Podcasts about omny studio

Today in the business of podcasting: building a full theater instead of just a stage, YouGov's data on global podcast listenership, Omny Studio's new benchmarks for 2024 podcast downloads, and Cumulus Media is leaving NASDAQ early next month. All articles mentioned can be found here on Sounds Profitable.

Today in the business of podcasting: building a full theater instead of just a stage, YouGov's data on global podcast listenership, Omny Studio's new benchmarks for 2024 podcast downloads, and Cumulus Media is leaving NASDAQ early next month. All articles mentioned can be found here on Sounds Profitable.

AN EMBARRASSMENT - Combating Satan with Repentance and Forgiveness - It's Your Divine Destiny It's Your Divine Destiny Radio Show on KXXT1010AM Arizona Family Values Radio. Original Air Date on KXXT: 2/13/2025 Thank you for visiting It’s Your Divine Destiny - Bringing you words of wisdom straight from the heart of our Father! ..Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no'. If you say yes, then let your actions follow suit. Because you have labeled yourself as mine. And when you tell someone you will do XYZ and you neglect that promise, you are embarrassing me and my holy Kingdom. Therefore repent... Hebrews 10:30For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.” Psalm 37:20-21The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous are gracious and giving. 1 Thessalonians 5:17Pray without ceasing. We invite you to join Janet Mata on KXXT1010am every Thursday at 4:15PM and Sunday at 9:45AM Arizona time online or on radio, or join the program on SoundCloud or OmnyStudio on demand anytime worldwide. Radio Host: Janet MataAnnouncer: Ramon BonillaTo shop: www.BeautyforAshesBoutique.comYouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCicoJYPshd4Qec4Pv_pQMSASoundCloud Broadcast: @its-your-devine-destinyOmny Studio Broadcast: omny.fm/shows/it-s-your-divine-destinyKXXT1010 Broadcast: familyvaluesradio1010.com/radioshow/it…vine-destinyIts Your Divine Destiny Website: www.ItsYourDivineDestiny.comPDF download of the word, "An Embarrassment" for sharing: Coming Soon Background music by Kimberly and Alberto Rivera and is available at: www.beautyforashesboutique.com/gekialrisowo.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Olá, eu sou Leo Lopes e está no ar o POD NOTÍCIAS, o podcast semanal que traz até você um resumo de tudo que acontece de mais importante no mercado de podcasts no Brasil e no mundo! Hoje é segunda-feira, dia 2 de setembro de 2024 e esta é a nossa vigésima nona edição! Este episódio conta com o apoio da CONTENT ACADEMY, uma plataforma de cursos online voltada para quem quer trabalhar com criação de conteúdo que já tem na plataforma cursos como True Crime com o Ivan Mizanzuk, Webjornalismo independente com Alvaro e Ana do Meteoro Brasil, Storytelling com o Kenji do Normose, Edição de vídeo para Youtube com o Will do Jogatina Maneira, o meu curso Podcast para todos (que tá com uma mega promoção por tempo limitado) e mais um monte de cursos incríveis! Então entra lá no site pra dar uma conferida em contentacademy.com.br! E a partir deste episódio o Pod Notícias também conta com o apoio da HostGator, um dos melhores serviços de hospedagem do mundo, onde nós hospedamos o nosso site e que dá para o nosso ouvinte até 70% de desconto em hospedagem compartilhada e 60% em servidores dedicados. Pra garantir esse desconto acesse podnoticias.com.br e clique no banner que fica no rodapé da página ou em qualquer postagem individual. 1 - Abrindo a edição de hoje, a gente vai falar sobre como a maioria dos ouvintes pretende ainda seguir ouvindo podcasts por muito tempo. De acordo com uma pesquisa da Cumulus Media com a WestWood One, que foi apresentada no evento Podcast Movement semana passada, mais de 85% da audiência de podcast está disposta a descobrir e conhecer novos programas. Aliás, eles estão dispostos a, inclusive, experimentar novos conteúdos também. Então a curiosidade sobre o formato acaba sendo maior que o preconceito com outros gêneros de programas. Segundo a pesquisa, é a coisa mais normal do mundo um ouvinte começar com um podcast de celebridades, por exemplo, e depois consumir podcasts de notícias, true crime, saúde mental e por aí vai. Ainda de acordo com o relatório, mais da metade dos ouvintes entrevistados ouve podcasts toda semana, e isso também é algo inédito. Os meios de descoberta preferidos do público para novos podcasts, continuam sendo as redes sociais, sendo a preferência de 20% dos entrevistados, e o YouTube com 18%. E se você ouviu esses dados e ficou se perguntando 'qual o melhor jeito de promover o seu podcast pra um novo público', a gente tem a resposta também: use "ganchos" e bom humor. Se você dá uma informação incompleta que gera curiosidade, o público vai se motivar a buscar o resto. E se a sua campanha for feita com o humor certo, você já conquista a audiência antes mesmo de ela ouvir o seu podcast. Link 2 - O Apple Podcasts já foi um grande líder no mercado de podcasting, mas algumas análises recentes do mercado mostram que a plataforma perdeu muito terreno pro YouTube e pro Spotify. De acordo com o último estudo da Cumulus Media com a Signal Hill Insights, nos dias de hoje, o YouTube é a plataforma mais popular para consumo de podcasts nos Estados Unidos, sendo a escolha principal de 31% dos entrevistados. O Spotify vem em segundo lugar com 21%, enquanto o Apple Podcasts caiu para a terceira posição, com só 12% de participação no mercado. Vários motivos foram apontados como os causadores desse declínio da marca: a falta de monetização até 2021, a limitação do acesso em dispositivos Android e Windows, e a falta de interesse em dar suporte pra vídeo - uma área que o YouTube abocanhou o mais rápido que pôde. Embora o Apple Podcasts continue vindo pré-instalado nos dispositivos da Apple, a empresa precisa repensar a sua estratégia para recuperar terreno no mercado. O lançamento recetente da versão web foi uma tentativa, né? Mas, por enquanto, não surtiu nenhum efeito significativo. Link 3 - E que "podcast" não é mais só programa em áudio a gente já está cansado de saber. Já tem pelo menos uns bons 2 anos aí que os podcasts em vídeo tão populares quanto os podcasts de áudio. Não dá mais pra ter aquele 'preciosismo' do áudio - quer dizer, até dá, o que não dá é pra tapar os ouvidos e fingir que o vídeo não é o maior produto do nosso mercado atualmente. No último ano, a gente teve um aumento global de 39% nas transmissões diárias de podcasts em vídeo, e mais da metade das pessoas que consomem podcast hoje em dia, prefere os videocasts. Tudo isso é um movimento natural do mercado, então a gente tem que aproveitar pra entender as novas oportunidades que o crescimento dos videocasts dá pra gente. Anúncios visuais, novos modelos de monetização, acessibilidade, fortalecimento de marca, maior engajamento... São várias. Então se você ainda tem algum receio ou birra com os videocasts, eu te aconselho a acessar o nosso portal do Pod Notícias em podnoticias.com.br, pra entender melhor por quê a gente tá falando sobre essas oportunidades. Se não te ajudar com o seu próprio programa, pode te dar um pouco mais de segurança, já que as mudanças do mercado não necessariamente mudam o seu público. O link da matéria vai estar, como sempre, na descrição desse episódio. Não deixa de conferir. Link AINDA EM NOTÍCIAS DA SEMANA: 4 - Infelizmente os Jogos Olímpicos já acabaram. Mas, para a nossa alegria, as Paralimpíadas começaram na semana passada e estão acontecendo agora em Paris. A delegação brasileira é uma das favoritas pra maioria das modalidades, e se você quer acompanhar as atualizações dos Jogos enquanto faz outras coisas, eu tenho uma boa notícia pra você. O podcast do Olympics.com, que cobriu os Jogos Olímpicos de 2024 em português, já lançou o seu primeiro episódio sobre os Jogos Paralímpicos no dia 28 de agosto - e o programa vai continuar cobrindo as Paralimpíadas até o final, no dia 8 de setembro. O primeiro episódio, apresentado por Sheila Vieira e Virgílio Neto, já teve entrevistas com os atletas Alana Maldonado do judô, e Fernando Rufino da canoagem. O podcast está disponível em todas as principais plataformas de áudio e vai trazer novos episódios a cada dois dias, que é pra você não perder nada de importante da competição. Link 5 - E nos últimos episódios a gente tem falado bastante do Headliner aqui, né, a plataforma que cria audiogramas a partir de podcasts. A empresa está fechando uma parceria atrás da outra, e a parceria da vez é com o Omny Studio da Triton Digital, onde nós hospedamos todos os nossos podcasts da Rádiofobia Podcast Network. Um serviço que, por sinal, é extremente recomendado pra você que tem uma rede de podcasts. A integração entre os dois serviços vai automatizar mais uma ponta do podcasting, deixando mais fácil pro usuário criar clipes de vídeo e transcrições de áudio automáticas dos seus programas, é muito legal. Por meio da integração, também dá pra publicar os audiogramas direto no YouTube, sem ter que baixar no computador ou no celular. Além disso, os usuários também vão ter acesso ao Podcast Metrics da Triton Digital, onde eles vão poder consultar os dados de downloads e visualizações num só lugar. São várias vantagens, principalmente pra quem produz podcast só no áudio, como é o caso da maioria dos podcasts que a gente produz aqui. Ter essa possibilidade de fazer um vídeo com ondas sonoras, né, aquelas soundwaves pra não perder audiência do YouTube, acaba sendo bem útil, inclusive é assim que o Pod Notícias é publicado lá. Link 6 - A plataforma de hospedagem RedCircle publicou na semana passada uma análise sobre o ciclo da publicidade em podcasts no hemisfério norte. A empresa fez uma observação interessante: a partir de setembro, a quantidade de anúncios em podcasts aumenta, e a atividade publicitária em geral se movimenta mais. E por que que isso acontece? Porque os anunciantes se planejam pra criar campanhas durante as férias de final de ano. Não é pra menos, com halloween, natal, ano novo, eleições, ação de graças, black friday e até dia de los muertos pra comunidades latinas... Os últimos meses do ano são mesmo cheios de ocasiões comerciais. Por conta disso, a demanda por anúncios nos podcasts é bem maior nessa época, que é quando os criadores de conteúdo tem mais oportunidades de monetização. Além da análise, a RedCircle também deu algumas dicas pros podcasters aproveitarem esse fenômeno: manter uma agenda de publicação de episódios consistente, ficar de olho na configuração adequada dos seus anúncios, e responder às marcas o mais rápido possível. E, é claro, nada de exagerar na publicidade. Receber pelo nosso trabalho é muito bom. Mas perder a sua audiência por encher o seu programa de anúncios, nem tanto. Precisa ter um equilíbrio. Link E MAIS: 7 - De acordo com o último relatório The Podcast Landscape 2024 da Sounds Profitable, mais da metade dos americanos com mais de 18 anos é ouvinte de podcast. A pesquisa foi feita com mais de 5 mil participantes voluntários, dos quais 53% é ouvinte mensal - e ano passado eram só 47%, hein. Além do aumento de ouvintes, a pesquisa também mostrou crescimento no consumo de podcasts entre mulheres e adultos com 55 anos ou mais. Quando perguntados sobre a plataforma em que consomem podcasts, o YouTube mais uma vez foi o líder, sendo indicado por 52% dos ouvintes. Vale lembrar que um aumento desse tamanho indica que a audiência é nova, então é compreensível que novas audiências tragam novas práticas pro mercado, e essas práticas vem de acordo com a sua cultura, idade, conhecimento tecnológico, etc. Então ainda tem muita coisa que pode mudar na indústria nos próximos anos. Link 8 - A Podimo, empresa de serviços de assinaturas em áudio, comprou a produtora holandesa de podcasts Tonny Media. Mas, fora os investimentos financeiros, a dinâmica não vai mudar muito; ambas empresas vão continuar trabalhando e se desenvolvendo independente uma da outra. Segundo os representantes da Podimo, a aquisição foi só a primeira de uma série de parcerias que vem por aí, na intenção de expandir a marca da Podimo e a presença da empresa no mercado europeu de podcasts. A Tonny Media é conhecida pela produção de alguns podcasts