuncios de patrocinio se publicaron en el entretenimiento para niños y los podcasts que hablan sobre la sobriedad. El martes, Wild Turkey hizo una declaración oficial. “Estamos decepcionados de que la implementación de la campaña por parte de Spotify fuera inconsistente con nuestro código de publicidad y hemos detenido todos los anuncios a la espera de la investigación de Spotify. Somos miembros y socios de DISCUS y Responsibility.org y apoyamos inequívocamente una agenda de marketing responsable”. Ha habido numerosas historias sobre nuevas tecnologías diseñadas para garantizar la seguridad de la marca cuando se trata de anfitriones de podcast problemáticos o contenido sospechoso, pero este error muestra que la seguridad de la marca no se detiene en el contenido del podcast en sí mismo. Lo que lleva a una decisión que podría generar más problemas en un futuro muy cercano. Este lunes, Issie Lapowsky publicó un artículo para Protocol destacando que Spotify levantó su prohibición de dos años de anuncios políticos. Citando el artículo: “En un correo electrónico que la compañía envió a socios potenciales esta semana, Spotify dijo que aparecerán anuncios políticos “en miles de podcasts dentro y fuera de Spotify”. Una presentación promete a los anunciantes políticos la capacidad de dirigirse a audiencias de nicho y aprovechar la "orientación contextual" impulsada por IA, que permite a los anunciantes colocar anuncios en podcasts cuando están discutiendo temas relevantes para sus audiencias deseadas." Lapowsky destaca la dificil lucha que Spotify tiene por delante. Mientras que competidores como Meta y Google se han esforzado por abrirse a los anuncios políticos manteniendo grandes archivos públicos, Spotify está comenzando desde cero. El error sobre Wild Turkey no es suficiente para generar alarmas sobre la capacidad de Spotify para publicar anuncios de manera ética. Los errores suceden. Dicho esto, destaca que tan impactante puede ser un error cuando lo comete un protagonista mayor en la industria. Un protagonista que ahora está entrando en un área de publicidad infame por su capacidad para propagar desinformación. Ha sido una semana de grandes adquisiciones de talento. El gran podcast de entrevistas llamado WTF with Marc Maron se contrató con Acast, según un artículo de Brad Hill publicado el martes. “'Formar una asociación con el gigante de los podcasts Marc Maron es una gran victoria para Acast y para el mundo abierto de los podcasts, ya que este acuerdo garantiza que todos, en todas partes y en su plataforma de escucha preferida, puedan seguir escuchando el podcast'. dijo Ross Adams, CEO de Acast. WTF, que anteriormente operaba como una producción independiente con un catálogo de pago disponible por una tarifa, ahora cambiará para ofrecer episodios más antiguos a los suscriptores de Acast+. Para la audiencia, poco cambiará, pero Acast acaba de heredar uno de los nombres más importantes en el podcasting fuera del jardín amurallado de Spotify y se encargará de las ventas de anuncios. Para establecer la tendencia de esta semana, este lunes salió un comunicado de prensa de SiriusXM anunciando la adquisición de Team Coco, más notablemente incorporando el podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Al igual que la compra de Maron, Sirius compró toda la casa de producción, incluido un contrato de talento de cinco años con O'Brien. Los fanáticos del comediante entenderán la seriedad detrás de convencer a O'Brien de un acuerdo de exclusividad después de su escandalosa ruptura con NBC. Completando el trío de anuncios, RedCircle anunció, este lunes, que adquirirán los derechos del próximo podcast Roots of Humanity del influencer de viaje Drew Binsky. Binsky está haciendo una jugada popular de cómo personas influyentes al iniciar un podcast pueden atraer a una audiencia integrada de sus audiencias existentes, con 3,3 millones de suscriptores de YouTube. “Roots of Humanity celebra la belleza y la diversidad del mundo, lo cual está a conforme con la visión de RedCircle de ayudar a los podcasters de todos los tamaños