Podcast appearances and mentions of Ian Powell

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Kathryn Graham & Ian Powell. They discuss Tamatha Paul's comments on the police. We get an explainer of Signal, and should we take a two year pause on harvesting Bluff oysters? Kathryn Graham is a content producer and arts advisor. Ian Powell is a health commentator & former executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. [picture id="4L3G7J4_Greg_Mead_jpg" crop="16x10" layout="full"]

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Kathryn Graham & Ian Powell. They ask - when is the right age to get a smartphone? Plus we speak to the Auckland man building a community bike track. Kathryn Graham is a content producer and arts advisor. Ian Powell is a health commentator & former executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. [picture id="4K9X93KĪMG_1219_jpeg" crop="16x10" layout="full"]

Tonight on The Panel, Emile Donovan is joined by panellists Jo McCarroll and Ian Powell to discuss the government's plans for a four year parliamentary term. Plus they disucss President Trump's attempts to reshape the role of the American president.

Tonight on The Panel, Emile Donovan is joined by panellists Jo McCarroll and Ian Powell to discuss the changing views of working from home. Plus they discuss why the taxpayer is picking up the cost of removing derelict boats from Waikato Harbour.

There's concerns over the future of New Zealand's health sector, off the back of three high-profile resignations that took place this week. Director General of Health Diana Sarfati confirmed on Friday that she was stepping down from the role - seven days after Health NZ chief executive Margie Apa resigned before the end of her term. Earlier this week, director of public health Dr Nicholas Jones also said he would be concluding his secondment as planned in February and resuming his previous role in Hawke's Bay. Health commentator Ian Powell says these resignations share a point of commonality following a turbulent period for the health system. "We have a Government that kind of side-lines complexity considerations, it goes for the simpler options. And the simpler options are usually the ones that are wrong." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Full Show Podcast for Sunday 16th February 2025, Kiwi actress Morgana O'Reilly spills the goss on season 3 of The White Lotus and what it was like filming the hit show. Jake Bailey was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer at just 18. He joins Francesca to share what he learned from his journey and how he now wants to help the next generation. A dramatic week in health with the resignations of three health bosses, health commentator Ian Powell assesses the damage. Francesca shares why she is trying to resuscitate her attention span. And the panel discusses why so many people are getting injured or dying just to get a good photo. Get the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Full Show Podcast every Sunday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Relationship issues and organisational structure are thought to be contributing factors to Health NZ CEO Margie Apa's resignation. She's left the job six months early - saying a different leadership approach is needed. Health commentator Ian Powell says Apa's relationship with Health Commissioner Lester Levy was untenable. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Ian Powell & Sarah Catherall to discuss the sale of single cigarettes at dairies and health campaigners will deliver a petition to Parliament tomorrow demanding the government reverse cuts to the Southern hospital.

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Ian Powell & Sarah Catherall to discuss the final day of campaigning in the U.S election and the government's decision to can a proposal to mandate the registration and desexing of cats.

Tonight on second half of The Panel, Mark Leishman and panellists Jenni Giblin and Ian Powell discuss Hurricane Milton and the impact it could have in Florida. Also, The Panel give their take on The Conversation's list of the 20 best New Zealand books of the 21st century.

Tonight on The Panel, Mark Leishman and panellists Jenni Giblin and Ian Powell discuss today's OCR announcement and a new report into the quality of New Zealand's air.

A health commentator isn't expecting new appointments at Health New Zealand to change much.   The Government's appointed four Deputy Chief Executives to run different regions from next month.   Ian Powell says if they come along with a change in culture, it could make a difference.   He says there are bigger problems at Health NZ which need to be tackled.    Powell says the leadership culture at the organisation is too top down when it comes to decision making.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Panel, Mark Leishman and panellists Helen Jacobi and Ian Powell hear about the latest nicotine product that may be harming teenagaers and a local social service provider talks about hwere the money for boot camps should actually go.

Tonight on The Panel, Mark Leishman and panellists Helen Jacobi and Ian Powell get an explainer on carbon capture and storage: is it the answer to al lour climate woes? And they hear from a wine buff with an extremely rare collection up for a charity auction.

Tonight on The Panel Wallace is joined by panellists Alison Mau and Ian Powell discuss whether cracking down on gang patches is a breach of freedom of speech. Also, they discuss the Kainga Ora development in Rotorua that looks like shipping containers and whether it is fit for purpose.