holandeses populares e bem-sucedidos. Eu não vou me arriscar a falar aqui o nome dos programas porque eles tem letra demais e vogais de menos, aí eu vou passar vergonha, mas um deles é o podcast dos próprios fundadores da Tonny, que anunciaram a novidade em todos os seus canais e redes sociais. Pelas declarações públicas dadas pelas empresas, todo mundo está muito satisfeito com essa parceria. Link 9 - E nas notícias rápidas do programa de hoje - porque tem muito mais coisa no nosso portal do que a gente consegue resumir aqui no podcast - o podcast esportivo New Heights, apresentado pelos irmãos Travis e Jason Kelce, foi adquirido pela Wondery num acordo de mais de NOVE dígitos, lembrando que isso é em DÓLAR. Agora, a Wondery detém os direitos de distribuição dos episódios, incluindo o catálogo que já existia, e vai poder criar adaptações internacionais do podcast se quiser. Alô, alô Wondery? Chama nós! O novo acordo permite que o podcast continue sendo publicados em outras plataformas, mas sem anúncios é só pros assinantes do Wondery Plus. Por fim, qualquer novo projeto dos irmãos Kelce em áudio, também vai ter que passar pelas mãos da Wondery primeiro. Tá no contrato, eles assinaram. E de acordo com a Rephonic, o podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, apresentado pelo Joe Rogan (é claro), é o podcast mais seguido no Spotify. O podcast conta com 15,2 milhões de seguidores, que é quase o triplo do segundo colocado. O TED Talks Daily, que tá com a medalha de prata, tem 5,2 milhões. Com isso, o Joe Rogan é considerado o maior influenciador de podcasts do mundo. Podia ser alguém um pouquinho melhor, né, não podia? Mas é isso aí. Parabéns. Link / Link HOJE NO GIRO SOBRE PESSOAS QUE FAZEM A MÍDIA: 10 - Nessa mesma matéria da Rephonic que colocou o Joe Rogan como o maior influencer de podcast do mundo, foi anunciado que o podcast que mais cresceu nos últimos 60 dias no Spotify, é do Brasil-sil-sil! O podcast É Nóia Minha?, apresentado pela Camila Fremder, teve o maior crescimento global no Spotify, com um aumento de 45% na sua base de seguidores. Nos últimos dois meses, o programa passou de 273 mil para 396 mil seguidores. E os nóiers comemoraram muito a conquista nas redes sociais. Quer saber o que a Camila tava pensando sobre isso? Então acessa o nosso portal do Pod Notícias, porque a gente entrou em contato com ela pra saber (e também pra parabenizar ela por esse marco, claro). Mas eu te adianto aqui que ela não estava acreditando muito que fosse verdade. Era nóia dela, claramente. Enfim. O É Nóia Minha?, que fala sobre ansiedades e dilemas do cotidiano, já tem mais de 300 episódios e 31 milhões de plays. E ele foi o único podcast brasileiro a aparecer no ranking dos 25 mais crescidos do globo. Fica aqui os nossos parabéns pra Camila Fremder, e que o Nóia continue batendo várias metas no Brasil e no mundo. Sem nóia hein! Link 11 - O podcast O Assunto, apresentado atualmente pela Natuza Nery e produzido pelo G1, completou nessa última semana 5 anos, com quase 150 milhões de reproduções e mais ou menos 1.300 episódios. O programa é lançado diariamente, e discute temas variados como política, economia, saúde e tecnologia, sempre atualizado com as notícias mais recentes da semana. A Natuza, que assumiu a apresentação em 2022, falou sobre como é importante um programa como o deles, conseguir adaptar o conteúdo de última hora sempre que é preciso. Programa diário tem dessas coisas, mesmo, e a equipe dO Assunto está de parabéns, porque são 5 anos fazendo um trabalho excepcional e exemplar na podosfera brasileira e que ajudou muito o podcast a ganhar visibilidade, com toda citação que teve nos noticiários da Globo desde o seu lançamento, o que ajudou a popularizar também a palavra "podcast". São 5 anos de notícias, 5 anos de discussões importantes, de bolas sendo levantadas pra um público que não daria atenção se fosse em outro formato... Enfim, são 5 anos de trabalho consistente que merece os nossos parabéns. E que venham os próximos 5 anos aí agora. Link 12 - E na semana passada a gente perguntou na nossa Caixinha de Perguntas do Instagram "Quem era o seu apresentador (ou apresentadora) de podcast favorito". E antes do Instagram engolir a nossa caixinha DE NOVO porque mais uma vez sumiu (valeu hein, Meta?), a gente conseguiu algumas respostas. E como aqui a gente mata a cobra e mostra a bota, nós vamos explanar os nomes que foram mencionados: Pedro Duarte, Lana Távora, Kell Bonassoli, Leo Lopes (não conheço), Thiago Miro, Bibo, Mabê Bonafé, Lucas Inutilismo, Cainã Ito, Cristiano Botafogo, Déia Freitas, Camila Fremder, Rômulo Konzen e Vicky Hope. Foram os citados antes que a nossa Caixinha desaparecesse. Se as nossas respostas não tivessem sumido, teria mais gente, com certeza. Mas já é bem legal ver tanto nome de amigos nossos, gente conhecida, gente lembrada, gente que tá começando, gente pioneira! Um grande abraço a todos que responderam a Caixinha e a todos que foram mencionados nela. A gente segue trabalhando pra fazer o podcast brasileiro cada vez melhor. E se você ainda não segue, o nosso perfil é no Instagram é o @pod.noticias. Segue a gente lá, que é pra não perder as nossas interações e as notícias que a gente publica também por lá ao longo da semana. Instagram Pod Notícias SOBRE LANÇAMENTOS: 13 - Na última sexta-feira, o Ecomuseu dos Campos de São José - que, é claro, fica em São José dos Campos - lançou o Prosacast, numa parceria com a Petrobrás através do Programa Petrobras Socioambiental. O podcast fala de temas como patrimônio cultural, educação ambiental, e a atuação do próprio Ecomuseu. Cada episódio vai trazer convidados que são especialistas nas suas áreas de atuação, pra discutir e informar o público sobre todos os aspectos da museologia ecológica e as suas interações com a comunidade. Todos os episódios vão ser disponibilizados no site do Ecomuseu e nas redes sociais do projeto. Link 14 - E na última quinta-feira, dia 29 de agosto, foi ao ar o primeiro episódio da quarta temporada do podcast "Ambiente de Música" do Choque de Cultura. É isso mesmo, a genialidade dos apresentadores Maurílio dos Anjos, Julinho da Van e Renan de Almeida está de volta. A nova temporada vai ter 13 episódios inéditos, lançados semanalmente até o dia 21 de novembro. Entre os temas que vão ser discutidos pelos "grandes nomes do transporte alternativo brasileiro", estão: nepo babies brasileiros, Rock in Rio, e o fim do reggae nacional. Polêmica, hein? O Ambiente de Música está disponível nas principais plataformas de áudio. É muito engraçado, muito informativo, então não deixa de conferir. Link RECOMENDAÇÃO NACIONAL: 15 - E na nossa recomendação nacional dessa semana, o programa indicado é o Amores Possíveis, apresentado pela comunicadora e pesquisadora Carol Tilkian. O programa oferece uma reflexão mais profunda sobre como estão funcionando as relações amorosas nos dias de hoje. Parte do trabalho da Carol é considerar questões como ansiedade, medo de compromisso, as expectativas que as pessoas tem quando buscam o amor... São episódios semanais onde a Carol recebe convidados como psicólogos e terapeutas, pra realmente discutir as tendências afetivas atuais. E eu acho que as pessoas não param muito pra pensar sobre isso, mas você percebe o quanto as dinâmicas de relacionamento mudaram de uns tempos pra cá? Hoje em dia tem esses negócios de "conversante", "ficante", "ficante plus", "olhante" e por aí vai. Eu sou velho demais pra isso, mas existe. E ainda bem que eu já sou comprometido, porque imagina ter que aprender todas as regras novas a essa altura do campeonato! Se bem que eu tive que reaprender depois de velho, então eu não posso falar muito. O podcast está disponível em todas as principais plataformas de áudio, então fica aqui a nossa recomendação pra todos que querem construir boas relações e descobrir o que realmente são 'amores possíveis'. Link E se você, assim como a HostGator e a Content Academy, quiser anunciar a sua marca, produto ou serviço com a gente aqui no Pod Notícias – tanto no podcast como no nosso site – e atingir um público qualificado que se interessa pelo podcast aqui no Brasil, manda um e-mail pro contato@podnoticias.com.br, que nós vamos ter o maior prazer em conversar com você sobre as nossas opções de publicidade. E caso você queira colaborar com a gente com texto, sugestão de pauta ou envio de notícias, também vai ser muito bem-vindo e pode fazer isso através do mesmo e-mail. E assim a gente fecha esta vigésima nona edição do Pod Notícias. Acesse podnoticias.com.br para ter acesso à íntegra das notícias com todas as fontes e a transcrição completa do episódio, além dos artigos dos nossos colunistas e todos os links relacionados. Acompanhe o Pod Notícias diariamente:- Canal público do Telegram- Instagram- Page do Linkedin Ouça o Pod Notícias nos principais agregadores:- Spotify- Apple Podcasts- Deezer- Amazon Music- PocketCasts O Pod Notícias é uma produção original da Rádiofobia Podcast e Multimídia e publicado pela Rádiofobia Podcast Network, e conta com as colaborações de:- Camila Nogueira - arte- Eduardo Sierra - edição- Lana Távora - pesquisa, pauta e redação final- Leo Lopes - direção geral e apresentação- Thiago Miro - pesquisa Publicidade:Entre em contato e saiba como anunciar sua marca, produto ou serviço no Pod Notícias.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sharon Taylor, Senior Vice President of Podcast Strategy and Product Operations at Triton, discusses her career journey from hospitality management to podcasting. She joined Omny Studio in 2016, initially on a contract basis, and later becoming CEO. Sharon highlights the evolution of Omny Studio from a radio tool to a comprehensive podcast platform, and its acquisition by Triton. She emphasizes the importance of brand safety and suitability in podcast advertising, and introduces Sounder, a tool developed by Triton to enhance contextual analysis and ad targeting. Sharon also touches on the challenges and opportunities for Canadian podcasters, noting the need for a unified approach and diverse revenue streams.We also spent some time discussing the power of mobility; she has moved on multiple occasions across numerous time zones. She's currently living in my hometown of Montreal where the food is the best in Canada. Her favourite restaurant? Nyk's Bistro on Bleury. (Not to be confused with the landmark Chez Nick's on Greene Avenue in Westmount) Take a date to Nyk's, take your mother to Nick's) Thanks to the following organizations for supporting the show:Nlogic - TV & Radio Audience Data SolutionsMary Anne Ivison at Ivison Voice. - Make her the female voice of your radio station.Matt Fogarty Voiceovers - It's great to have Matt back for 2024 supporting our show. Make him the imaging voice for your radio station by contacting him through his website.Megatrax - Licensed Music for your radio station or podcast production company.Also we added the Sound Off Podcast to the The Open Podcast Prefix Project (OP3) A free and open-source podcast prefix analytics service committed to open data and listener privacy. You can be a nosey parker by checking out our downloads here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Entérate de lo que está cambiando el podcasting y el marketing digital:-Omny Studio y Headliner se unen para facilitar que los creadores de pódcast lleguen a más oyentes en YouTube.-Anunciantes buscan garantizar la seguridad de sus campañas.-Zoom lanza nueva función que permite realizar webinars con hasta un millón de participantes.-Los expertos en podcasting reaccionan al artículo de The Hollywood Reporter sobre los desafíos de los pódcast.-Descargas vs. Compromiso.Pódcast recomendadoMenopáusicas ¡y qué! Un espacio que busca resignificar la menopausia y mostrar que es una fase llena de nuevos retos y oportunidades. A través de conversaciones sinceras, el pódcast fomenta la equidad de género.Patrocinadores: ¡Comienza, crece, sigue y gana con tu pódcast en un solo lugar! Descubre la forma más fácil de iniciar, hacer crecer, rastrear y monetizar tu contenido con RSS.com.Entérate, en solo cinco minutos, sobre las noticias, herramientas, tips y recursos que te ayudarán a crear un pódcast genial y exitoso. Subscríbete a la “newsletter“ de Via Podcast.