y formas en todo el mundo a ser recompensados ​​por su trabajo. RedCircle está emocionado de ser parte del viaje de Drew Binsky y ayudarlo a lograr sus objetivos con la moderna tecnología de alojamiento y monetización de podcasts”. Se ve que la tendencia continúa con las redes de podcasts que van más allá de los simples derechos de exclusividad de un podcast individual para centrarse en adquirir casas de productoras y marcas existentes que pueden actuar como motores de contenido más allá de la vida del popular podcast. Los paquetes completos de creadores y talentos están de moda y no hay señales de que se vayan a disminuir de popularidad. Hace unos días, se publicaron varios podcasts de spam en las plataformas principales, todos con un audio no relacionado con el objetivo de utilizar el arte del show y los detalles del episodio para promocionar los servicios de acompañantes sexuales en varios lugares de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos. Llevaban la legitimidad de los mensajes de spam que uno recibe a las dos de la madrugada, pero fueron producidos y propagados como un fuego incontrolado. El lunes, el cofundador y director gerente de RSS.com, Alberto Betella, publicó un artículo en Podnews que detalla cómo el servicio de alojamiento resolvió su nuevo problema de spam. Citando el artículo: “Teníamos dos opciones: a. delegar humanos al problema, contratar a 1 o 2 personas adicionales para contrarrestar este mal comportamiento (quizás también implementar una cola de moderación para los podcasts recién creados). O b. crear tecnología para resolver y mitigar el problema” Elegimos la opción B porque funciona a gran escala, no necesita alimentos ni bebidas, ¡y también porque es mucho más divertido! Algunas personas en nuestro equipo, de hecho, tienen una sólida experiencia en inteligencia artificial/aprendizaje automático y no sucede muy frecuente para que tengan la oportunidad de aprovechar estas habilidades en el espacio de los podcasts”. Lo importante no es necesariamente el hecho de que RSS.com pudo solucionar rápidamente el problema con el aprendizaje automático ingenioso, sino el hecho de que nosotros, el público, conozcamos el proceso de cómo lo lograron. Citando el artículo: “No podemos compartir nuestro modelo de aprendizaje automático como código abierto porque es parte de la propuesta de valor única de nuestra empresa. Sin embargo, hemos descrito los métodos y brindado recomendaciones prácticas para cualquiera que quiera construir algo similar. ¡Con suerte, esta es nuestra pequeña contribución para mantener los podcasts libres de spam!” Compartir la metodología utilizada para superar problemas que podrían afectar a cualquiera en el mercado es útil, ya que encarna el espíritu de las comunidades de código abierto incluso cuando se trata de creaciones patentadas. Necesitamos más intercambios como este en toda la industria. Este lunes, nuestro Bryan Barletta de Sounds Profitable cubrió el lanzamiento del nuevo proyecto publicitario de Buzzsprout en un hilo en Twitter. En términos simples, la versión beta del producto, Buzzsprout Ads, brinda a los podcasters la capacidad de usar la inserción dinámica de anuncios de Buzzsprout para implementar anuncios de mid-roll de una manera que anteriormente solo estaba disponible para talentos bajo contrato o programas con un equipo que ha trabajado en publicidad. Los productores que ingresan a la versión beta pueden revisar manualmente los anuncios para decidir cuál sería el mejor para su podcast y etiquetarlos para que sean incluidos. La tecnología de Buzzsprout utiliza de forma predeterminada una melodía yendo en crescendo para indicar que se acerca una pausa publicitaria, intentando emular el temporizador de cinco segundos que anuncia las pausas publicitarias en plataformas de alojamiento de videos como YouTube. Los usuarios reciben una sorprendente cantidad de personalización con esta función, se les ofrecen cinco opciones de transiciones, así como la capacidad de los anfitriones de grabar sus propias pausas publicitarias y anuncios de que la