Tonight on The Panel Wallace is joined by panellists Alison Mau and Ian Powell discuss the tree stump that has been fenced off as it doesn't meet playground safety standards. Also, they discuss the best Shakespeare phrases and ANZAC day preparations. 

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace and panellists Georgie Stylianou and Ian Powell discuss public sector job cuts. And, the mental health peer support services coming to Emergency Departments.

Tonight on The Panel, Wallace and panellists Georgie Stylianou and Ian Powell discuss equity issues at our National Championships for school rowing - the Maadi Regatta. Does baking soda and vinegar actually work as a cleaning product. A chemist explains. Plus, Trade Aid is closing it's bricks and mortar operations after 50 years.

Today on the show, Wallace and panellists Ali Jones and Ian Powell discuss the concept of 'reset cleaning' and how a clean and decluttered home can help those going through tough times. Plus, our panellists tell us what has been on their minds this week.

Today on the show, Wallace and panellists Ali Jones and Ian Powell discuss whether driving on the beach should be banned. Also, they discuss what they want to see from our first Minister of Mental Health, and whether kids should be able to ride around campgrounds on their bikes.

Today on the show, Wallace and panellists Jennie Moreton and Ian Powell discuss future of the housing market and an Auckland street attracting a little too much attention this Christmas. Also, we invite a very special guest onto The Panel... Santa Claus!

Wallace and panellists Jennie Moreton and Ian Powell open up the Friday Mailbag for the final time this year and respond to your messages from the past week.

Today on the show, Wallace and panellists Jennie Moreton and Ian Powell discuss the highs and lows of 2023 and 90-day trials. Also, we share your special Christmas shoutouts and messages.

Susana and panellists Claire Amos and Ian Powell dig through the Friday mailbag. Plus, our panellists tell us what's been on their mind this week.

Wallace and panellists Claire Amos and Ian Powell take a temperature test on the ongoing coalition talks, and discuss the World Health Organisation's plan to address the 'loneliness epidemic'. And - it's that time of year again, too early to bring out the Christmas decorations?

Susana and panellists Claire Amos and Ian Powell ask why NZ'ers are migrating at record rates. Plus, they discuss the staggering increase in the number of women playing rugby in the last year, and check in with the Santa Parade celebrating 90 years.