Olá, eu sou Leo Lopes e este é o POD NOTÍCIAS, a sua dose semanal de informação sobre o mercado de podcasts no Brasil e no mundo! Hoje é segunda-feira, dia 19 de fevereiro de 2024 e esta é a nossa terceira edição! 1 - Agora que o carnaval já passou e o "ano útil" do brasileiro finalmente começou de fato, a gente começa essa edição falando sobre uma análise minuciosa de como anda o podcasting na América Latina. No ano passado, o continente latino americano já somava 135,2 milhões de ouvintes de podcasts, com o Brasil sendo o país latino com a maior parcela deles, com 51,8 milhões de ouvintes. Algumas previsões baseadas em pesquisas da Insider Intelligence, Emarketer e Genuina Media, sugerem que até o ano que vem a América Latina vai ultrapassar a América do Norte em número de ouvintes, e que até 2027 vai ser a região que mais produz e consome podcasts no mundo. Segundo a análise, que foi feita pelo David Gonzalez da Genuina Media, as únicas amarras que estão impedindo o podcast de crescer ainda mais rápido, são a dificuldade de acesso à internet em algumas regiões e o aspecto financeiro da indústria, que ainda não é o ideal. Pra entender o que ele quis dizer com isso, é só comparar os números de investimento do ano passado: na América Latina, foram movimentados no total 62 milhões de dólares em podcasts, enquanto só nos Estados Unidos, no mesmo período, foram mais de dois bilhões de dólares. Em compensação, a América Latina tem uma coisa que falta nos países de primeiro mundo: um ecossistema cultural muito mais diverso e rico, cheio de vozes que querem falar, e ouvidos ávidos por ouvir. Então, nos próximos anos, os podcasts latinos tendem a ser uma potencia mundial. Eu tenho certeza disso. Fonte 2 - E a plataforma Omny Studio lançou a terceira edição do seu relatório de benchmarking, ou "estudo de concorrência", pra saber se o seu podcast está (ou não) com um bom público. Segundo o estudo, o número de downloads necessários pra estar entre 1% dos programas mais consumidos, caiu no ano passado. Em 2022, você precisava de 50 mil downloads por episódio pra garantir que o seu podcast estava entre o 1% mais popular. Já em 2023, a quantidade necessária de downloads foi de pouco mais de 43 mil. A mudança levantou questionamentos de que isso poderia ser por dois motivos principais: as atualizações do iOS17 da Apple, que acabou com os downloads automáticos de podcast, e o aumento no número de podcasts ativos. Independente de qual tenha sido o caso, uma conclusão do relatório foi muito clara: se o seu podcast tem mais de 92 downloads por episódio, ele já está indo melhor do que a metade dos podcasts que tem por aí. É isso mesmo que você ouviu: com 92 downloads você já está entre os 50% mais ouvidos. Então nada de desanimar, achando que está tendo pouco público, viu? Fonte AINDA EM NOTÍCIAS DA SEMANA: 3 - No último dia 12, semana passada, a gente comemorou o 20º aniversário do podcasting! Ou melhor, da palavra "podcasting", que foi usada pela primeira vez em fevereiro de 2004, pelo jornalista Ben Hammersley na sua matéria “Audible Revolution” no periódico britânico The Guardian. Até então, a gente não usava a palavra 'podcast' para definir os programas em áudio que hoje em dia a gente conhece tão bem. Antes de existir como produto, o podcast era só uma forma de distribuição dos arquivos em áudio – geralmente curtos e de baixa qualidade – que os blogueiros começaram a incorporar nos seus textos. Na época, isso era chamado de "audioblogging". Aí o Ben usou a palavra podcasting no seu texto, que depois foi usada em uma lista de e-mails de desenvolvedores do iPodder, aí o Adam Curry (o nosso podfather) também começou a usar, e o resto é história. Desde então, os podcasts se tornaram uma parte essencial da vida de muitas pessoas, incluindo nós do Pod Notícias e você, nosso ouvinte. Então hoje a gente comemora, e torce pra que venham (pelo menos) mais 20 anos de sucesso pra todos nós e pro podcasting! Fonte 4 - O Spotify está aumentando a sua parceria com a Riverside para oferecer novos recursos de gravação de podcasts dentro do Spotify for Podcasters. A intenção da parceria é dar aos usuários novas ferramentas pra criar e editar seus podcasts de forma mais eficiente, inclusive com gravações remotas e entrevistas em vídeo. Só que, ao mesmo tempo, o Spotify está descontinuando recursos originais, como o formato experimental "Música + Papo", que permitia que o criador de conteúdo incluísse faixas de música licenciadas, dentro dos episódios de podcast. Engraçado esse recurso não ter dado certo, sendo que o podcaster brasileiro é um que adora usar música. Será que o problema foi o Música + Papo, ou a falta de experiência do Spotify com formatos diferentes de podcast? Fica a questã, né... Além disso, outros recursos de gravação como "Gravar com amigos" e "Mensagem de voz", também serão encerrados. As mudanças entram em vigor a partir de junho deste ano. Fonte 5 - Mais de 100 escolas públicas de Nova York estão substituindo os seus sinos por podcasts educacionais em formato compacto, chamados de "Mini Pods". A iniciativa foi implantada pela SonarCloud com a empresa ABF Creative, e lançada em fevereiro para coincidir com o Mês da História Negra. O projeto tem a intenção de atingir diariamente mais de 300 mil crianças e adolescentes com conteúdo educacional diverso, ao invés do sinal barulhento durante as trocas de aulas. Os mini pods, que refletem a diversidade cultural da cidade, serão sobre temas como a história negra, comunidades estrangeiras, políticas públicas e aprendizado emocional - tudo selecionado de acordo com o que é apropriado para as idades das crianças, é claro. Seguindo o exemplo da cidade de Nova York, outras escolas americanas também planejam adotar os mini pods como alternativa pro sinal da troca de aulas. A Sonar e a ABF já estão apresentando a ideia para governos municipais por todos os Estados Unidos. Mais detalhes sobre a iniciativa estão disponíveis para consulta em GetSonarCloud.com. Fonte E MAIS: 6 - O PodNight, programa do SBT que vai levar os podcasts para a TV aberta todas as noites, já tem uma data de estreia: dia 26 de fevereiro. A emissora já tinha anunciado o PodNight no ano passado, quando também revelou que nomes como PodDelas, Flow e Venus já estavam confirmados como atrações. O programa promete levar o conceito interativo e democrático da internet para a TV - e eles estão levando o conceito de "internet para a TV" tão à sério, que também anunciaram a participação de influencers digitais e personalidades como Regina Volpato, Michele Barros, Tirullipa e Lucas Neto. Por enquanto, a gente ainda não sabe qual vai ser o papel dessa galera na programação. O SBT já está passando a chamada para o PodNight durante os intervalos da programação do canal, e se você quiser ver o vídeo, a gente disponibilizou ele no nosso LinkedIn do Pod Notícias. Não deixa de conferir e seguir a gente lá também, que é pra não perder as notícias sobre podcast que nós postamos todos os dias. Fonte 7 - E fazia tempo que a gente não tinha um momento "É mole?" nas notícias sobre podcast, mas ele sempre dá um jeito de voltar: o de hoje, é que a cantora Taylor Swift é considerada uma "influencer de podcast" - sem ter um podcast. Acontece que o namorado dela, o jogador de futebol americano Travis Kelce, do time Kansas City Chiefs, tem um. E o programa dele está, atualmente, entre os 10 programas mais populares do mundo. O nome do podcast é "News Heights com Jason e Travis Kelce", um programa de comentários que o Travis apresenta junto com o seu irmão. A Edison Research divulgou sua lista dos principais podcasts durante o quarto trimestre de 2023 e descobriu que o "efeito Taylor Swift" alavancou os números de audiência do podcast. De acordo com o novo ranking de popularidade dos podcasts americanos, o New Heights já é mais popular do que o This American Life e o podcast do Ben Shapiro. Segundo a The Verge, isso aconteceu porque os fãs da Taylor Swift começaram a acompanhar o podcast dos irmãos Kelce depois que foi confirmado o relacionamento entre a cantora e o jogador de futebol, em outubro do ano passado. Eu poderia fazer a pergunta "É só isso que precisa pra ser um "influencer de podcast" hoje em dia?", mas como é a Taylor Swift, a gente perdoa, certo? Fonte HOJE NO GIRO SOBRE PESSOAS QUE FAZEM A MÍDIA: 8 - Depois de dois anos de um hiato que não foi sequer anunciado, o DumbCast está de volta. Pra quem não conhece o podcast que é autodeclarado "o mais IDIOTA da internet", ele é apresentado pelo Jef Barbosa, o Igor Yozen, o Johnny Brussulo e o Evandro, que voltaram à ativa no mesmo formato de sempre: 4 ou 5 tontos sem filtro, fazendo piada de quinta série. O episódio de retorno foi postado na semana passada, mas já estava gravado desde outubro de 2022. Dizem eles que agora vai ter episódio novo do DumbCast todo mês. Vamos ver, né Jef? Porque falar, até papagaio fala. Fonte 9 - E na última semana, a gente abriu a caixa de perguntas do nosso Instagram, @pod.noticias, questionando os nossos ouvintes sobre quais são os maiores desafios que eles enfrentam como produtores de podcast. Dessa vez não tem como a gente fazer uma lista de todas as respostas, que nem no episódio anterior, porque foi muita coisa diferente, mas a gente notou que boa parte dos desafios tem solução - e os nossos ouvintes mandam muito bem em encontrar soluções pra eles. Pode ser no jeitinho brasileiro, pode ser na força de vontade, na força do ódio, não importa, se tem uma coisa que o produtor de podcast no Brasil faz, é dar um jeito. Outra coisa que a gente percebeu foi o quanto a síndrome do impostor ainda é um negócio presente pro criador de conteúdo, porque algumas das respostas foram "eu mesmo", "meu perfeccionismo", e derivados. A interpretação das métricas também continua sendo uma dificuldade, e parece que é um consenso que um grande desafio do podcaster brasileiro é o de "furar a bolha" e atingir audiências novas. Se você não teve a oportunidade de participar dessa discussão e quer adicionar o seu ponto de vista, pode comentar sobre isso nas nossas redes sociais. Mesmo sem a caixa de perguntas, a gente sempre quer saber a sua opinião. Instagram Pod Notícias 10 - E inspirados na manchete dessa edição, a caixinha de perguntas dessa semana é: Você acompanha algum podcast em outro idioma? A caixa vai ficar aberta nos stories do Instagram do Pod Notícias por 24 horas, então não deixe de acessar lá ainda hoje pra deixar a sua contribuição, e também siga a gente em @pod.noticias. Instagram Pod Notícias SOBRE LANÇAMENTOS: 10 - No próximo sábado, dia 24 de fevereiro, a TVT estreia o podcast "Roda de Pogo", que explora o universo do skate não apenas como um esporte, mas como uma expressão cultural e de resistência nas ruas de São Paulo. O programa, apresentado por Henrique Celso e Bruno Rinaldi Hupfer da Federação Paulista de Skate, vai falar sobre a inclusão social promovida pelo skate, a solidariedade presente na comunidade dos skatistas, e o aspecto político da cultura de rua. O primeiro episódio conta com a presença do jornalista e skatista Cesar Calejon, e o segundo episódio vai falar principalmente sobre o projeto de inclusão social do Instituto Sonhe na região da Cracolândia, com participação dos skatistas Luiz Carlos (Bob), e Vitória Pinheiro. O Roda de Pogo vai ser lançado semanalmente, sempre aos sábados. Fonte RECOMENDAÇÃO NACIONAL: 11 - E se você quer ficar por dentro das principais notícias do Brasil e do mundo, de uma forma mais leve e descontraída, a recomendação nacional da semana é para você! É o podcast "the news", apresentado pelo Du e o Vini e produzido pelo Grupo Waffle. O the news nasceu como uma newsletter, que conquistou mais de 2 milhões de leitores, entregando as notícias todos os dias às 6:06 da manhã, diretamente no e-mail dos assinantes. O podcast, assim como a newsletter, também é diário. Então agora você também pode começar o seu dia muito bem informado, acompanhando um jornal com uma abordagem mais tranquila, e que não vai te deixar alarmado e ansioso logo cedo. O que vai te acelerar é o 'café sem açúcar' que os apresentadores recomendam você tomar enquanto ouve. Seja no seu trajeto para o trabalho, durante o café da manhã ou em qualquer momento do seu dia, o the news é uma excelente fonte sobre as principais notícias do mundo, Brasil, mercado financeiro e tecnologia. Então assine o feed no seu agregador favorito, aperte o play, e fique mais informado a cada episódio. Link E assim a gente fecha esta terceira edição do Pod Notícias. Acesse podnoticias.com.br para ter acesso à transcrição e os links das fontes de todas as notícias deste episódio! Acompanhe o Pod Notícias diariamente:- Page do Linkedin- Instagram- Canal público do Telegram Ouça o Pod Notícias nos principais agregadores:- Spotify- Apple Podcasts- Deezer- Amazon Music- PocketCasts O Pod Notícias é uma produção original da Rádiofobia Podcast e Multimídia e publicado pela Rádiofobia Podcast Network, e conta com as colaborações de:- Camila Nogueira - arte- Eduardo Sierra - edição- Lana Távora - pesquisa, pauta e redação final- Leo Lopes - direção geral e apresentação- Thiago Miro - pesquisa Publicidade:Entre em contato e saiba como anunciar sua marca, produto ou serviço no Pod Notícias.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we're going to answer the question — Which podcast hosting platform is right for you? We're breaking down 7 popular podcast hosting platforms, discussing their features and providing key differentiators. And then we'll tell you the platform that we use for 99% of our clients and why. The 7 hosts we're discuss are Libsyn, Simplecast, Buzzsprout, Omny Studio, Anchor (now Spotify for Podcasters), Megaphone and Transistor.fm.Are you feeling stuck with your podcast? Learn about our Podcast Strategy Sessions.2:28 Libsyn4:35 Dynamic vs. baked-in ads6:35 Simplecast7:39 Buzzsprout9:00 Omny Studio12:07 Anchor (Spotify for Podcasters)14:22 Megaphone16:15 Transistor.fmNew podcaster? Grab the Podcast Starter Kit.--------------------------------------------► Need help launching a podcast? We do that!► Need a professional podcast editor? It's our specialty.► Recommended Podcast GearMicrophoneHeadphonesEarbudsWebcam► Recording remote podcasts like us? Use Riverside!► We use Transitor.fm to host our podcast and you should, too.Disclosure: We only endorse products and services that we've personally used or come highly recommended by trusted sources. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

ABERTURA SEGUNDA-FEIRA, 11 DE DEZEMBRO DE 2023. EU SOU LEO LOPES  E ESTÁ NO AR O CASTNEWS, O PODCAST SEMANAL QUE EM MAIS OU MENOS 15 MINUTOS INFORMA VOCÊ SOBRE TUDO O QUE ACONTECE DE MAIS IMPORTANTE NO MERCADO DE PODCASTS NO BRASIL E NO MUNDO. Escalada A previsão de que o podcast será a mídia a crescer mais no próximo ano, a inserção de podcasts pelo SBT na grade de TV aberta, o lançamento do primeiro podcast do Instagram e a terceira onda de demissões do ano no Spotify estão entre as principais notícias que você vai ouvir nesta 45ª edição do Castnews! NOTÍCIAS 1 – A última semana foi muito agitada pra podosfera no mundo inteiro, muita coisa aconteceu, então esta edição tá especialmente recheada de informações! E a gente começa falando do último relatório da Nielsen sobre o consumo de podcasts. De acordo com a pesquisa, o podcasting é a mídia que mais vai crescer nos próximos seis a 12 meses. 21% dos entrevistados na pesquisa planejam aumentar a escuta de podcasts ano que vem, e este é o maior índice de aumento em comparação com todas as outras mídias, já que nenhuma das outras ultrapassou 12%. E o contrário também é impressionante: só 6% dos ouvintes pretendem ouvir menos podcasts em 2024, e esse também foi o número mais baixo do relatório. A geração Z e a geração Y são os grupos em que a escuta de podcasts mais vai se expandir. Vale lembrar que nos últimos três anos o podcast teve um aumento de escuta de 40% no mundo todo, quase duas vezes maior que o consumo de televisão e de redes sociais, por exemplo. O relatório da Nielsen também trouxe dados sobre como o consumidor de podcast encara os anúncios em áudio, e você pode conferir tudo na íntegra lá no portal do Castnews em castnews.com.br . 2 – O SBT (o Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão, ma oe) anunciou na semana passada, que a partir de 2024, vai começar a integrar podcasts na sua programação, no chamado “PodNight”. Segundo a emissora, o objetivo é levar pra TV o “conceito interativo, democrático e moderno” que a internet oferece pros criadores de conteúdo. Alguns dos nomes já confirmados pra esse projeto são o PodDelas, Flow, podcast Venus, Podcast Papagaio Falante e o Inteligência Ltda.  Além disso, o SBT também contratou influencers e personalidades pra fazer parte do PodNight, só não disseram ainda qual vai ser o papel dessa galera na programação. Regina Volpato, Michele Barros, Tirullipa e Lucas Neto são alguns deles. O comunicado oficial da empresa mencionou que as novidades não param por aí. Será que as outras novidades também vão ter a ver com a fase podcaster do SBT? Vamos acompanhar. 