publicidad ya terminó También se ha tenido en cuenta la accesibilidad. La plataforma Buzzsprout Ads está diseñada para colocar marcadores a anuncios insertados y cambiar automáticamente el tiempo del archivo SRT para podcasts con transcripciones para acomodar los códigos de tiempo cambiantes del anuncio para cualquier parte de la transcripción que viene después. Bryan brinda un resume: “La monetización de anuncios permite a muchos podcasters convertir su programa en un negocio. Los patrocinios siempre se llevarán la palma, pero las opciones inmediatas para un creador habilidoso sin experiencia en ventas cambian todo. Los mercados de dinámica inserción de publicidad es la forma en que alcanzaremos esos números de IAB”. Artículos recomendados para su lectura de este fin de semana: Streamers are creating companion podcasts for superfans of their shows de Alyssa Meyers Do You Have a Development Deal with Audible Yet? de J. Clara Chan. La Descarga es una producción de Sounds Profitable. El episodio de hoy fue presentado por Manuela Bedoya y Gabriel Soto, y escrito por Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta y Evo Terra son los productores ejecutivos de La Descarga de Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.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.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 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

La cerveza pone a prueba la publicidad de video podcasts, el negocio de podcasts para niños está floreciendo, y una súplica para más transacciones en el mercado privado en vez de en las FAANG (las cinco grandes compañías de tecnología: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflx y Google). La casa productora de podcasts, Crooked Media, ha lanzado una campaña que incorpora publicidad puramente visual en su podcast llamado Offline with Jon Favreau. El patrocinio viene de un sector poco visto en el podcasting. Alyssa Meyers de Morning Brew cubrió la historia el viernes pasado, destacando una asociación centrada en YouTube entre Crooked Media y la marca de cerveza Blue Moon, una filial de Molson Coors, la empresa cervecera líder mundial. Meyers escribe, “Crooked [Media] acordó agregar tarjetas de texto que digan ‘presentado por Blue Moon’, acompañado por el logo de la marca, al principio de cada episodio de Offline en YouTube", le dijo Joel Fowler, vicepresidente de marketing comercial y estrategia creativa de Crooked Media, a Marketing Brew.” Además de la tarjeta de texto y los anuncios leído por el anfitrión en cada video, Blue Moon también comprará espacio publicitario específicamente en el canal de YouTube de Crooked Media. Joel Fowler le dijo a Marketing Brew que Blue Moon es la primera "de las grandes marcas de primer nivel que uno está viendo entrar en el espacio de los podcasts". Fowler anticipa que más empresas de los Fortune 500 adopten campañas publicitarias de podcasts multimedia en un futuro cercano. La empresa de detección de desinformación NewsGuard busca brindar seguridad de marca a través de la eliminación la desinformación en los podcasts.Joe Mandese de la editorial MediaPosts informa, "Se dice que NewsGuard está en conversaciones con al menos tres de las grandes empresas de holding de la industria publicitaria para financiar el nuevo servicio de calificación de podcasts, los cuales obtendrían un periodo exclusivo de seis meses como parte del trato." Mandese relaciona el renovado interés de la industria en nuevas herramientas de seguridad de marca CON la polémica sobre el resurgimiento de la desinformación sobre COVID-19 en el programa The Joe Rogan Experience de Spotify*.