There's a raft of reasons behind senior doctors and dentists walking off the job today.  Members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists will strike for two hours from midday after rejecting the latest offer from Te Whatu Ora.  Former Executive Director Ian Powell told Mike Hosking that there are staffing shortages, stress, and burnout, along with a pay freeze and seeing the value of their incomes decline.  He says they feel like they've been taken for granted for too long, working in insufferable conditions with no pipeline ahead to get out of it, and something has snapped.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ongoing backlog in surgical procedures may have already had fatal consequences. An investigation is underway after it was revealed that a Waikato hospital patient died while on the cardiac surgical waitlist in October last year. The surgery should have taken place within 90 days, but the patient had waited for 115 days before the unexpected death. Health commentator Ian Powell says these events are concerning, but not surprising. "I think it's fair to say that there was the pressure on the health system primarily due to severe shortages across the various relevant professional occupations. There are a significant number- difficult to quantify yet- of avoidable deaths." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Questions are being asked about where hundreds of jobs could be cut at Te Whatu Ora. Former Board chair Rob Campbell —who was sacked by Health Minister Ayesha Verrall this week— says the agency is heading towards a massive restructure. Health Commentator Ian Powell says told Heather du Plessis-Allan that Te Whatu Ora's workforce is largely in hospitals, so the number of people that could be caught up in this proportionally small. He says that for example, some of them will be in payroll and the last thing we want is downsizing payroll services and having people not being paid. Te Whatu Ora says this year they'll be working to deliver on the promise of reforms by continuing to unify, simplify, and integrate their teams. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alex chats with ACT's Brooke van Velden about the EU Free Trade Deal and the rise in gun crime in Auckland. Joe speaks to Hon Poto Williams about the launch of the Ministry for the Disabled Trishil talks about the ban on Juul e-cigarettes in the US and interviews Sarah Helm from the New Zealand Drug Foundation about New Zealand vaping culture and whether the ban in the US could affect New Zealand Alex then chats with Ian Powell, the former Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, about the new Maori Health Authority  And there is also Eurovision, Aneeka's weekly catchup with Europe correspondent Cameron Adams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today on The Download; A new article shines light on unsavory developments at Stitcher after their buyout, Chartable is shuttering SmartAds, and this year’s edition of The Infinite Dial was unveiled at Podcast Movement: Evolutions. Last Friday, Tom Webster published an installment of I Hear Things titled Podcasting’s Most Controversial Statistic. The statistic in question relates to an experiment run by Edison Research’s Podcast Consumer Tracker. The parameters of the experiment were simple: discern how many networks an advertiser would have to buy run-of-network spots to reach at least half of weekly podcast listeners, accounting for unduplicated reach. Webster goes into great detail explaining unduplicated reach, something The Download’s writer does not feel qualified to condense further. “When we ran these numbers a year ago, we discovered that you could reach 50% of weekly podcast listeners if you bought every show on the top seven podcast networks.” Webster has run the same experiment again using Q4 2021 data and that number has now dropped to one only needing to buy out ad space on four podcast networks to confidently reach fifty percent of podcast listeners. Webster stresses the importance of collective action for smaller, independent podcasters who don’t have the same ad-buying power of the bigger players in the industry. “I have a day job (I am sure you do, too), but if indie podcasters don't find a way to organize and consolidate their buying power, some monetization options are just not going to be available for them. For you.” On Tuesday The Verge published How SiriusXM Bought and Bungled a Beloved Podcast Network. **With extensive reporting by writer Ashley Carman and bespoke illustrations, the piece tells the story of SiriusXM’s acquisition of Stitcher from the founding of comedy podcast network Earwolf in 2010 to today. The 2020 SiriusXM and Stitcher merger came with many beneficial changes for both companies. SiriusXM gets all the benefits of a successful podcasting company while the producers get access to SiriusXM-level budgets, enabling podcasts under the Stitcher banner to grow and improve. “But according to 13 former corporate employees across Stitcher who spoke with The Verge anonymously because of nondisclosure agreements and fear of retaliation, the merger was marked by confusion, culture clash, and shifting objectives. Around 145 people worked at Stitcher when it was bought, and since then, more than a quarter of them have left, The Verge found through LinkedIn.” Carman’s article continues at length to detail systemic issues plaguing all but the most successful content creators through the multiple buyouts that lead to SiriusXM’s difficult transition period. A period plagued with mismanagement and miscommunication to the point one Stitcher employee had to explain to a SiriusXM team member that RSS feeds aren’t constantly-live feeds. The piece is a masterclass in how not to handle merging two completely different companies. A new post on the