3 – O levantamento mensal da LiveWire sobre podcasting, mostrou que em novembro o Spotify for Podcasters foi a plataforma que mais publicou episódios, sendo responsável por 30% do total. Quem veio na sequência foi o Buzzsprout, com 8%, e o Spreaker com 5%. Foram, no total, 1,8 milhões de episódios publicados em novembro, 5% a menos do que em outubro. Lá embaixo do ranking apareceram as plataformas Omny Studio, Megaphone, Podbean e Libsyn, cada um contribuindo com porcentagens entre 4% e 4,5%. AINDA EM NOTÍCIAS DA SEMANA: 4 – E agora falando da empresa Spotify, semana passada aconteceu mais uma onda de demissões, em que mais de 1.500 funcionários foram dispensados pouco antes do natal. Esse tá sendo um ano difícil pra quem trabalha no Spotify, porque além da empresa estar ameaçando se retirar de alguns países por conta de reformas tributárias (como a gente já anunciou aqui no caso do Uruguai), esse foi o terceiro grande corte de pessoal do ano. Segundo o CEO Daniel Ek, essas demissões foram necessárias pra “alinhar a empresa com objetivos futuros”. Agora a gente se pergunta: quais objetivos são esses? Porque a base de usuários do Spotify teve um crescimento contínuo ao longo de todo o ano, e os lucros trimestrais da empresa também aumentaram… Então é uma declaração, no mínimo, esquisita. Pouco depois da empresa anunciar as demissões, o CFO da empresa Paul Vogel decidiu não continuar a trabalhar na empresa. O Spotify já tá procurando alguém pra substituir o executivo, que continua trabalhando com eles até o final de seu contrato, em março de 2024. 5 – Mas agora mudando de assunto pra algo bem legal, o curso de jornalismo da Universidade Federal do Ceará tem oferecido oficinas de podcast para escolas públicas estaduais de Fortaleza, através do Projeto de Extensão “Cruzacast”. A primeira sessão aconteceu na Escola de Ensino Médio de Tempo Integral Jenny Gomes, onde 19 alunos aprenderam sobre temas como produção, roteiro e edição de podcasts. Com as instruções, eles produziram 5 episódios do “Jennycast”, que foi elogiado pelo coordenador do projeto, Ismar Capistrano. A mesma oficina aconteceu na Escola de Ensino Médio Cláudio Martins, com 10 estudantes envolvidos. O Jennycast não foi lançado oficialmente, mas segundo a coordenadora Lúcia Regina, os alunos estão ansiosos pra ver os episódios finalizados. Uma iniciativa muito legal do Cruzacast. Lá no começo do ano a gente falou do CESINcast de Belém do Pará, e que a gente torcia pra “essa moda pegar”, e agora a gente fica muito feliz de ver que tá pegando mesmo. 6 – O aplicativo de podcasts para iOS, Castro, negou os rumores recentes sobre o encerramento de suas atividades, desmentindo a publicação de um ex-funcionário que alegava ter ouvido sobre o encerramento, de membros da alta gestão. O aplicativo ficou inativo por um tempo por conta de problemas nos servidores, mas a equipe se manifestou dizendo que esses boatos eram falsos. Eles garantem que estão trabalhando em continuar aprimorando o aplicativo, e prometem que vão manter o público informado sobre o futuro do serviço. E MAIS: 7 – A Riverside.fm lançou um aplicativo para iPhone que permite aos usuários da plataforma gravar conteúdo de alta qualidade diretamente nos dispositivos móveis dos seus convidados. Só que o aplicativo é destinado apenas pros convidados, já que o host ainda precisa usar a versão pra computador. Segundo a Riverside, o processo de gravação pelo app é muito simples, com o arquivo sendo carregado direto na nuvem. A empresa compartilhou em seu site oficial um guia passo a passo de 6 etapas para orientar o host sobre o uso do app. O manual também tem uma versão em vídeo no YouTube. 8 – E o Google anunciou o encerramento oficial do Google Podcasts nos Estados Unidos para abril de 2024. Os usuários agora devem migrar para o YouTube Music ou outros aplicativos de podcast. Pros ouvintes americanos, a próxima atualização do Google Podcasts vai conter um banner na parte superior, escrito “Exportar assinaturas”. A página de instruções de migrações já tá disponível para alguns usuários dos Estados Unidos. 9 – A partir da próxima atualização da Tesla, o Apple Podcasts vai virar um aplicativo nativo de alguns dos veículos da empresa. A atualização vai ser lançada nos Modelos S, 3, X, Y e Cybertruck. O anúncio foi feito através do Twitter da Tesla, que na última semana publicou uma lista com os próximos updates de seus produtos (que eles fazem todo ano, durante as férias). 10 – E nas dicas de produção da semana, você vai aprender como usar as ferramentas de pesquisas online para entender o pensamento do seu público e melhorar o seu podcast. Além disso, a gente vai te informar sobre quais foram os quatro principais aprendizados que você pode tirar do Podcast Growth Summit, o evento que reuniu várias figuras importantes do podcasting para discutir tópicos como audiência, marketing e monetização. Esses e vários outros insights estão disponíveis, na íntegra, lá na aba “produção” do Castnews, onde você encontra tutoriais, instruções, dicas e muito mais, pra deixar o seu programa cada vez melhor. HOJE NO GIRO SOBRE PESSOAS QUE FAZEM A MÍDIA:  11 – O podcast cearense exclusivo do Spotify, “Indo e Voltando”, anunciou seu fim na última semana. A equipe do podcast, Camila Freitas, Eduardo Porto e Lyara Vidal percebeu que eles não estavam conseguindo mais conciliar o podcast com os seus trabalhos formais – o que já tinha sido notado pelo público, porque o programa já teve longos hiatos entre os episódios. O podcast tinha acumulado uma pontuação de 4,9 no Spotify, com mais de 4 mil avaliações, e quase 13 mil seguidores no Twitter. Comunicado triste pros fãs do Indo e Voltando. Embora não existam planos pra um retorno, a equipe declarou que tem interesse em disponibilizar o podcast em outras plataformas depois que acabar o contrato exclusivo com o Spotify. SOBRE LANÇAMENTOS: 12 – Na quinta-feira passada, foi lançado o podcast Close Friends Only, primeiro podcast do Instagram. O episódio de lançamento apresenta uma conversa entre as cantoras Ice Spice e Doja Cat, que falam sobre memes favoritos, experiências no Instagram e assuntos pessoais. Segundo o Instagram, que deu pouquíssimas informações sobre o podcast antes do lançamento, o objetivo do programa é oferecer conversas sobre moda, amizade, memes e outros temas presentes na plataforma. O Close Friends Only tem produção executiva da Sun-ny Side Up e foi criado em colaboração com a The Unwell Network. O primeiro episódio já está disponível no Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts e YouTube. 13 – E no dia 1º de dezembro foi ao ar a audiossérie “Envenenados”, com seis episódios sobre o sequestro de um popstar em São Paulo. Na série, a investigação sobre o sequestro é liderada por um delegado que também tem que lidar com a morte do seu cachorro. O thriller policial, produzido pelo Chris Goldenbaum e dirigido pela Susana Ribeiro, tem um roteiro não-linear e conta com um elenco profissional de peso que gravou toda a série no mesmo espaço. Não só vale a pena dar o seu play, como também vale deixar o feedback, porque o pessoal que produziu tá ansioso pra saber tudo o que público achou do projeto! RECOMENDAÇÃO NACIONAL:  14 – E na nossa recomendação nacional da semana, a indicação vai pro podcast “Minuto Saúde Mental”, publicado pelo Jornal da USP. O podcast foi lançado em 2021, e desde então tem falado de tópicos de saúde e transtornos mentais com muita responsabilidade e profissionalismo. Já são mais de 80 episódios publicados, todos eles são bem curtinhos, mas com muita informação e incentivo à busca por ajuda sempre que necessário. E a indicação não é só nossa não, viu, porque o Minuto Saúde Mental foi reconhecido pelo Prêmio Acessa 2023, como um dos três projetos brasileiros que melhor propagam informações sobre saúde. Então além da indicação pro podcast fica aqui também os nossos parabéns pra toda a equipe e todos os envolvidos no Minuto Saúde Mental, que tá fazendo um trabalho exemplar e constante. O programa tá disponível em todas as principais plataformas de áudio. E você sempre pode divulgar trabalhos e oportunidades dentro da indústria do podcast, aqui no Castnews. Sejam vagas remuneradas ou vagas de participação em projetos, manda pra gente no e-mail contato@castnews.com.br que elas vão ser publicadas na nossa newsletter, que é enviada duas vezes por semana: na quarta e na sexta-feira. Além disso, você também pode mandar uma pequena apresentação do seu podcast, e se ele for o escolhido, vai aparecer aqui na nossa recomendação nacional da semana. ENCERRAMENTO E CTA E ESSAS FORAM AS NOTÍCIAS DESTA QUADRAGÉSIMA QUINTA EDIÇÃO DO CASTNEWS! VOCÊ PODE LER A ÍNTEGRA DE TODAS AS NOTÍCIAS E ASSINAR A NEWSLETTER EM CASTNEWS.COM.BR. AJUDE O CASTNEWS A CRESCER ESPALHANDO O LINK DESTE EPISÓDIO EM SUAS REDES SOCIAIS E ASSINANDO O FEED DO PODCAST PARA RECEBER EM PRIMEIRA MÃO OS EPISÓDIOS ASSIM QUE FOREM PUBLICADOS. 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Manuela: This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Manuela Bedoya. Shreya: And I'm Shreya Sharma.This week: Podcasting a ‘bright spot' at SXM Media, Amplifi Media CEO counters ‘jarring headlines,' new Black Podcast Listener Report from SXM and Mindshare, and the state of Google in podcasting.Let's get started.Podcasting remains ‘a bright spot' at SXM MediaManuela: ‘Tis the season of quarterly earnings calls. It seems like we get a batch of these every three months! SiriusXM has published their Q4 and full-year results for 2022. Overall the company saw a 4% year over year increase in revenue, hitting 9 billion dollars. The company shouted out its agreements with, as the official copy puts it, “podcast powerhouses” like Crooked Media, Freakonomics, and a 24/7 original comedy channel captained by Conan O'Brien's Team Coco. Podcasting is on the mind at SXM. CEO Jennifer Witz spoke highly of the company's podcasting arm during the call. To quote from the transcript: “In a challenging ad market, podcasts continue to be a growth opportunity for us. This past quarter, we expanded our podcast offerings while doubling down on the shows that have proven most successful with five of the top 20 shows in Edison Research's top 50 podcast rankings, the most of any network.” Witz went on to say podcasting was a bright spot for the industry overall and SXM in particular, driving their 34% increase in off-platform business in 2022. We've said it before and will say it again: it's a good day to hear good news in podcasting. Podcasting is doing fine; thank youShreya: Last week an opinion piece from Amplifi Media CEO Steve Goldstein was published on RainNews, built to assuage fears over recent doom-and-gloom media coverage. A quote from Goldstein's opening: “If you are reading the headlines about podcasting, you might be a little nervous. There has been a lot of confusing and contradictory chatter about what the drop in new podcasts in 2022 means. Has the podcast bubble burst? Are podcasts on the way out? Not likely.”The piece puts to bed the air of uncertainty as recent reports show a decrease in active podcasts. Goldstein points to the marked increase in podcast production at the beginning of the pandemic, along with air fryer sales, used car sales, and views for cooking videos on YouTube. Now the Field of Dreams era of podcasting is over. Companies can no longer invest with the philosophy of “if you build it, they will come.” Which leads to Goldstein's conclusion. Quote: “Just like all media, the podcast space is dynamic, exciting and rapidly evolving. It's full of possibility and wonder. We just need a little more rigor and a little less throwing spaghetti against the wall. The next generation of podcasts will likely have greater research, focus and muscle behind them. Companies that produce and promote fewer high-quality podcasts will be better positioned for optimal growth. So, let's get past the jarring headlines.“SXM Media and Mindshare publish Black Podcast Listener Report 2.0Manuela: SXM Media is back with the second edition of their Black Podcast Listener Report. The study is the result of over 2,500 online interviews with Black and/or African American adults in the United States during September of last year. According to SXM's footnotes, the data was weighted for age, sex, census region of the US, and the Edison's Infinite Dial 2022 podcasting listening statistics. Among the findings are some promising results for advertisers. From the SXM blog post: “The best way to win over Black podcast listeners is to run ads on shows that represent their voice, culture, and point of view. Black audiences who have listened to a podcast with a Black host in the last month are more likely to take action than those who've never listened to a podcast hosted by Black talent.”82% of respondents would consider a brand if they heard their ad on a podcast with a Black host, as well as 78% saying they would purchase said brand. The recap article ends by encouraging brands who set aside ad budget to target Black audiences during February for Black History month to continue that spend throughout the year. From the article: “Like so much of the population, Black audiences are listening to podcasts—and, as you've learned, they're leaned-in and here for ads that support the shows they love.” The State of Google and PodcastingShreya: Continuing the trend of earnings calls, let's talk Google. It was a mixed bag in this year's Q4 earnings report. Parent company Alphabet reported a 0.7 billion increase year over year in total revenue for Q4 2022. According to Insider Intelligence writer Daniel Konstantinovic, this 1% increase falls short of the anticipated revenue by nearly half a billion dollars. James Hercher, writing for AdExchanger, breaks down the more Google-relevant numbers: “YouTube advertising was down from $8.6 billion to $7.9 billion, while the Google Display Network decreased by almost $1 billion YoY. Net income (which is to say, profit) dropped even more steeply, from $20.6 billion in Q4 2021 to $13.6 billion.” Alongside the earnings, there has been discussion of Google and YouTube's investment into podcasting as the search engine giant retools podcast searching. Since 2018 Google has displayed individual podcast episodes and a play button whenever searching for a specific podcast. As of mid-January the feature was removed. James Cridland's coverage in Podnews at the time also noted the Google Podcasts app had not received any feature updates in eighteen months.Now even the carousel of Google Podcast links in searches for podcasts is going away, but will be replaced with a new feature called What to Podcast. In a YouTube Short by Transistor Podcasting, the new feature appears to add a new section to the top of search results that shows podcasts relating to the search term. While not as easy as a play button and episode list, it does serve as a funnel to direct foot traffic into podcast apps. Meanwhile, earlier this month, YouTube launched ad monetization for YouTube Shorts. Previously, the program had operated on a TikTok-esque fund divvied between creators who met certain engagement goals. Now any account with over 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the previous 90 days can earn ad revenue at a split of 45% to them and 55% to Google. Digiday's Krystal Scanlon notes this is not as attractive a revenue split as similar programs at Facebook and TikTok, but the YouTube Shorts equivalent has a lower barrier to entry for newer accounts. In this week's earnings call, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler spoke on CTV, YouTube being at the top of Nielsen's measurement of US streaming watch time, and content integration. Tuesday's issue of Ben Thompson's Stratechery points out it's clear YouTube is dreaming of becoming a media streaming aggregate with the implementation of Primetime Channels on top of existing offerings like YouTube Music and NFL Sunday Ticket. From Stratechery: “The idealized future is one where YouTube is the front-door of all video period, whether that be streaming, linear, or user-generated.” With all their investments in YouTube and gentle downgrade of podcast presentation in the search engine, it feels like Google is becoming gently insistent podcasting's round peg will be expected to conform to the square hole of their media platform. Podcasting likely isn't going to come to YouTube as we know it, podcasters are simply incentivized to become YouTubers.Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week: Media Briefing: The case for and against monthly and annual subscriptions in the battle for retention by Kayleigh Barber for Digiday. An excellent breakdown of the current debate between annual vs. monthly subscriptions, how they affect churn, and detailed pros and cons for both options. Edison Research's Weekly Insight: Of all people aged 13-34 in the US, one third listen to podcasts every day. Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was built using Spooler and hosted on Triton Digital's Omny Studio. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.comI know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Manuela Bedoya.Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Our editors are Reece Carman and Ron Tendick. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.