* NewsGuard busca proporcionar un proceso único con analistas humanos quienes emplearán el conocimiento y el contexto previo para determinar la veracidad de un podcast, creando listas de podcasts seguros y problemáticos con el tiempo. Suena noble el intento de NewsGuard de adaptar sus fact-checkers o, verificadores de hechos, de su blog para el podcasting, pero sí trae ligera desaprobación. Es una herramienta privada que tendrá una exclusividad de seis meses para los holdings anónimos que financien el proyecto. Su método práctico de mano que eligieron tampoco es ampliable como otras soluciones actualmente en producción, como la que ofrece Barometer. A diferencia de NewsGuard, Barometer utiliza la estructura GARM (La Alianza Global por Medios Responsables), el cual es auditable públicamente y no se centra en la exclusividad con un inversor particular. La opinión de nuestro equipo en La descarga es que el problema de la seguridad de la marca no debe resolverse con soluciones propietarias, sino con estructuras accesibles y fáciles de replicar. Otra vez, J. Clara Chan de Hollywood Reporter tiene algunos desarrollos divertidos en el mundo de los podcasts. Publicado el martes pasado, el artículo: The Booming Business of Kids’ Podcasting (El Floreciente Negocio de Podcasts Infantiles), escrito por Chan, ofrece un resumen de la enorme atención que están recibiendo los podcasts para niños. Chan dice, “Los podcasts en la categoría de infantiles y familia han visto un aumento del 20 por ciento en el alcance de audiencia desde 2019, según el informe del Spoken Word Audio Report 2021 publicado por NPR y Edison Research. Las adaptaciones de podcasts de exitosos programas infantiles están proliferando, mientras que, por el contrario, los estudios de cine y televisión se están involucrando más temprano de lo acostumbrado para adquirir propiedad intelectual de podcasts dirigidos a los niños”. Es probable que ese número del 20 por ciento sea bastante bajo, como se explica en el blog en Medium escrito por Lindsay Patterson sobre cómo la categoría de infantiles y familia necesita una revisión completa. Independientemente de dónde esté el número, es suficiente para que algunos protagonistas se interesen en el contenido de podcasts para niños. Spotify ha producido un podcast derivado de la exitosa serie de videos sensoriales para niños pequeños llamada CoComelon. GBH Kids está produciendo una adaptación para continuar la famosa serie de PBS Kids recientemente concluida: Arthur (también conocido en español como Arturo). En el lado opuesto de la ecuación, Warner Brothers está optando por los derechos de televisión del podcast inédito: 20 Million Views de Gen-Z Media. Ben Strouse, director ejecutivo de Gen-Z media, contó mientras hablaba con Hollywood Reporter: "Todos buscan buena propiedad intelectual, especialmente buena propiedad intelectual de familia, la cual es con la que contamos". Como han descubierto YouTube, la televisión, y todos los demás medios de comunicación: crear contenido para entretener a los niños es lucrativo. Ahora, el podcasting solo le toca equilibrar la publicidad para audiencias jóvenes con una legislación como la ley de protección de la infancia en internet, la cual restringa severamente las prácticas publicitarias tradicionales. El miércoles, Michael Korsunsky publicó, en la editorial Adweek, un artículo de opinión llamado "How Publishers Can Lessen Their Dependence on FAANG" o en español: Cómo los editores pueden disminuir su dependencia de las FAANG”. Korsunsky empieza con un resumen del presunto acuerdo en el que Google ofreció beneficios a Facebook, tal como tarifas de publicidad digital más bajas, a cambio del apoyo de Facebook al programa de Google llamado Open Bidding. FAANG es una sigla de los cinco protagonistas más grandes en tecnología que consisten en Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix y Google. Y estas noticias hacen aparecer que la F y la G del acrónimo están juntas en cama. Además, Korsunsky no está contento. Él dice: “la noticia es una traición a la confianza de los editores, y destaca una vez más el dominio abrumador del jardín amurallado; y por lo tanto, debe tratarse como un punto de referencia para todos los especialistas en marketing digital.” Korsunsky cree que es hora de vencer los oscuros mercados abiertos y recibir con gusto transacciones directas y transparentes en los mercados privados. ¿Qué significa esto para los podcasts? Como industria, el podcasting está mejor posicionada para