Chartable blog has announced the inevitable: Chartable has made the first step in winding down services available to users not on Spotify’s Megaphone. Chartable co-founder Dave Zohrob writes: “With Chartable now a part of Spotify, we will be shifting our focus to building world-class publisher tools as part of the Megaphone platform. For our advertiser customers, that means that we will soon be deprecating our SmartAds product and will no longer be supporting advertiser campaigns on the Chartable platform.” SmartAds campaigns can still be booked through April 21st. The final day for new impressions tagged with SmartAds will be June 30th. In the final paragraph Zohrob clarifies Chartable publisher products aren’t going anywhere, as these shutdowns only affect advertising products. For those wondering why this wasn’t a surprise announcement, we recommend checking out February 18th’s edition of The Download when we covered an article about the Chartable-Spotify acquisition. Now for a pivot away from acquisitions: Nielsen has not been acquired by a private equity firm. The original story, posted last Thursday to The Drum by Hannah Bowler, details the struggles facing the aging monolith and asks if a buyout would help. Neilsen, once synonymous with television monitoring, has been slow to adapt to the rapid evolution of what people watch and how they watch it. Now their older methodology combined with pending lawsuits alleging inaccurate counting and fraud by concealment threatens the company. “For the industry to trust Nielsen again, president and chief executive at the VAB Sean Cunningham says it needs to deliver - here begins a nested quote from Cunningham - “deep disclosures and real transparency, commitment to the modernization that sharply increased competition demands and increased collaboration versus increased collision with their major clients.” Then, this Monday, the story developed further. Frank Saxe, writing for InsideRadio, reported the proposed deal was dead in the water. Nielsen referred to the offer as "unsolicited”. The company remains public. Even so, the near-miss of a buyout remains a sign of the times. We’re seeing the chipping away of a third party incumbent for measurement and research. With current trends there very well could be a future where a service even as big as Nielsen becomes a gated proprietary service. And finally, the one you’ve all been waiting for: on Wednesday,Thursday Tom Webster took to the Podcast Movement: Evolutions stage to present the 2022 edition of Edison Research’s The Infinite Dial. Over the hour-long presentation Webster and Wondery CEO Jen Sargent covered the plethora of industry data, a lot of which continues to trend upwards. “Seventy-three percent of the U.S. 12+ population (an estimated 209 million people) have listened to online audio in the last month, up from 68% in 2021.” Casual engagement with podcast listening is up as well, with sixty-two percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12 having ever tried a podcast, compared to just eleven percent in 2006. The seventy-side pdf and fifty minute video of the presentation might sound like a daunting task, but the Infinite Dial remains an invaluable source of data for the podcasting industry. Since The Download doesn’t have a must-read article recommendation segment this week, consider combing through the Infinite Dial to take up that space of three or four articles you’d have read otherwise. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.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 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; big names in podcasting are pulling down big numbers in ad revenue, Meta and Mozilla have teamed up to change advertising privacy, and TikTok might not be the #1 place to take short-form podcast content. On a sober, world-news note: Advertisers are weathering unintended consequences from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ryan Barwick of Morning Brew wrote a brief rundown of the situation last Friday. According to a Business Insider report, Google AdSense has been found on publishers of Russian state propaganda. “While on those sites, BI observed Google-served ads from Best Buy, Progressive, and Allbirds, and a handful of other brands. Marketing Brew also saw ads for brands on these two sites, but a banner ad atop several stories was blocked by Integral Ad Science, a brand-safety firm.” Barwick then pairs this evidence of brand safety kind-of working with the infamously-timed Applebee’s promotion that aired in a split-screen ad break with footage of Kyiv under siege. The ad, featuring footage of a man in a cowboy hat gyrating his butt in glee over $1 boneless chicken wings, went viral on social media for its grim pairing with footage of burning buildings. “What do these stories have in common? Funding journalism. Advertisers often don’t want to fund inflammatory, hateful, or controversial content. While brand-safety tech might help marketers avoid having their ads showing up on propaganda sites, it can also direct their ads away from legitimate coverage of political or other sensitive topics, inadvertently hurting newsrooms as a result.” Both the propaganda site ad serves and Applebee’s pulling from CNN serve as evidence of extremes of what could happen in similar spheres of podcasting. To ignore brand safety and the messaging of associated programs is a recipe for being associated with disinformation and propaganda. To overcorrect and leave the space entirely could leave journalism podcasts without the stability of CNN in a financial pickle. Continuing the Morning Brew coverage: last week Alyssa Meyers rounded up the earnings highlights of some giants in the podcasting industry. SiriusXM, Spotify, Acast, and iHeartMedia all show significant growth. Both Spotify and Acast posted