Manuela: This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Manuela Bedoya. Shreya: And I'm Shreya Sharma.This week: Podcasting a ‘bright spot' at SXM Media, Amplifi Media CEO counters ‘jarring headlines,' new Black Podcast Listener Report from SXM and Mindshare, and the state of Google in podcasting.Let's get started.Podcasting remains ‘a bright spot' at SXM MediaManuela: ‘Tis the season of quarterly earnings calls. It seems like we get a batch of these every three months! SiriusXM has published their Q4 and full-year results for 2022. Overall the company saw a 4% year over year increase in revenue, hitting 9 billion dollars. The company shouted out its agreements with, as the official copy puts it, “podcast powerhouses” like Crooked Media, Freakonomics, and a 24/7 original comedy channel captained by Conan O'Brien's Team Coco. Podcasting is on the mind at SXM. CEO Jennifer Witz spoke highly of the company's podcasting arm during the call. To quote from the transcript: “In a challenging ad market, podcasts continue to be a growth opportunity for us. This past quarter, we expanded our podcast offerings while doubling down on the shows that have proven most successful with five of the top 20 shows in Edison Research's top 50 podcast rankings, the most of any network.” Witz went on to say podcasting was a bright spot for the industry overall and SXM in particular, driving their 34% increase in off-platform business in 2022. We've said it before and will say it again: it's a good day to hear good news in podcasting. Podcasting is doing fine; thank youShreya: Last week an opinion piece from Amplifi Media CEO Steve Goldstein was published on RainNews, built to assuage fears over recent doom-and-gloom media coverage. A quote from Goldstein's opening: “If you are reading the headlines about podcasting, you might be a little nervous. There has been a lot of confusing and contradictory chatter about what the drop in new podcasts in 2022 means. Has the podcast bubble burst? Are podcasts on the way out? Not likely.”The piece puts to bed the air of uncertainty as recent reports show a decrease in active podcasts. Goldstein points to the marked increase in podcast production at the beginning of the pandemic, along with air fryer sales, used car sales, and views for cooking videos on YouTube. Now the Field of Dreams era of podcasting is over. Companies can no longer invest with the philosophy of “if you build it, they will come.” Which leads to Goldstein's conclusion. Quote: “Just like all media, the podcast space is dynamic, exciting and rapidly evolving. It's full of possibility and wonder. We just need a little more rigor and a little less throwing spaghetti against the wall. The next generation of podcasts will likely have greater research, focus and muscle behind them. Companies that produce and promote fewer high-quality podcasts will be better positioned for optimal growth. So, let's get past the jarring headlines.“SXM Media and Mindshare publish Black Podcast Listener Report 2.0Manuela: SXM Media is back with the second edition of their Black Podcast Listener Report. The study is the result of over 2,500 online interviews with Black and/or African American adults in the United States during September of last year. According to SXM's footnotes, the data was weighted for age, sex, census region of the US, and the Edison's Infinite Dial 2022 podcasting listening statistics. Among the findings are some promising results for advertisers. From the SXM blog post: “The best way to win over Black podcast listeners is to run ads on shows that represent their voice, culture, and point of view. Black audiences who have listened to a podcast with a Black host in the last month are more likely to take action than those who've never listened to a podcast hosted by Black talent.”82% of respondents would consider a brand if they heard their ad on a podcast with a Black host, as well as 78% saying they would purchase said brand. The recap article ends by encouraging brands who set aside ad budget to target Black audiences during February for Black History month to continue that spend throughout the year. From the article: “Like so much of the population, Black audiences are listening to podcasts—and, as you've learned, they're leaned-in and here for ads that support the shows they love.” The State of Google and PodcastingShreya: Continuing the trend of earnings calls, let's talk Google. It was a mixed bag in this year's Q4 earnings report. Parent company Alphabet reported a 0.7 billion increase year over year in total revenue for Q4 2022. According to Insider Intelligence writer Daniel Konstantinovic, this 1% increase falls short of the anticipated revenue by nearly half a billion dollars. James Hercher, writing for AdExchanger, breaks down the more Google-relevant numbers: “YouTube advertising was down from $8.6 billion to $7.9 billion, while the Google Display Network decreased by almost $1 billion YoY. Net income (which is to say, profit) dropped even more steeply, from $20.6 billion in Q4 2021 to $13.6 billion.” Alongside the earnings, there has been discussion of Google and YouTube's investment into podcasting as the search engine giant retools podcast searching. Since 2018 Google has displayed individual podcast episodes and a play button whenever searching for a specific podcast. As of mid-January the feature was removed. James Cridland's coverage in Podnews at the time also noted the Google Podcasts app had not received any feature updates in eighteen months.Now even the carousel of Google Podcast links in searches for podcasts is going away, but will be replaced with a new feature called What to Podcast. In a YouTube Short by Transistor Podcasting, the new feature appears to add a new section to the top of search results that shows podcasts relating to the search term. While not as easy as a play button and episode list, it does serve as a funnel to direct foot traffic into podcast apps. Meanwhile, earlier this month, YouTube launched ad monetization for YouTube Shorts. Previously, the program had operated on a TikTok-esque fund divvied between creators who met certain engagement goals. Now any account with over 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the previous 90 days can earn ad revenue at a split of 45% to them and 55% to Google. Digiday's Krystal Scanlon notes this is not as attractive a revenue split as similar programs at Facebook and TikTok, but the YouTube Shorts equivalent has a lower barrier to entry for newer accounts. In this week's earnings call, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler spoke on CTV, YouTube being at the top of Nielsen's measurement of US streaming watch time, and content integration. Tuesday's issue of Ben Thompson's Stratechery points out it's clear YouTube is dreaming of becoming a media streaming aggregate with the implementation of Primetime Channels on top of existing offerings like YouTube Music and NFL Sunday Ticket. From Stratechery: “The idealized future is one where YouTube is the front-door of all video period, whether that be streaming, linear, or user-generated.” With all their investments in YouTube and gentle downgrade of podcast presentation in the search engine, it feels like Google is becoming gently insistent podcasting's round peg will be expected to conform to the square hole of their media platform. Podcasting likely isn't going to come to YouTube as we know it, podcasters are simply incentivized to become YouTubers.Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week: Media Briefing: The case for and against monthly and annual subscriptions in the battle for retention by Kayleigh Barber for Digiday. An excellent breakdown of the current debate between annual vs. monthly subscriptions, how they affect churn, and detailed pros and cons for both options. Edison Research's Weekly Insight: Of all people aged 13-34 in the US, one third listen to podcasts every day. Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today's episode was built using Spooler and hosted on Triton Digital's Omny Studio. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.comI know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Manuela Bedoya.Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Our editors are Reece Carman and Ron Tendick. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.

This week: Spotify layoffs, TikTok Podcasts feature spotted in the wild, exclusivity deals seem to be  losing luster, and Buzzsprout launches premium subscriptions. Spotify lays off six percent of workforce.  Manuela: We start today on a dour note, but it's the largest story to happen this week and bears covering. This Monday Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the company is downsizing six percent of its workforce. Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff is also leaving the company. Todd Spangler's coverage of the announcement for Variety does the math on what six percent actually means.“The layoffs will eliminate nearly 600 jobs; Spotify most recently reported having 9,800 full-time employees worldwide as of Sept. 30. The company estimated that it will incur approximately €35 million-€45 million in severance-related charges.” In the Tuesday issue of Podnews, editor James Cridland notes that in addition to the layoff announcement, Spotify's job website has removed all open full job positions. As of this writing the site only has 23 open positions, all of which are internships. From Spangler's article:  “Employees who are getting laid off will on average receive about five months' salary in severance payments, per Ek's memo. In addition, all unused vacation time will be paid out to any departing employee, and all terminated employees will be eligible for outplacement services for two months.” Ostroff was a big name behind a lot of Spotify's big-ticket podcasting acquisitions. Between her departure and the overall downsizing, this news seems to signal Spotify is down-shifting into treating podcasts like it has treated music. It's not necessarily the end of Spotify expanding into podcasting, but they likely will be focusing on expansion without owning content.  New TikTok Podcast feature appears Arielle: Last Wednesday Sydney Bradley and Dan Whateley of Business Insider published new details in the months-long windup to TikTok officially getting into podcasting. As covered as far back as the October 10th episode of The Download, there has been a breadcrumb trail of evidence the social media platform has intentions of launching some form of podcast listening application. In December of 2021 TikTok users were prompted to complete a survey gauging user interest in both listening to podcasts and creating podcasts. In May a trademark was filed for an application called TikTok Music, which listed podcasts as a form of audio that could be played in-app.  Then, this last October, Podnews got word bots associated with TikTok's parent company were spotted scraping publicly-available RSS feeds. Clearly TikTok was up to something. Now, Business Insider has discovered an unannounced feature has been added to some TikTok accounts allowing users to play video hosted on TikTok as a podcast, a distinction which allows users to browse other apps or lock their phone while the audio continues to play. This is a similar functionality to one YouTube has had for Premium subscribers for years and last year was testing enabling it for all users to promote podcasting listening in certain markets. As Bradley and Whateley's reporting suggests, once podcasts are implemented, TikTok could be primed to become a serious Spotify competitor.  Exclusivity deals lose appeal Manuela: Last Friday Tyler Aquilina , writing for Variety, published a piece that became somewhat prescient in hindsight: Circling back to the topic of podcast companies expanding by acquiring podcasts: Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy. From the intro of the article: “If it's still too early to declare platform-exclusive podcast deals dead as we move into 2023, it's becoming ever clearer that this business model is likely not long for this world.” Aquilina's piece presents several data points suggesting the exclusive podcast strategy, most typified by Spotify acquisitions in recent years, is falling out of favor. The article cites reported frustrations from producers who signed big-name deals and went exclusive, including the Obamas choosing not to renew their exclusivity deal with Spotify last year.  One interesting data point is that of the Rogan Twitter Bump, the short-term engagement boost relatively smaller guests on The Joe Rogan Experience get in the week after appearing on the podcast. According to data collected from Social Blade by The Verge, JRE guests with fewer than 500,000 Twitter followers started to experience far smaller influxes of new followers starting December 2020, the month JRE went Spotify-exclusive. Conversely, podcasts that leave exclusivity to wide release are reporting more success in open podcasting. Aquilina reports he was given data from Acast that shows Spanish-language podcast Se Regalan Dudas has seen its listens increase 56% over their first year after leaving Spotify exclusivity. From the end of Aquilina piece: “Podcasting remains a growth business, even if that growth is decelerating. But as in any maturing market, business practices must shift with the times — and in this case, that means the walled gardens are going to start opening up soon.” Buzzsprout to implement premium subscriptions Arielle: Back on January 12th we reported on Apple launching Delegated Delivery, a feature from which several podcast hosting providers can allow their users to upload content to their Apple premium podcast from the dashboard of said host.  The initial rollout included  Blubrry, Libsyn, Triton Digital's Omny Studio, and RSS.com, with Acast, ART19 and Buzzsprout named as the next in line to get the feature in the coming months.  In a surprise twist, this week Buzzsprout announced their own premium podcast subscription offering. Dubbed Buzzsprout Subscription, the feature allows podcasts hosted on the platform to process payments from subscribers. Currently, users can choose between a Patreon-style pricing structure that gives audience members custom incentives, such as a shoutout in an episode, to a more Apple-like paywalled feed.  Revenue collected from the subscriptions can be applied to pay for Buzzsprout hosting fees or converted to cash via a Paypal transaction. As it stands, Apple Podcast Subscriptions pay out 70% of their revenue for new subscribers, with the revenue share going up to 85% payout for subscribers who have stuck around for a full year. According to Tuesday's Podnews, Buzzsprout Subscriptions is a flat 85% payout. With this new feature implementation, as well as the availability of Buzzsprout Ads, it's becoming far more difficult to think of a reason why someone hosting on Buzzsprout would need to leave their dashboard to accomplish something for their podcast elsewhere online.  Quick Hits Arielle: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  AdTheorent Is Using Machine Learning To Predict Effective Inventory by Allison Schiff for AdExchanger. In which Schiff breaks down a new application that uses machine learning to score programmatic inventory based on probability the impression will lead to a desired outcome. Application of this tool to podcasting, or any media, would be incredibly interesting.  Here are the brands starting 2023 with new CMOs by Minda Smiley for MarketingBrew.  While there are no directly podcasting-related companies getting new CMOs in this article, new CMOs often mean new perspectives and interest in new channels. Don't be surprised if your kids are listening to a Chuck E Cheese branded podcast by this time next year.  P&G looks to replicate $65m success after taking media planning, buying in-house in fabric care by Julia Cannon for Digiday. A piece covering Procter & Gamble's in-house media planning and buying strategy saving millions over a year. Brands bringing things in-house means fresh eyes and direct access. More contacts overall, but direct to the people that it matters to. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Spotify layoffs, TikTok Podcasts feature spotted in the wild, exclusivity deals seem to be  losing luster, and Buzzsprout launches premium subscriptions. Spotify lays off six percent of workforce.  Manuela: We start today on a dour note, but it's the largest story to happen this week and bears covering. This Monday Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the company is downsizing six percent of its workforce. Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff is also leaving the company. Todd Spangler's coverage of the announcement for Variety does the math on what six percent actually means.