expandirse con programática a través de mercados privados, brindando más transparencia y mejores relaciones que los mercados abiertos. Si los anunciantes aceptan encontrar esta solución más preferible FUERA del podcasting, es probable que aumente las ventas programáticas DENTRO del podcasting. Manuela: Otra vez le traemos impactantes noticias publicadas en Twitter. El lunes, el director ejecutivo de Digital Content Next, Jason Kint, publicó un hilo de Twitter analizando las novedades en una demanda de privacidad contra Google en las cortes en el norte de California. La orden judicial exige que Ernst & Young, el auditor independiente de Google, renuncie inmediatamente a todos los archivos relevantes para la demanda. También se le ordena a Google que muestre motivos por los cuales no deben ser sancionados teniendo en cuenta la nueva información que sugiere que Google supuestamente ordenó a Ernst & Young que retuviera más de seis mil documentos confidenciales relevantes para el caso. Es una mala imagen que Ernst & Young participe de esta manera para Google, considerando que ellos realizan la gran parte de la auditoría en toda la industria publicitaria,” fin de cita. Además de las implicaciones de la industria publicitaria, Ernst & Young es una de las principales empresas de auditoría para certificaciones, como las del IAB, el Interactive Advertising Bureau. Bienvenidos al segmento del podcast: get that money, un breve resumen de las rondas de financiación de nota en que participaron compañías de podcasts durante la última semana El martes, Libsyn consiguió 4,75 millones de dólares en nueva financiación La startup de podcasts Kaleidoscope aseguró 3,5 millones de dólares en fondos y un trato de producir seis programas con iHeartMedia Para este segundo y último segmento, queremos destacar varias historias que no pudimos incluir en el episodio de hoy, pero que vale la pena revisar. Con eso en cuenta, aquí están las tres lecturas que deberías leer. La primera: The Care and Feeding of a Podcast Audience de Tom Webster — Tom habla sobre cómo competir en un mundo donde la gran mayoría de las descargas van a solo un poco podcasts. Tambien: Women Podcast Listeners: What We Know Right Now de Caila Litman — La segunda parte de nuestro artículo dedicada a las mujeres en podcasting. Y finalmente: Big Tech Always Fails at Doing Radio de Matt Deegan[GS2] — Que habla por qué la aplicación Amazon AMP, es el más reciente intento que malinterpreta a los oyentes de podcasting. ****Esto podría ser de especial interés para aquellos que recuerdan nuestra cobertura de la aplicación Amazon AMP la semana pasada. Como siempre, los enlaces para los artículos mencionados en este segmento, al igual que todos cubiertos por La Descarga se pueden encontrar en los detalles del episodio. La Descarga es una producción de Sounds Profitable. El episodio de hoy fue presentado por Manuela Bedoya y Gabriel Soto, y escrito por Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta y Evo Terra son los productores ejecutivos de La Descarga de Sounds Profitable. Un agradecimiento especial a Ian Powell por su majestuosa ingeniería de audio, y a Omny Studio por alojar La Descarga.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.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.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; 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bienvenidos Al Download de Sounds Profitable, las noticias más importantes de esta semana en el mundo del podcasting. Ryan Barwick, de Morning Brew, informa que grupos comerciales que representan unas editoriales de los EE. UU., el Reino Unido y Canadá -- están acusando a las empresas de tecnología publicitaria de injustamente extraer metadatos de sus sitios de web. Después de ser recopilados, estos datos, presuntamente obtenidos de forma ilícita, se utilizan para crear segmentos de publicidad contextual para los clientes sin el permiso de las editoriales, lo que también debilita los intentos de las editoriales de vender directamente la publicidad contextual. Según Ryan