a 40% year-over-year increase for ad revenue while SiriusXM-owned Pandora experienced a 30% growth. The biggest headline-grabber of the bunch, though, is iHeartMedia “Q4 revenue grew 59% in iHeartMedia’s ‘Digital Audio Group’ division, which encompasses iHeartMedia’s podcasting business, digital service, and ad-tech companies. Podcast revenue alone increased 130% YoY. The company said the growth was partly due to ‘general increased demand for digital advertising’ and ‘the growing popularity of podcasting.” It appears the industry-wide trope of saying podcasting ads are fast-growing is less of a marketing pitch and more a truism as more companies rake in those fast-growing profits. Up next we have a story shuffled into the digital stack of news and left by the wayside: Spotify appears to be better at announcing podcast deals than actually publishing podcasts. While a Business Insider article was published on February 18th, much of the original reporting on the subject was done by Podnews’ James Cridland in the December article Missing: the shows from these big Spotify announcements. As Cridland and others report: a great deal of splashy Spotify projects announced since December of 2020 have yet to come to fruition. Some announcements were vague deals akin to a popular actor signing a multi-picture deal with a prominent movie studio. Others, however, appear to have died on the vine. Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment’s celebrity-studded Batman audio fiction series has fallen off the radar since announcing its cast last June. British royalty power couple Meghan and Harry signed up in December of 2020. The most concerning is Kim Kardashian West’s partnership with Spotify and Parcast. Cridland writes “In March 2021 she hinted she was ready to release her episodes. Where are they?” eMarketer’s Sara Lebow shared some fascinating data last week with a chart of the day post titled TikTok isn’t the No. 1 US app for shorter videos. In fact, the data gathered by CensusWide in late January puts TikTok in third place with 53.9% of respondents sixteen and up. The top two are Facebook and YouTube with 60.8 and 77.9% respectively. As podcasters explore video podcasting, or simply video clips promoting their shows, TikTok is constantly brought up. The format of what makes a successful Facebook or YouTube video are far different than what pleases TikTok’s famous algorithm, making it difficult to reuse assets. The results of this study seem to imply that while TikTok is valuable, those new to video as an advertising medium would have a better shot at developing content and skills that are useful in the long run. Another interesting facet of this story is CensusWide got these numbers before YouTube launched their TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts, effectively cloning Tiktok’s endless stream of short-form content in the existing YouTube ecosystem. But then news dropped to complicate things further: Monday TikTok announced they will be allowing users to post videos up to ten minutes in length, more than doubling the original limit of three minutes. Sara Fischer, writing for Axios, broke the news of German publishing company Axel Springer investing in a new podcasting company Spooler. Working with Insider, Spooler will co-produce daily news podcast The Refresh from Insider with a special trick: Spooler’s proprietary tech will allow the hosts to add new segments to that morning’s episode as the day’s news progresses. “For news companies, the expectation is that producers could build ‘playlist programs’ that Spooler automatically stitches together to make the podcast sound seamless, even though it's being repeatedly updated. The bespoke player on Insider.com and Insider's app will allow users to skip over segments they've already heard.” Meanwhile, last week iHeartMedia announced Talk Back, an in-app feature allowing podcast-listening audiences to send voice messages to show hosts. There must be something in the Spring air as podcast companies seem to be in the mood to experiment and innovate, pushing the limits of what podcast tech can do. A social media network and an internet browser have teamed up to make ads less intrusive. Trey Titone writes for Ad Tech Explained: “When Meta and Mozilla team up to improve digital advertising, you should probably pay attention. The two companies joined forces to create Interoperable Private Attribution or IPA, a framework for attribution measurement without tracking users.” The teamup shows changing times and attitudes between the companies. Back in 2018 when Meta was still Facebook, Mozilla developed an extension for their Firefox browser with one goal: keep Facebook from watching users’ web activity outside of Facebook. Now the two are teamed up with a proposed framework that could follow pro-privacy trends formed by Google and Apple to find a way to provide useful advertising data while protecting the individual’s privacy. Titone’s breakdown of what Meta and Mozilla have proposed IPA will be, as well as what its constituent parts might actually do, is incredibly thorough. Thorough enough to necessitate a table of contents. Check it out. For more thoughts on the subject of podcast advertising and a quality-over-quantity approach, The Download recommends Brian Morrissey’s Substack newsletter piece “End of an era of ad targeting: Publishers will need closer ties to their audiences.” We should know, we covered it last week. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Download, Libsyn grows monetization, LinkedIn launches a podcast network, and what the new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android means for marketers. Let’s get started. Libsyn has bought another podcast representation firm, this time acquiring PAR - Podcast Ad Reps. With the acquisition LibSyn brings around 120 podcasts that were currently under representation with PAR under the LibSyn-owned AdvertiseCast banner, further building out the company’s monetization arm. According to Libsyn CEO Brad Tirpak in the official press release: “With the acquisitions of AdvertiseCast in June 2021 and now PAR, Libsyn is well-positioned to continue to rapidly scale in the podcast advertising market, which PWC estimates will reach around $3.5 billion by 2025. We plan to continue to invest in our award-winning hosting platform, expand both our host-read and programmatic advertising efforts, and look for new ways to make Libsyn the preferred destination for both creators and advertisers.” All of this continues to show another side of Libsyn, a company that previously swore it would never have a free hosting platform and was anti-targeted advertising is now a large, tech-focused ad platform. Australian podcast producer LiSTNR has branched out into audio fiction. From Radio Today’s Kim Napier: “LiSTNR is investing in audio fiction with book adaptations by Australian authors to bring audiences compelling audio stories, with Bryden Media casting Australian actors to deliver the stories in different podcast formats as episodic series or audio movies.” Both LiSTNR’s slated audio movies and standard serialized audio fiction podcast adaptations reflect a building synergy and momentum between podcasting and publishers, two factions that’ve circled each other since before the coining of the term podcast. Until now audio fiction as a genre has remained a largely under-utilized sector of podcasting. With industry moves like this, we could be seeing enough momentum building to change that for the better. Over on The Rebooting’s Substack newsletter, Brian Morrissey has published a piece titled “End of an era of ad targeting: Publishers will need closer ties to their audiences.” In addition to being an excellent overview of privacy on the web and how business has worked to take full advantage, Morrissey stresses the importance of adapting with changing tech. “Primary-engagement media will gain. As I’ve written, I believe the next phase of digital publishing will favor quality over quantity in terms of audiences. Those publishing brands that put community at their core will thrive since it easily lends itself to a direct relationship that will make those audiences far more valuable than a random collection of people who mindlessly tapped a link on their Facebook feed. There’s a reason that Squarespace found podcasts such an efficient way to acquire customers. The newsletter boom is a signal of where publishing is going.” Morrissey reflects on the very first ad sold on the internet circa 1994 as a reflection of how much online marketing has changed and what modern advertising can learn from the mistakes made back then that’re still made today. It’s time to update that profile you’ve been neglecting. Business-focused social media network LinkedIn launched a podcast network on Wednesday. The network has a dozen shows at launch that, according to protocol’s Veronica Irwin will, “...cover topics ranging from mental health to startup trends. With the announcement, LinkedIn joins the ranks of tech companies attempting to become the favorite hub of content creators and influencers.” The social network’s launch appears to have gone incredibly well, with their flagship show “Hello Monday,” gaining 4 million downloads in its first day. Over on Digiday, Ronan Shields and Seb Joseph have made a post aiming to decode the implications of Google’s nebulous new Android feature Privacy Sandbox for advertisers. “The main takeaway: Google says it will work with the industry to establish a set of technical standards that will enable ad targeting and measurement online after traditional targeting tools, like mobile identifiers, are retired on its Android devices. Why is this important? It’s pitched as the inverse of Apple’s own scorched earth plan to do something similar.” While Privacy Sandbox might be of some concern eventually, maybe, Shields and Joseph’s interpretation of existing news suggests: “...marketers needn’t panic over the latest announcement.” At the risk of this becoming a regular segment, we’ve got another article the staff of The Download recommend checking out. This week: “What is Podcasting 2.0, and why is it important” by Podcode’s Mark Steadman. While ostensibly written for podcasters, namespace changes are something the people in the business of podcasting need to be aware of, if not outright adopt. Steadman’s primer on podcasting 2.0 is a great start. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.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: Today: Amazon inherits a celeb-powered podcasting company, new ad revenue numbers forecast good news for podcast investment, and a new op-ed asks where has Facebook’s fervor for podcasting gone? Celebrity chat podcast Smartless, hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes, recently launched production house SmartLess Media. With former Jon Stewart-era Daily Show producer Richard Korson at the reins as president, SmartLess Media is poised to add multiple new stars to the relatively small constellation of Amazon-owned podcasts. The new company has sprung into existence following a prior deal in which the trio of celebs licensed the podcast SmartLess to Amazon Music and Wondery in a deal, as reported by Deadline’s Peter White, “thought to be valued at between 60 million to 80 million.” According to White, this deal also extends to shows created by the fledgling production house, meaning SmartLess Media’s promised slate of “weekly series, narrative, and limited podcasts,” are subject to first-look exclusivity with Amazon. It appears through careful future-proofing and investment during the licensing deal when SmartLess was just one