“The layoffs will eliminate nearly 600 jobs; Spotify most recently reported having 9,800 full-time employees worldwide as of Sept. 30. The company estimated that it will incur approximately €35 million-€45 million in severance-related charges.” In the Tuesday issue of Podnews, editor James Cridland notes that in addition to the layoff announcement, Spotify's job website has removed all open full job positions. As of this writing the site only has 23 open positions, all of which are internships. From Spangler's article:  “Employees who are getting laid off will on average receive about five months' salary in severance payments, per Ek's memo. In addition, all unused vacation time will be paid out to any departing employee, and all terminated employees will be eligible for outplacement services for two months.” Ostroff was a big name behind a lot of Spotify's big-ticket podcasting acquisitions. Between her departure and the overall downsizing, this news seems to signal Spotify is down-shifting into treating podcasts like it has treated music. It's not necessarily the end of Spotify expanding into podcasting, but they likely will be focusing on expansion without owning content.  New TikTok Podcast feature appears Arielle: Last Wednesday Sydney Bradley and Dan Whateley of Business Insider published new details in the months-long windup to TikTok officially getting into podcasting. As covered as far back as the October 10th episode of The Download, there has been a breadcrumb trail of evidence the social media platform has intentions of launching some form of podcast listening application. In December of 2021 TikTok users were prompted to complete a survey gauging user interest in both listening to podcasts and creating podcasts. In May a trademark was filed for an application called TikTok Music, which listed podcasts as a form of audio that could be played in-app.  Then, this last October, Podnews got word bots associated with TikTok's parent company were spotted scraping publicly-available RSS feeds. Clearly TikTok was up to something. Now, Business Insider has discovered an unannounced feature has been added to some TikTok accounts allowing users to play video hosted on TikTok as a podcast, a distinction which allows users to browse other apps or lock their phone while the audio continues to play. This is a similar functionality to one YouTube has had for Premium subscribers for years and last year was testing enabling it for all users to promote podcasting listening in certain markets. As Bradley and Whateley's reporting suggests, once podcasts are implemented, TikTok could be primed to become a serious Spotify competitor.  Exclusivity deals lose appeal Manuela: Last Friday Tyler Aquilina , writing for Variety, published a piece that became somewhat prescient in hindsight: Circling back to the topic of podcast companies expanding by acquiring podcasts: Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy. From the intro of the article: “If it's still too early to declare platform-exclusive podcast deals dead as we move into 2023, it's becoming ever clearer that this business model is likely not long for this world.” Aquilina's piece presents several data points suggesting the exclusive podcast strategy, most typified by Spotify acquisitions in recent years, is falling out of favor. The article cites reported frustrations from producers who signed big-name deals and went exclusive, including the Obamas choosing not to renew their exclusivity deal with Spotify last year.  One interesting data point is that of the Rogan Twitter Bump, the short-term engagement boost relatively smaller guests on The Joe Rogan Experience get in the week after appearing on the podcast. According to data collected from Social Blade by The Verge, JRE guests with fewer than 500,000 Twitter followers started to experience far smaller influxes of new followers starting December 2020, the month JRE went Spotify-exclusive. Conversely, podcasts that leave exclusivity to wide release are reporting more success in open podcasting. Aquilina reports he was given data from Acast that shows Spanish-language podcast Se Regalan Dudas has seen its listens increase 56% over their first year after leaving Spotify exclusivity. From the end of Aquilina piece: “Podcasting remains a growth business, even if that growth is decelerating. But as in any maturing market, business practices must shift with the times — and in this case, that means the walled gardens are going to start opening up soon.” Buzzsprout to implement premium subscriptions Arielle: Back on January 12th we reported on Apple launching Delegated Delivery, a feature from which several podcast hosting providers can allow their users to upload content to their Apple premium podcast from the dashboard of said host.  The initial rollout included  Blubrry, Libsyn, Triton Digital's Omny Studio, and RSS.com, with Acast, ART19 and Buzzsprout named as the next in line to get the feature in the coming months.  In a surprise twist, this week Buzzsprout announced their own premium podcast subscription offering. Dubbed Buzzsprout Subscription, the feature allows podcasts hosted on the platform to process payments from subscribers. Currently, users can choose between a Patreon-style pricing structure that gives audience members custom incentives, such as a shoutout in an episode, to a more Apple-like paywalled feed.  Revenue collected from the subscriptions can be applied to pay for Buzzsprout hosting fees or converted to cash via a Paypal transaction. As it stands, Apple Podcast Subscriptions pay out 70% of their revenue for new subscribers, with the revenue share going up to 85% payout for subscribers who have stuck around for a full year. According to Tuesday's Podnews, Buzzsprout Subscriptions is a flat 85% payout. With this new feature implementation, as well as the availability of Buzzsprout Ads, it's becoming far more difficult to think of a reason why someone hosting on Buzzsprout would need to leave their dashboard to accomplish something for their podcast elsewhere online.  Quick Hits Arielle: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  AdTheorent Is Using Machine Learning To Predict Effective Inventory by Allison Schiff for AdExchanger. In which Schiff breaks down a new application that uses machine learning to score programmatic inventory based on probability the impression will lead to a desired outcome. Application of this tool to podcasting, or any media, would be incredibly interesting.  Here are the brands starting 2023 with new CMOs by Minda Smiley for MarketingBrew.  While there are no directly podcasting-related companies getting new CMOs in this article, new CMOs often mean new perspectives and interest in new channels. Don't be surprised if your kids are listening to a Chuck E Cheese branded podcast by this time next year.  P&G looks to replicate $65m success after taking media planning, buying in-house in fabric care by Julia Cannon for Digiday. A piece covering Procter & Gamble's in-house media planning and buying strategy saving millions over a year. Brands bringing things in-house means fresh eyes and direct access. More contacts overall, but direct to the people that it matters to. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Megaphone's weekend of outages, AdvertiseCast Publishes average CPM of 2022, Apple debuts Delegated Delivery, a software engineer teases adblock for iTunes, and The Podscape 2023 is live.  Megaphone has Weekend of Outages Manuela: We start from a story from the holiday break. On Monday, December 19th, Podnews editor James Cridland reported on a weekend of outages for Megaphone. According to Megaphone documentation, the outage started sometime before 11am Eastern on Saturday the 17th for producers. From the website: “We are currently investigating an issue that is impacting content delivery. During this time end listeners most likely will not be able to download podcast episodes. We are working to fix this currently.”  Within two hours the case was updated to reflect the playback issue. At 10am the following day a second outage started, this time as a “podcast playback” issue that ran for over 12 hours, leaving megaphone podcasts effectively offline until 11:56pm Eastern. One of the larger major hosting platform outages of the year.  This incident marked the sixth time in 2022 Megaphone was temporarily unavailable to podcast listeners. AdvertiseCast Publishes Final Podcast Advertising Rates of 2022 Shreya: AdvertiseCast rang in the new year with a January 1st update to their monthly AdvertiseCast Marketplace Podcast Advertising Rates. A quote from AdvertiseCast CRO Dave Hanley in their press release: “2022 was a breakout year in podcasting. Podcasts have become mainstream with explosive growth among younger and more diverse audiences who are embracing niche genres and new ways of listening.” December's overall average CPM was $23.57, a 4% drop month-on-month. With this new information, AdvertiseCast now has the data to generate an overall average for the year. The average CPM for podcasts in AdvertiseCast's observed population was $23.87 for a sixty-second ad spot, a 2% increase from 2021.  The three highest-CPM categories in December were, in ascending order, Business, Education, and Technology, with Technology podcasts pulling an average CPM of $27.  Software dev wants to make podcast ad blocker, charge money for it. Manuela: Last week a Portland, Oregon-based software engineer Micah Engle-Eshleman announced his intentions to build something that, if fully developed, would change the industry: Adblock, but for podcasts. From adblockpodcast.com:  “Finally, a podcast app that skips ads! Adblock Podcast detects and skips ads on all iTunes podcasts.”  While light on concrete information, the project appears to be a web-based application that would detect and remove any advertisements embedded in podcasts served through Apple Podcasts, erroneously referred to by the branding Apple retired six years ago. The project will be a paid service with a vaguely-defined intent to use an undefined portion of money collected to directly pay podcasters via revenue share. On paper, Engle-Eshlerman is proposing his web app would create a new, more profitable way for podcasters to be compensated for producing their shows. He's quoted in last week's Podnews as saying he hasn't figured that part out yet. Which feels apt for the entire project. How would it skip ads? How would a web app produced by one person handle the complexity of paying out millions of individual podcasts? Why are podcasters supposed to be excited that they have to let a stranger's product rip out their ads and give them a percentage of what it collected that month? If a podcast that's on a network has its ads skipped, does that podcast get the check or does the network?At best, Podcast Adblock is a cautionary tale for bloggers and reporters covering podcast beats. Just because an email contains something that looks sensational doesn't mean it's worth giving air. Podcast Adblock has many telltale signs of being vaporware. A paid service based Adblock, a service that has been available for free in one form or another since 2002. From someone with no podcasting bona fides who still calls it ‘iTunes.' Apple Podcasts launched Delegated Delivery Shreya: This Tuesday Apple announced the implementation of the Delegated Delivery beta, which will allow podcasters to publish content to their Apple Podcast Subscription from the dashboard of select hosting services. From the blog:“With an active membership to the Apple Podcasters Program, creators can now generate API Keys from the Account tab of Apple Podcasts Connect, which they can share with their hosting provider to allow them to publish content on their behalf. Once enabled, creators can submit new free and subscriber shows, publish new subscriber episodes, and continue to publish free episodes to Apple Podcasts from their hosting provider dashboard.”  Currently the beta enables podcasters on Blubrry, Libsyn, Triton Digital's Omny Studio, and RSS to try out pushing episodes directly to their Apple subscribers. More hosting providers are slated to be added to the service throughout the year, with Acast, ART19 and Buzzsprout mentioned by name as the next in line for addition.  Removing the extra chore of logging in to a separate dashboard makes the act of producing an ad-free feed or bonus content even more attractive. Apple premium subscriptions were already popular before, it's easy to see Delegated Delivery could likely help make them defacto practice for podcasts with substantial footprints on Apple Podcasts. First 2023 edition of The Podscape now live.  Manuela: Before we get into the Quick Hits, we wanted to briefly spotlight something new from a collaboration between Sounds Profitable and Magellan AI. The first 2023 edition of The Podscape is now live. The sizeable infographic is built from taking inventory of podcasting's companies, agencies, services, and anything else that could be classified. From the Podscape description: “From content creation to hosting services to media planning, agencies, and media sales - download The Podscape to better understand how some of the biggest players fit together on one page.” The 2023 Podscape is free to download and currently accepting feedback. 2022 was a busy year in podcasting and the goal of The Podscape is to create as accurate a snapshot as possible. Any notable exclusions or needed corrections should be directed to podscape@Magellan.ai for the next edition, currently slated for sometime in February.  Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  LiveOne to spin off PodcastOne into public company, Slacker possibly next by Kurt Hanson for RainNews. This short piece includes a source link to the SEC filing from LiveOne indicating the upcoming spinoff.  Podcast Vet Laura Mayer To Lead Podcast Creative At ABC Audio from PodcastNewsDaily. Exciting closure for listeners of Shameless Acquisition Target, as host Laura Mayer has landed a choice role at ABC Audio after selling the RSS feed to her year-long podcast project.  NPR's Student Challenge is Back from NPR. For its fifth consecutive year, the NPR Student Podcast Challenge will run from January through April, encouraging middle and high-school students to produce podcasts in hopes of winning the grand prize of a $5,000 scholarship.  The best and worst campaigns of 2022, according to industry creatives by Kelsey Sutton, Ryan Barwick, Minda Smiley, and Alyssa Meyers for MarketingBrew. A fun weekend read, this look back at the previous year features some pivotal moments in online marketing. From catchy songs about plant-based chicken nuggets to people in neon t-shirts being creepy at baseball games, 2022 had a wide variety of campaigns.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Megaphone's weekend of outages, AdvertiseCast Publishes average CPM of 2022, Apple debuts Delegated Delivery, a software engineer teases adblock for iTunes, and The Podscape 2023 is live.  Megaphone has Weekend of Outages Manuela: We start from a story from the holiday break. On Monday, December 19th, Podnews editor James Cridland reported on a weekend of outages for Megaphone. According to Megaphone documentation, the outage started sometime before 11am Eastern on Saturday the 17th for producers. From the website: “We are currently investigating an issue that is impacting content delivery. During this time end listeners most likely will not be able to download podcast episodes. We are working to fix this currently.”  Within two hours the case was updated to reflect the playback issue. At 10am the following day a second outage started, this time as a “podcast playback” issue that ran for over 12 hours, leaving megaphone podcasts effectively offline until 11:56pm Eastern. One of the larger major hosting platform outages of the year.  This incident marked the sixth time in 2022 Megaphone was temporarily unavailable to podcast listeners. AdvertiseCast Publishes Final Podcast Advertising Rates of 2022 Shreya: AdvertiseCast rang in the new year with a January 1st update to their monthly AdvertiseCast Marketplace Podcast Advertising Rates. A quote from AdvertiseCast CRO Dave Hanley in their press release: “2022 was a breakout year in podcasting. Podcasts have become mainstream with explosive growth among younger and more diverse audiences who are embracing niche genres and new ways of listening.” December's overall average CPM was $23.57, a 4% drop month-on-month. With this new information, AdvertiseCast now has the data to generate an overall average for the year. The average CPM for podcasts in AdvertiseCast's observed population was $23.87 for a sixty-second ad spot, a 2% increase from 2021.  The three highest-CPM categories in December were, in ascending order, Business, Education, and Technology, with Technology podcasts pulling an average CPM of $27.  