Barwick, “Ahora que las cookies de tercera parte se están muriendo y los dólares publicitarios se están moviendo a publicidad contextual (anuncios basados ​​en el contenido, no en información personal), las editoriales quieren un (mejor) asiento en la mesa y mejores términos mientras la industria adopta nuevas tecnologías”. Fin de cita Richard Reeves, director gerente de la Asociación de editoriales en línea (Association of Online Publishers), noto el problema de las empresas que extraen datos. Reeves dice, “Lo que estamos viendo ahora es casi como si hubiera gente caminando sin vergüenza por tu casa, quitando los muebles y vendiendo tus bienes por otras partes. Y ni siquiera sabes que lo están haciendo, o no puedes recibir ninguna compensación por las ventas. El hecho que pueden hacerlo, no significa que deben hacerlo” Fin de cita. El raspado de datos tampoco es nuevo para los podcasts. La transcripción ocurre en el podcasting, con y sin el permiso del editor. Sin embargo, es probable que este problema más amplio de las editoriales tenga efectos indirectos en lo que las empresas puedan hacer con las transcripciones de podcasts sin licencia. Amazon tiene una nueva aplicación de audio social que proporciona a los podcasters la capacidad de ser DJs. Brad Hill, de Rain News dice, “Sí bien los primeros reportes comparan Amp con Clubhouse, pero el énfasis promocional de Amazon está en la creación de programas de música interactivos, algo como la radio interactiva en vivo”, fin de cita. Amp es reminiscente de una herramienta de podcasting que Spotify lanzó para Anchor a fines de 2020. La función, llamada Shows with Music en el lanzamiento, permite a los podcasters en Anchor colocar cualquier canción en el catálogo de Spotify en cualquier segmento de podcast ya grabado. Los oyentes con Spotify Premium escucharán una transición perfecta como si la música estuviera integrada en el podcast, mientras que los oyentes gratuitos sin suscripciones escucharán un tráiler de treinta segundos de la canción. Shows with Music todavía existe, pero ya no es la estrella del partido ya que es casi una función oculta en la interfaz de Anchor. Similar a los podcasts olvidados de creadores de renombre que cubrimos en el episodio de la semana pasada. Por otra parte, Amp, solo requiere que los oyentes se inscriban para obtener una cuenta gratuita de Amp para escuchar a los creadores. Jack Kastrenakes, de la editorial The Verge escribe: "Amazon está promoviendo esto más como un servicio de estilo de radio que como un servicio de chat en vivo (incluso hay un límite de cinco personas en las llamadas en este momento), lo que probablemente sea lo mejor para todos", fin de cita. Este martes pasado, la empresa de tecnología publicitaria de podcasting, Gumball, anunció que había recaudado diez millones de dólares en financiación de Serie A. Brad Hill, de Rain News, informa: “Gumball, que fue iniciado por la red de podcasts de comedia, Headgum, permite a los anunciantes comprar programáticamente los anuncios pregrabados que son leídos por anfitriones de podcasts. El sistema ofrece búsqueda de inventario en tiempo real, dirección por audiencia demográfica y verificación de ubicación y escucha. La compañía menciona algunas marcas que han utilizado el sistema: Casper, CBS, Netflix, OkCupid, Squarespace, Warby Parker y otras”, fin de cita. Naturalmente, el sistema de Gumball se implementa en toda la red de Headgum y publica anuncios en podcasts emblemáticos como The Doughboys, Punch up the Jam y We Hate Movies. YouTube está tomando el podcasting bastante en serio. El viernes pasado, Ashley Carman de Bloomberg informó que los podcasters independientes al igual que las redes de podcasts, todos los cuales pidieron permanecer anónimos, recibieron ofertas que variaron entre $50,000 y $300,000 para crear versiones filmadas en video de sus episodios. Históricamente, los podcasts de video en YouTube han funcionado bien. Mientras que la plataforma evolucionaba de clips de gatos a este punto de animar a los creadores a hacer contenido cada vez más largo, los programas