podcast feed, the shopping and streaming conglomerate has inherited a celebrity-fronted production company wholecloth. And they continue to have rights to the original product’s momentum, which currently fuels a cross-country live tour set to wrap up this weekend. Speaking of Amazon: in a first for the company, Amazon has broken down its advertising revenue as a distinct category instead of bundling it with other earnings. The decision to do so now and not last year when they posted a ten billion profit increase from 2020 to 2021 remains unseen, but we’ll take it. According to Business Insider “at $9.7 billion in the quarter, up 32% year-over-year, ad revenue was one of Amazon's fastest-growing areas.” With their fostering SmartLess from a simple podcast acquisition into a brand-new source of content production, Amazon appears to show no sign of slowing growth in media properties that can help fuel this advertising boom. Amazon’s continued heavy spending in podcasting could be an indicator they believe in the medium’s ability to help continue ad revenue growth. Continuing the theme of growth: eCommerce is on the rise globally. Sara Lebow of eMarketer provides statistics breaking down the top ten countries with the biggest increase in ecommerce made over any internet-capable device that excludes travel, bill payments, gambling, food service, or anything that falls under the “vice good” umbrella. To quote the article: “The Philippines and India will lead the world in retail ecommerce sales growth this year, with respective increases of 25.9% and 25.5%. Countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia will make up most of the top 10 list, while the last spot will go to the US, the only advanced economy to slide into the rankings, with 15.9% growth.” A significant portion of podcast advertising is still direct-to-consumer and significantly focused on the US. The country that’s coming in tenth out of the top ten. That, combined with emerging podcast markets or strong pre-existing histories with audio in countries represented in the top nine shows podcast advertising has room to grow. Growth that might shift to bucking the existing status quo of purely targeting North American customers. New podcasting app Fountain aims to make things easier for podcasters to receive tips from their audience in the form of Bitcoin Lightning, a system simplifying the process of transferring one hundred millionths of Bitcoin between users. The biggest barriers to entry for such a scheme have been the need of a digital wallet, the process of buying crypto for said wallet, and the ID of another person’s wallet to be able to transfer the crypto to an intended recipient. While those hurdles still exist for the person intending to send the money, startup Fountain solves the initial problems for podcasters on the receiving end of Value 4 Value transactions by creating a wallet on their behalf. Several larger podcasts have embraced the service, including Jack Rhysider’s Darknet Diaries. In this week’s Hot Pod Insider, Ashley Carman published an op-ed about Meta (nee Facebook), their profit woes, and the question mark that leaves for Facebook podcasting. Carman writes: “I wondered if brands would start spending more money on podcast ads simply because Facebook’s aren’t as powerful. Maybe that’s worth another check-in, but instead, I’m now wondering how this tech informs Facebook’s decision to pursue podcasts on its platform.” With the social media giant reporting a decline in users for the first time in its existence alongside declining profits, a second “pivot to video,” and a full-throated commitment to rebranding VR gaming headsets as office supplies, Facebook’s previous interest in embracing podcasts seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Quote “I’m unclear where that team stands or what they’re doing. Did they pivot to the metaverse?” The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was hosted by Evo Terra and Manuela Bedoya. Bryan Barletta is the executive producer. Special thanks to Ian Powell for his audio prowess, and to our media host, Omny Studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Today on The Download: is the IAB on borrowed time?, podcast ads see big gains again, Google makes misinformation less profitable, podcasts grow globally, SXM enters the identity game, and Spotify stands behind Rogan even as earnings fall. HBO Max is Hiring For Their Podcast Marketing Team Subscription streaming video service HBO Max continues to prove its serious about podcasting. Their first venture into the space dropped last summer with Batman: The Audio Adventures, an exclusive podcast that could only be listened to in HBO Max app itself.While HBO maintains podcast channels on Spotify and Apple for related content, just like their peers at Netflix, this is the first podcast to be exclusively hosted in a subscription video streaming app.Now, they're looking to hire a new role, specifically for podcasting under the HBO Max brand. The role is for a Sr. Analyst, Direct-to-Consumer, Podcasting Strategy & Operations, and will “provide strategic and analytic support on various projects covering direct-to-consumer and HBO Max Podcasting initiatives. Interactive Voices Lack Diversity If you missed CES 2022 because... well, reasons; you probably saw a plenty of breathless reporting of new prototypes and maybe-coming-in-the-future tech. Steve Keller, Sonic Strategy Director for Studio Resonate, SXM’s audio-first creative consultancy has an in-depth piece on things he noticed at the event of interest to audio people like us. Like a lot of tech around the explosion of interactive voice systems. But he also noticed something else: Quoting from the piece: But something was missing. Innovation aside, the lack of sonic diversity in the voice sector was