Software dev wants to make podcast ad blocker, charge money for it. Manuela: Last week a Portland, Oregon-based software engineer Micah Engle-Eshleman announced his intentions to build something that, if fully developed, would change the industry: Adblock, but for podcasts. From adblockpodcast.com:  “Finally, a podcast app that skips ads! Adblock Podcast detects and skips ads on all iTunes podcasts.”  While light on concrete information, the project appears to be a web-based application that would detect and remove any advertisements embedded in podcasts served through Apple Podcasts, erroneously referred to by the branding Apple retired six years ago. The project will be a paid service with a vaguely-defined intent to use an undefined portion of money collected to directly pay podcasters via revenue share. On paper, Engle-Eshlerman is proposing his web app would create a new, more profitable way for podcasters to be compensated for producing their shows. He's quoted in last week's Podnews as saying he hasn't figured that part out yet. Which feels apt for the entire project. How would it skip ads? How would a web app produced by one person handle the complexity of paying out millions of individual podcasts? Why are podcasters supposed to be excited that they have to let a stranger's product rip out their ads and give them a percentage of what it collected that month? If a podcast that's on a network has its ads skipped, does that podcast get the check or does the network?At best, Podcast Adblock is a cautionary tale for bloggers and reporters covering podcast beats. Just because an email contains something that looks sensational doesn't mean it's worth giving air. Podcast Adblock has many telltale signs of being vaporware. A paid service based Adblock, a service that has been available for free in one form or another since 2002. From someone with no podcasting bona fides who still calls it ‘iTunes.' Apple Podcasts launched Delegated Delivery Shreya: This Tuesday Apple announced the implementation of the Delegated Delivery beta, which will allow podcasters to publish content to their Apple Podcast Subscription from the dashboard of select hosting services. From the blog:“With an active membership to the Apple Podcasters Program, creators can now generate API Keys from the Account tab of Apple Podcasts Connect, which they can share with their hosting provider to allow them to publish content on their behalf. Once enabled, creators can submit new free and subscriber shows, publish new subscriber episodes, and continue to publish free episodes to Apple Podcasts from their hosting provider dashboard.”  Currently the beta enables podcasters on Blubrry, Libsyn, Triton Digital's Omny Studio, and RSS to try out pushing episodes directly to their Apple subscribers. More hosting providers are slated to be added to the service throughout the year, with Acast, ART19 and Buzzsprout mentioned by name as the next in line for addition.  Removing the extra chore of logging in to a separate dashboard makes the act of producing an ad-free feed or bonus content even more attractive. Apple premium subscriptions were already popular before, it's easy to see Delegated Delivery could likely help make them defacto practice for podcasts with substantial footprints on Apple Podcasts. First 2023 edition of The Podscape now live.  Manuela: Before we get into the Quick Hits, we wanted to briefly spotlight something new from a collaboration between Sounds Profitable and Magellan AI. The first 2023 edition of The Podscape is now live. The sizeable infographic is built from taking inventory of podcasting's companies, agencies, services, and anything else that could be classified. From the Podscape description: “From content creation to hosting services to media planning, agencies, and media sales - download The Podscape to better understand how some of the biggest players fit together on one page.” The 2023 Podscape is free to download and currently accepting feedback. 2022 was a busy year in podcasting and the goal of The Podscape is to create as accurate a snapshot as possible. Any notable exclusions or needed corrections should be directed to podscape@Magellan.ai for the next edition, currently slated for sometime in February.  Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  LiveOne to spin off PodcastOne into public company, Slacker possibly next by Kurt Hanson for RainNews. This short piece includes a source link to the SEC filing from LiveOne indicating the upcoming spinoff.  Podcast Vet Laura Mayer To Lead Podcast Creative At ABC Audio from PodcastNewsDaily. Exciting closure for listeners of Shameless Acquisition Target, as host Laura Mayer has landed a choice role at ABC Audio after selling the RSS feed to her year-long podcast project.  NPR's Student Challenge is Back from NPR. For its fifth consecutive year, the NPR Student Podcast Challenge will run from January through April, encouraging middle and high-school students to produce podcasts in hopes of winning the grand prize of a $5,000 scholarship.  The best and worst campaigns of 2022, according to industry creatives by Kelsey Sutton, Ryan Barwick, Minda Smiley, and Alyssa Meyers for MarketingBrew. A fun weekend read, this look back at the previous year features some pivotal moments in online marketing. From catchy songs about plant-based chicken nuggets to people in neon t-shirts being creepy at baseball games, 2022 had a wide variety of campaigns.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Podnews today: Blubrry, Libsyn, Triton Digital's Omny Studio and RSS.com are the first to offer the service Visit https://podnews.net/update/apple-rolls-out-delegated-delivery for all the podcasting news, and to get our daily newsletter.

SPECIAL GUESTS:Morten Strunge - PodimoJohn Spurlock  - OP3.devSHOW NOTES & LINKS:Podcast companies are buying short podcast plays within mobile game apps, causing official downloads of shows no one may be playing longer than twenty seconds according to Bloomberg's Ashley Carman. Time has also published the story outside a paywall.Players get game tokens if they listen to a podcast for just twenty seconds. (Carman posts a graphic). But, because more than 60 seconds of audio are downloaded by the player, as demonstrated in this article in Sounds Profitable, these plays count as an IAB-certified download from podcast hosts and in prefix services like Podtrac. That allows podcasts promoted in this way to charge for the ads delivered in the show, and for that traffic to be counted in rankersHow many downloads per episode is “good”? Omny Studio publish their data.Podcast episodes are getting shorter, says Rephonic.September 15, 2022: Podimo, the European subscription podcast service, has raised €58.6m ($58.5m) in funding. It had previously raised more than $116m. The Open Podcast Prefix Project has been quietly launched by John Spurlock. It's a prefix analytics service committed to open data and listener privacy; and places listener data in the open. It could power trending and popularity data; or give independently-verified stats to advertisers.Open podcast analytics prefix service OP3 has added trailing wildcards to its API.Some OP3 visualisation tools are being worked on by Dave Jones, James Potter and others. An open user-agent list, including bots, is freely available here; and here are our filtered logfile downloads from Sep 23 for comparison purposes. 

This week on The Download:  Quarterly earnings, more quarterly earnings, Audio is getting its own track at Advertising Week, and Spotify is giving podcasts their own space in its app.  Arielle: Hope you're ready for some earnings reports, because we've got two segments worth of second quarter earnings to go over. First up: the big platforms. Last Wednesday Alyssa Meyers of Marketing Brew posted a roundup of Spotify, SiriusXM and Acast. Things kick off with a silver lining:  “Call it what you want, the ad biz is not looking its best right now. But according to these execs, the growing podcast segment is keeping its head above water.”  Economic uncertainty is undeniably impacting the ad industry. The CEOs of Spotify and SiriusXM both cite ‘macro' trends as being notably dire but not to podcast ads sales. SiriusXM's Q2 ad revenue for Pandora and associated platforms reports a 5% year over year increase, reaching 403 million. Spotify posted a 31% year over year gain, earning around 366 million. This time around they neglected to isolate their podcast ad revenue as its own statistic.  Meyers quotes Spotify CFO Paul Vogel as saying they're experiencing “strong growth on the podcasting side.” Hosting service Acast has been busy this second quarter, citing new features, a massive increase of podcasts on the platform, and their acquisition of Podchaser as driving factors of their 39% net sales growth. A figure that calculates out to 31 million USD.  While the macro trends are concerning, The Download will never pass up an opportunity to report numbers going up in podcasting. Big or small, names in the industry are increasing ad revenue, and that's a good thing.  Shreya: Now to cover the Q2 numbers from three large broadcasters: iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, and Audacy. There's a few dark spots throughout but, interestingly, their podcast numbers are shining beacons of hope in all three reports.  Overall iHeartMedia reports an 11% year over year increase, despite, in the words of company president Rich Bressler: “the uncertain economic environment.” Podcast revenue is up to 86 million, a 60% year over year increase.  Meanwhile, Cumulus Media joined the macro club during president Mary Berner's opening statement:  “Despite the challenging macro environment, we increased revenue in the quarter by more than 5%, driven by our digital businesses whose growth accelerated in Q2 to 20% year-over-year.” Podcasting made Cumulus around 15 million this last quarter, up 27% year over year. All told, podcasting accounts for 6% of the company's revenue. Not too shabby.  Finally, Audacy's president David J Field brings us a final use of the term ‘macro' for this episode:  “After a very strong first quarter in which we grew revenues by 14% and significantly increased margin, our second quarter results were adversely impacted by declining macroeconomic conditions and ad market headwinds which reduced our top line growth to 5%.”  The company made a nice $69m from “digital,” which includes podcasting, and is up 18% year over year. Podcast downloads grew 40% year-over-year. Revenue from podcasts is supposedly in the upper teens of percentage growth, but Audacy didn't give specifics. Even with the ad market headwinds it seems podcasting is doing well for them.  Arielle: Wednesday of last week was a busy day for Alyssa Meyers, as we cover her second article of the day: “Audio gets its own track at this year's Advertising Week.”  Advertising Week's head of podcasting Richard Larsson told Marketing Brew,  “The rise of audio throughout the pandemic, coupled with Advertising Week's efforts to build its own podcast network, culminated in the decision to give audio a more official spot on the agenda this October.” Audio representation continues with one of - if not the - longest-running podcast awards ceremony. Yesterday the People's Choice Podcast Awards announced the nominees for their 17th annual session. The substantive list of nominees can be found on the Podcast Awards website.  Continuing the award theme with one more bit of news: on Monday the newest issue of Adweek dropped with the winners to the 2022 Adweek Podcast of the Year Awards. The full list of winners can be found in the official Adweek post by Kennyatta Collins. Shreya: Podcasts and music are taking a break from each other soon on Spotify, according to David Pierce's article for The Verge, posted this Tuesday.  “Spotify has been working on a new design for its home tab that will create separate feeds for your music and your podcasts. The company says it's part of an effort to give you more and better recommendations, but it also addresses a common criticism of the Spotify experience: with every kind of audio smushed together in the app, it can sometimes be hard to figure out.”  The new layout creates a bar at the top of the app delineating whether the user is in the Music area or one called Podcasts & Shows. Music will continue to feature new suggestions for songs and albums along with recently-listened tracks while Podcasts & Shows gets rid of music and purely focuses on new episodes of subscribed podcasts and recommendations for shows Spotify believes the user will enjoy.  Pierce offers the comparison:  “They're not so much new home screens as new filters for your home screen. (I'd rather just have them be separate tabs altogether, but I'll take what I can get.)” An app redesign with a dedicated area for podcasting provides more opportunities for promotion. Podcast promotion and growth of audience is one of the hottest topics in podcasting.   Spotify providing more of those opportunities for ads in a way that doesn't step on music-based ads is a big deal. Promotion opportunities are a big enough deal that Dan Misener and Jonas Woost of Pacific Content have left to form Bumper, an agency dedicated solely to promotion.  Arielle: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's three great reads are:  Fundamentals of Programmatic Advertising by Evelyn Mitchell. A quick read with a helpful infographic that makes a great introduction for those not familiar with programmatic, as well as those in need of a refresher.  DoubleVerify Grows Q2 Revenue By Expanding Brand Safety To Retail Media, TikTok And Gaming by Alyssa Boyle. Notable in its absence is any entrance into podcasting. Meanwhile IAS, a direct competitor of DoubleVerify, is the brand safety service for Spotify. DoubleVerify not expanding into audio over these other verticals suggests that the IAS and Spotify relationship is more driven by Spotify looking to tend their walled garden. Perhaps the move was more motivated by Spotify themselves rather than actual advertiser demand to have a brand safety partner. Finally, some self-promotion: Sounds Profitable's latest research project will debut Tuesday, August 23rd during the Sounds Profitable Business Summit. The Summit, as covered in a previous episode of The Download, will take place in Dallas, Texas during the opening day of Podcast Movement. The “After These Messages” study will present a definitive take on the impact of live host-read ads, scripted ads, and announcer-read spots. This study was designed by podcast and research industry veteran Tom Webster, in partnership with Edison Research, and will be seen as an important new resource for publishers and brands. Don't miss it.  Arielle: And that was The Download, from Sounds Profitable! I know we went through these fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Arielle Nissenblatt. Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Gavin Gaddis for writing today's script, and to Omny Studio for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download:  Quarterly earnings, more quarterly earnings, Audio is getting its own track at Advertising Week, and Spotify is giving podcasts their own space in its app.  Arielle: Hope you're ready for some earnings reports, because we've got two segments worth of second quarter earnings to go over. First up: the big platforms. Last Wednesday Alyssa Meyers of Marketing Brew posted a roundup of Spotify, SiriusXM and Acast. Things kick off with a silver lining:  “Call it what you want, the ad biz is not looking its best right now. But according to these execs, the growing podcast segment is keeping its head above water.”  Economic uncertainty is undeniably impacting the ad industry. The CEOs of Spotify and SiriusXM both cite ‘macro' trends as being notably dire but not to podcast ads sales. SiriusXM's Q2 ad revenue for Pandora and associated platforms reports a 5% year over year increase, reaching 403 million. Spotify posted a 31% year over year gain, earning around 366 million. This time around they neglected to isolate their podcast ad revenue as its own statistic.  Meyers quotes Spotify CFO Paul Vogel as saying they're experiencing “strong growth on the podcasting side.” Hosting service Acast has been busy this second quarter, citing new features, a massive increase of podcasts on the platform, and their acquisition of Podchaser as driving factors of their 39% net sales growth. A figure that calculates out to 31 million USD.  While the macro trends are concerning, The Download will never pass up an opportunity to report numbers going up in podcasting. Big or small, names in the industry are increasing ad revenue, and that's a good thing.  Shreya: Now to cover the Q2 numbers from three large broadcasters: iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, and Audacy. There's a few dark spots throughout but, interestingly, their podcast numbers are shining beacons of hope in all three reports.  Overall iHeartMedia reports an 11% year over year increase, despite, in the words of company president Rich Bressler: “the uncertain economic environment.” Podcast revenue is up to 86 million, a 60% year over year increase.  