de charla en video despegaron. Producciones como The H3H3 Podcast y The Joe Rogan Experience tuvieron un gran éxito en la plataforma. Dicho esto, como dijo Carman,: "Sin embargo, el costo de construir un estudio, contratar editores y desarrollar una fábrica de publicación de videos puede disuadir a las redes y programas de adoptar la plataforma", fin de cita. Además de estos incentivos de dinero que implican que YouTube quiere crear más un medioambiente de podcasts producidos profesionalmente, han hecho unos pequeños movimientos de negocios que sugieren que este es un plan a largo plazo. Alex Castro, del editorial The Verge, les recuerda a sus lectores que en octubre YouTube comenzó a permitir que los usuarios canadienses escucharan videos mientras la aplicación estaba minimizada o en segundo plano en el dispositivo. Como pueden atestiguar los usuarios más frecuentes de YouTube en los EE. UU., esta función se promociona muchísimo en la publicidad de YouTube Premium como una buena razón para suscribirse. Parece que hacer que la capacidad de usar YouTube como una aplicación de podcasting sería un gran paso para que YouTube reclute a más podcasters y sus oyentes.. El martes, J. Clara Chan, del editorial The Hollywood Reporter, publicó un anuncio exclusivo de que UTA, United Talent Agency, lanzó Audio IQ, un servicio de análisis de datos para facilitar las ventas de podcast. El servicio utilizará las redes sociales, los resultados de búsqueda y otros datos de código abierto para informar tanto a los clientes como a las agencias sobre el estado de los podcasts para facilitar la negociación. Chan dice, “Mientras el análisis de podcasts a menudo puede basarse en puntos de datos históricos como la cantidad de descargas o los ingresos publicitarios anteriores, los análisis Audio IQ de UTA también ofrecen proyecciones futuras, una herramienta que es particularmente clave en las negociaciones de programas que aún no se han lanzado o para identificar talento nuevo.”. Fin de cita. Audio IQ entra en el campo en un tiempo cuando las empresas de podcasts masivas estan comprando compañías de análisis de terceras partes (consulta nuestro episodio del 18 de febrero para nuestra cobertura de la absorción de Chartable por Spotify) esto tiene preocupado al líder de UTA IQ, Joe Kessler. Kessler dice: "Tengo la esperanza de que este anuncio sirva como una llamada de atención para que la industria del podcasting se una de alguna manera a una fuente común de verdad y datos para la industria, porque sí es muy necesaria a medida que está madurando.” Fin de cita. Finalmente, otra noticia a la que vale la pena estar atento. Hubo algo sobre el martes de esta semana que nos trajo muchos anuncios acerca del podcasting.. Ashley Carman tuiteó la exclusiva que tres líderes superiores se van de Megaphone. Se ha confirmado que el director ejecutivo Brendan Monaghan, el director de ingresos Matt Turk y el director de operaciones Jason Cox, todos que ya estaban en sus puestos antes de la compra de Spotify, dejarán la compañía después de que caduquen sus contratos que fueron por un año. Los tres ahora están lanzando una empresa de blockchain. ¡Y así es El Download, de Sounds Profitable! Sé que recorrimos estas historias muy rápido, así que no olvides revisar los enlaces para cada artículo que mencionamos directamente en tu aplicación de podcasts o en SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. Y gracias por seguir con nosotros mientras continuamos haciendo cambios a este gran experimento para brindarles las mejores historias que tal vez se hayan perdido en la semana. Soy Manuela Bedoya Y yo soy Gabriel Soto. Muchas gracias a Ian Powell por ser el mejor ingeniero de audio, y a Gavin Gaddis por escribir el texto para episodio de hoy y a Omny Studio por alojar El Download. Y gracias a ti por pasar este tiempo con nosotros.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.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.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.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.