disturbing. [P]ractically all the AI voices we heard at CES 2022 were female—and white. In fact, the only voice assistant of color heard was during a series of sessions focused on voice technology, curated and moderated by attn.live CEO, Ian Utile. Multiple panelists affirmed that there’s an underlying problem with the overwhelmingly white, male demographics of the AI world who are unconsciously programming biases, sonic color lines, and digital discrimination into voice systems. As a result, the default voice of automotive assistants, connected homes, and a plethora of other devices is white. The issue is compounded by the fact that these assistants, designed to serve us, are also predominantly female. It’s a systemic problem, and developers and brands need to work harder to sonically diversify their voice systems, as well as the designers, engineers, and developers who create them. With DEI so high on the priority list for most companies, it’s surprising this problem exists. No, wait. It’s not surprising at all, is it? Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts Replaced by Topics While third-party cookies aren’t part of the information we receive from listeners in podcasting, they are a big part of the device graphs we use to augment what we do receive and improve how we run attribution. So while Safari and Firefox kicked them completely to the curb in 2020, Google has pushed out their deadline for when they’re twilight third-party cookies until 2023. And their original pitch, Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC for short, has now been scrapped for what they’re calling Topics. FLoC grouped audiences based on their browsing activity at a very granular level, where Topics focuses on applying a list of topics, starting at around 300 but expected to be in the thousands, directly to the individual. Only the top three most prevalent Topics will be available for targeting and identification, but what’s really interesting is that they expire every three weeks, keeping them increasingly fresh and relevant. Topics fit in nicely with the contextual offerings that podcasting is primed to offer advertisers if we continue to prioritize transcription and contextual targeting. Podcasting Only Looks Hit-Resistant If you somehow avoided the kerfuffle over the Bloomberg Article where Lucas Shaw reported on podcasting’s inability to generate a current hit... well, I’m not sure how you did. There have been a lot of hot takes on the article, but one worthy of your attention was penned by Tom Webster in his weekly newsletter, I Hear Things.It’s a fascinating read, with Tom pointing out that other mediums, like movies, television programs, and music all have the same “problem”. They just present differently. Examining the top movies from last year, Tom notes: Even if you go further down the list from the top 10, it's sequels, movies based on existing properties, and remakes. Is it fair to say that the movie industry hasn't produced a new hit in years? No--all the above movies are new movies, but they are familiar at the same time. He goes on to make a similar case for popular television programs - The Bachelor season 26, anyone? - and even music, going so far as to craft metaphors around melody and harmony to predict a hit. Working that back to podcasting, Tom says: Podcasting is, by its very definition, a medium that largely lacks harmony. When you can listen to a podcast anytime, there is little compunction to listen to them at any given time. They are always there--convenient, but rarely urgent. In other words, asynchronous. And they also currently (though not by definition) lack melody. The whole medium is new to so many people, and even for veteran listeners, there isn't exactly the equivalent of NCIS: New Orleans or Thursday Night Football or The Traveling Wilburys--that thread of familiarity that telegraphs immediately: if you like this, you will like that. Even some of the biggest hits of podcasting aren't easily explainable to a friend. That's part of why there is such a spate of celebrity podcasts right now. What is easier to describe to people: It's the Michele Obama podcast, or "it's the podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Check out the entire post for insights on why Tom thinks the article that made such waves was a little unfair little wrong, but ultimately right-ish. Links in the episode details, as always. Amazon Expands Ad Sales Efforts Amazon Advertising was responsible for generating $23bn in revenue for the first three quarters of 2021, nearly double the $13.5bn generated in that same period for 2020. How’d they do it? By shifting their focus to pursuing major brands, agencies, and holding companies looking to focus on awareness with their large customer sales team.Joshua Kreitzer, founder and CEO of Channel Bakers, an Amazon-focused ad agency tells Digiday With this change, the Amazon large customer sales team is no longer focused on shopper marketing dollars — they're now responsible for breaking through to the $70 billion TV market. While selling advertising to Amazon’s clients actively selling products on Amazon.com is still part of their focus, they’re now providing a bigger brand play by being able to offer inventory across Twitch, Fire TV, IMDb TV, and their podcast companies Art 19 and Wondery. Amazon has an immense amount of first-party data, from all their apps and services that require a login, so coupled with the technology they integrated from acquiring attribution company Sizmek and their AWS infrastructure, they have the potential to provide insights competitive to Google and Meta. The Download is presented by Sounds Profitable and is hosted by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra. Audio editing by Ian Powell. SA81NiPbZ3KByWl3qVE3See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.