On this week's episode of “Yep, That Happened,” Shirley talks about the difference between being alone and being lonely. Enjoy!   Yep, That Happened is a podcast where writer and host, Shirley, talks about what everyone else is talking about, what needs to be discussed more, and what no longer deserves our time. Check out her website at shirleyldeleon.com. Send any questions and comments to yepthathappenedpodcast@gmail.com or fill out the form on her homepage. Follow her on Instagram at @shiloudeleon. Like, share and subscribe to the podcast. If you love the show, please give it a 5-star review. Thank you for listening!   Links mentioned: Let's Talk About “Self-Made” Billionaires | Episode 37 | Yep, That Happened: https://www.shirleyldeleon.com/podcast/yepthathappened/episode37   “Loneliness” by Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/loneliness            “Lizzo Clapped Back at ‘Fatphobic, Racist' Haters Who Constantly Shame Her” Hellogiggles article by Hedy Phillips: https://hellogiggles.com/celebrity/lizzo-clapback-fatphobic-comments/         “Lizzo shared a tearful video about racist and fatphobic comments after the release of her new song” Insider.com article by Ayomikun Adekaiyero: https://www.insider.com/lizzo-speaks-about-racist-fatphobic-comments-in-tearful-video-2021-8   “Lizzo tearfully calls out 'fatphobic' and 'racist' hate following 'Rumors' release” nbcnews.com article by Doha Madani: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/lizzo-tearfully-calls-out-fatphobic-racist-hate-following-rumors-release-n1276920   “Instagram, Facebook Remove Comments From Lizzo's Account After Singer's Tearful Video” The Hollywood Reporter article by J. Clara Chan: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/lizzo-instagram-facebook-comments-1234999431/   “To rebuild, Haiti needs a break from neocolonialism” Vox article by Gabby Birenbaum: https://www.vox.com/22629569/haiti-earthquake-tropical-storm-grace-neocolonialism-rebuilding   Senofonte, Introduction By Kaitlyn Greenidge; Photographs By Campbell Addy; Styling By Samira Nasr And Marni. “Beyoncé's Evolution.” Harper's BAZAAR, 10 Aug. 2021, www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a37039502/beyonce-evolution-interview-2021.   “Black TikTokers Are Starting to Copyright Their Dances — as They Should” Popsugar article by Charlene Masona: https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/why-black-tiktokers-are-copyrighting-their-dances-48458383   MUSIC CREDIT: Mango by Smith The Mister https://smiththemister.bandcamp.com Smith The Mister https://bit.ly/Smith-The-Mister-YT Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/mango-smith-the-mister Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/Zn4SeyT3oME   Track Info: Title: Mango by Smith The Mister Genre and Mood: Alternative & Punk + Bright   Available on: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2FIeX4V iTunes: https://apple.co/305EA9t Deezer: https://deezer.com/us/album/64408662 Bandcamp: https://smiththemister.bandcamp.com/t... Google Play: http://bit.ly/2GgLjEq   Contact the Artist: smiththemister@gmail.com https://smiththemister.bandcamp.com https://soundcloud.com/smiththemister https://open.spotify.com/artist/3lklK... https://music.apple.com/us/artist/smi... https://youtube.com/channel/UCQ5zugE_... https://deezer.com/us/artist/14163883 https://instagram.com/smiththemister

The prolific author examines his craft in “Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different"; J. Clara Chan of The Wrap reports from the Harvey Weinstein trial; the satirical comedy group Culture Clash takes on a Baroque opera;

Going to see your favorite musical act is getting pricier.  Concerts are more expensive than ever, but fans keep paying up. The average price of a ticket to the 100 most popular tours in North America have quadrupled over the past two decades.  Lucas Shaw, entertainment reporter at Bloomberg News, joins us for why ticket prices keep going up. Next, politicians have been caught swearing since the beginning of politics, but according to a new analysis the number of swear words used by lawmakers on Twitter took a noticeable jump after 2016.  Beto O'Rourke's latest campaign T-shirt even has the F-word on it.  J. Clara Chan, media and politics reporter at The Wrap, joins us for when profanity hits the campaign trail. Finally, the CIA has declassified dozens of files from its attempts to create secret animal spies.  By 1967 the CIA had three programs aimed at using dolphins, cats, dogs, and birds in secret spy missions.  While not the most successful programs, it is an interesting look at how animals were being trained to perform a variety of tasks to help gather intel on the enemy.  Paul Handley, national security correspondent at AFP news agency, joins us for more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com