Meanwhile, Cumulus Media joined the macro club during president Mary Berner's opening statement:  “Despite the challenging macro environment, we increased revenue in the quarter by more than 5%, driven by our digital businesses whose growth accelerated in Q2 to 20% year-over-year.” Podcasting made Cumulus around 15 million this last quarter, up 27% year over year. All told, podcasting accounts for 6% of the company's revenue. Not too shabby.  Finally, Audacy's president David J Field brings us a final use of the term ‘macro' for this episode:  “After a very strong first quarter in which we grew revenues by 14% and significantly increased margin, our second quarter results were adversely impacted by declining macroeconomic conditions and ad market headwinds which reduced our top line growth to 5%.”  The company made a nice $69m from “digital,” which includes podcasting, and is up 18% year over year. Podcast downloads grew 40% year-over-year. Revenue from podcasts is supposedly in the upper teens of percentage growth, but Audacy didn't give specifics. Even with the ad market headwinds it seems podcasting is doing well for them.  Arielle: Wednesday of last week was a busy day for Alyssa Meyers, as we cover her second article of the day: “Audio gets its own track at this year's Advertising Week.”  Advertising Week's head of podcasting Richard Larsson told Marketing Brew,  “The rise of audio throughout the pandemic, coupled with Advertising Week's efforts to build its own podcast network, culminated in the decision to give audio a more official spot on the agenda this October.” Audio representation continues with one of - if not the - longest-running podcast awards ceremony. Yesterday the People's Choice Podcast Awards announced the nominees for their 17th annual session. The substantive list of nominees can be found on the Podcast Awards website.  Continuing the award theme with one more bit of news: on Monday the newest issue of Adweek dropped with the winners to the 2022 Adweek Podcast of the Year Awards. The full list of winners can be found in the official Adweek post by Kennyatta Collins. Shreya: Podcasts and music are taking a break from each other soon on Spotify, according to David Pierce's article for The Verge, posted this Tuesday.  “Spotify has been working on a new design for its home tab that will create separate feeds for your music and your podcasts. The company says it's part of an effort to give you more and better recommendations, but it also addresses a common criticism of the Spotify experience: with every kind of audio smushed together in the app, it can sometimes be hard to figure out.”  The new layout creates a bar at the top of the app delineating whether the user is in the Music area or one called Podcasts & Shows. Music will continue to feature new suggestions for songs and albums along with recently-listened tracks while Podcasts & Shows gets rid of music and purely focuses on new episodes of subscribed podcasts and recommendations for shows Spotify believes the user will enjoy.  Pierce offers the comparison:  “They're not so much new home screens as new filters for your home screen. (I'd rather just have them be separate tabs altogether, but I'll take what I can get.)” An app redesign with a dedicated area for podcasting provides more opportunities for promotion. Podcast promotion and growth of audience is one of the hottest topics in podcasting.   Spotify providing more of those opportunities for ads in a way that doesn't step on music-based ads is a big deal. Promotion opportunities are a big enough deal that Dan Misener and Jonas Woost of Pacific Content have left to form Bumper, an agency dedicated solely to promotion.  Arielle: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's three great reads are:  Fundamentals of Programmatic Advertising by Evelyn Mitchell. A quick read with a helpful infographic that makes a great introduction for those not familiar with programmatic, as well as those in need of a refresher.  DoubleVerify Grows Q2 Revenue By Expanding Brand Safety To Retail Media, TikTok And Gaming by Alyssa Boyle. Notable in its absence is any entrance into podcasting. Meanwhile IAS, a direct competitor of DoubleVerify, is the brand safety service for Spotify. DoubleVerify not expanding into audio over these other verticals suggests that the IAS and Spotify relationship is more driven by Spotify looking to tend their walled garden. Perhaps the move was more motivated by Spotify themselves rather than actual advertiser demand to have a brand safety partner. Finally, some self-promotion: Sounds Profitable's latest research project will debut Tuesday, August 23rd during the Sounds Profitable Business Summit. The Summit, as covered in a previous episode of The Download, will take place in Dallas, Texas during the opening day of Podcast Movement. The “After These Messages” study will present a definitive take on the impact of live host-read ads, scripted ads, and announcer-read spots. This study was designed by podcast and research industry veteran Tom Webster, in partnership with Edison Research, and will be seen as an important new resource for publishers and brands. Don't miss it.  Arielle: And that was The Download, from Sounds Profitable! I know we went through these fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Arielle Nissenblatt. Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Gavin Gaddis for writing today's script, and to Omny Studio for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: New TikTok Trademark Could mean new streaming service, third-party cookies get a stay of execution from Google, Apple App Store ads could signal Apple Podcasts' future, and two perspectives on the downturn ad economy.  New TikTok App Trademark Manuela: Last Thursday Dan Whateley and Amanda Perelli, writing for Business Insider, covered a new trademark application for a service called TikTok Music. As the simplistic name suggests, TikTok parent company ByteDance could be looking to branch the TikTok brand out beyond its current relationship to music and create a fully-fledged streaming platform.  “The idea that ByteDance would launch a standalone "TikTok Music" streaming service in the US to compete with players like Spotify and Apple Music isn't unfounded. It already runs a streaming app called Resso in three markets — India, Brazil, and Indonesia — that has been grabbing market share from other streamers in the past year.” While nothing has been formally announced or set in stone, the sources Perelli and Whateley contacted for their story suggest it's highly unlikely ByteDance would file such a trademark. Filing in the US and Australia wouldn't happen without a strong chance the company meant for it to come to fruition. Then there's the matter of this move making perfect sense for TikTok.  Why cover this on The Download? Well, in addition to the general fact TikTok is slowly devouring the online world, it's coming for audio specifically and the trademark application lists, among other things, the proposed new app's ability to stream: “downloadable mobile applications providing podcast and radio broadcast content.” What remains to be seen is what the TikTok version of ‘a podcast' will be. Google Delays Cookie Death Again Shreya: Once again we won't be seeing the death of third-party cookies, as Google has delayed their death blow for another year. Last Wednesday The Verge's Richard Lawler covered the story in the article “Google delays blocking third-party cookies again, now targeting late 2024.”  “The plan is to expand the group of Chrome users who have Privacy Sandbox APIs enabled to “millions of users globally” starting in August, then gradually opt more people in throughout the rest of the year and into 2023, giving the publishers and developers of these sites time to find out how the technology works before the APIs are “generally available” by Q3 of 2023.”  With this second delay third-party cookies are becoming the shoe that refuses to drop in advertising. While podcasting doesn't depend on cookies per se, the ability to track individual consumers remains an expectation of digital marketers who don't want to see the genie go back into the bottle. If it does, podcasts are on equal footing with mobile and web ads, and all will have to do the work to target the right consumers. Apple App Store Ad Offerings Signal Podcast Future Manuela: This Tuesday's issue of Stratechery covers many sections of the Apple earnings call, but one particular section stuck out to The Download: Apple's new advertising slots. The new slots are detailed by 9to5Mac's Chance Miller. “Apple is expanding its advertising business and adding two new ad slots to the App Store. Currently, the App Store has two ad slots: one on the main ‘Search' tab and one in the Search results. The two new App Store ads announced today will bring advertisements to the App Store ‘Today' homepage, as well as to individual app pages.”  While the App Store and Apple Podcasts are different services, this change could signal a shift in the winds over in the podcasting world. Currently there are no ads in Apple Podcasts. Apple also puts considerable time into featuring podcasts in places ads would normally appear at no charge. Years of careful curation and optimal placement have caused those spots to become incredibly coveted. By making some of those spaces available for purchase - through search or the home page, or even on pages for OTHER podcasts - Apple would unlock a large revenue opportunity for themselves outside of subscriptions, and provide a new for-pay opportunity for podcast promotion. Ad Economy Downturn Dual Perspectives Shreya: On Monday Digiday's Seb Joseph posted “The downturn ad economy: A tale of two narratives.”  “There are two competing narratives on advertising at the moment. They sit uneasily with each other. But both are correct. Ad dollars are being spent, but they're also being cut. Yes, these two things can be true at the same time. No, the latter perspective doesn't make the former any less valid or vice versa. Really, it's a matter of perspective.”  The two warring perspectives in Joseph's piece are that of the big holding companies and agencies versus the platforms. Both are staring down the barrel of a recession and have different reactions.  “It's no surprise that the marketers who can afford to advertise now are trying to make the most of it.  They're spending ad dollars, rather than looking to pull them. Indeed, economic slumps are usually the best chance to buy share of voice cheaply at the same time rivals reduce their own. It's a cliche for a reason.   Otherwise, Unilever wouldn't have splurged £169.73 million ($206.7 million) on advertising in the first half of the year alone. Coca-Cola did so mething similar, as did McDonald's. The largest advertisers will try and advertise their way through the downturn — to a point, at least.”  Podcasting is platform-heavy, working diligently to get the big advertisers to shift their spending into podcasting. Yet those platform peers are the ones getting the short end of the stick when it comes to ad cuts.  “To survive, companies are cutting costs, including advertising. When these companies advertise, they tend to do so online first and foremost. SMEs and DTCs are nothing but digital-first in many respects. So when these businesses feel the effects of adverse conditions, so do the platforms they advertise on.” When those in the podcasting industry talk about the push for bigger advertisers in our space, it's not only for growth: it's to weather the storm. If some of those spend-through-the-storm big fish can be directed to our corner of the world, they'll keep multiple industries afloat. Quick Hits Section Manuela: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's four great reads are:  First: Google Begins Interest Group-Based Ad Experiment by Laurie Sullivan. Google is testing grouping users into interest groups (the article gives “custom bikes” as an example).This has implications for podcasting. What would be a great way to reach custom bike fans? A custom bike podcast.  Podcasting has a window to figure this stuff out.  Clear your calendar for the afternoon of August 16th as the Latino Podcast Listener Report 2022 is coming your way. The presentation, co-hosted by Gabriel Soto, Edison Research Senior Director of Research, and my co-host on La Descarga, as well as She Podcasts cofounder Elsie Escobar. Registration is open now.  Also: Podcasts are testing out-of-home ads to reach broader audiences by Alyssa Meyers. In a previous episode we touched on the story of Slow Burn buying a billboard to promote their season on Shirley Wheeler in Roe v. Wade battleground states. This covers the wider trend of podcasts dipping their toes in out-of-home advertising, first highlighted by James Cridland over in Podnews. The habit is growing and catching more attention, though it comes with - ironically - less metrics than the already small amount of fingerprinting traditional podcast advertising comes with.  Finally: How Slate's Charlie Kammerer is prioritizing frequency to boost podcast revenue by Kayleigh Barber. In a piece that rarely happens in mainstream podcast coverage, Slate's Charlie Kammerer talks through the outlet's podcasting strategy. Of note is the approach that shows integrated value, using podcast paywalls to drive subscriptions of Slate overall.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: New TikTok Trademark Could mean new streaming service, third-party cookies get a stay of execution from Google, Apple App Store ads could signal Apple Podcasts' future, and two perspectives on the downturn ad economy.  New TikTok App Trademark Manuela: Last Thursday Dan Whateley and Amanda Perelli, writing for Business Insider, covered a new trademark application for a service called TikTok Music. As the simplistic name suggests, TikTok parent company ByteDance could be looking to branch the TikTok brand out beyond its current relationship to music and create a fully-fledged streaming platform.  “The idea that ByteDance would launch a standalone "TikTok Music" streaming service in the US to compete with players like Spotify and Apple Music isn't unfounded. It already runs a streaming app called Resso in three markets — India, Brazil, and Indonesia — that has been grabbing market share from other streamers in the past year.” While nothing has been formally announced or set in stone, the sources Perelli and Whateley contacted for their story suggest it's highly unlikely ByteDance would file such a trademark. Filing in the US and Australia wouldn't happen without a strong chance the company meant for it to come to fruition. Then there's the matter of this move making perfect sense for TikTok.  Why cover this on The Download? Well, in addition to the general fact TikTok is slowly devouring the online world, it's coming for audio specifically and the trademark application lists, among other things, the proposed new app's ability to stream: “downloadable mobile applications providing podcast and radio broadcast content.” What remains to be seen is what the TikTok version of ‘a podcast' will be. Google Delays Cookie Death Again Shreya: Once again we won't be seeing the death of third-party cookies, as Google has delayed their death blow for another year. Last Wednesday The Verge's Richard Lawler covered the story in the article “Google delays blocking third-party cookies again, now targeting late 2024.”  “The plan is to expand the group of Chrome users who have Privacy Sandbox APIs enabled to “millions of users globally” starting in August, then gradually opt more people in throughout the rest of the year and into 2023, giving the publishers and developers of these sites time to find out how the technology works before the APIs are “generally available” by Q3 of 2023.”  With this second delay third-party cookies are becoming the shoe that refuses to drop in advertising. While podcasting doesn't depend on cookies per se, the ability to track individual consumers remains an expectation of digital marketers who don't want to see the genie go back into the bottle. If it does, podcasts are on equal footing with mobile and web ads, and all will have to do the work to target the right consumers. Apple App Store Ad Offerings Signal Podcast Future Manuela: This Tuesday's issue of Stratechery covers many sections of the Apple earnings call, but one particular section stuck out to The Download: Apple's new advertising slots. The new slots are detailed by 9to5Mac's Chance Miller. “Apple is expanding its advertising business and adding two new ad slots to the App Store. Currently, the App Store has two ad slots: one on the main ‘Search' tab and one in the Search results. The two new App Store ads announced today will bring advertisements to the App Store ‘Today' homepage, as well as to individual app pages.”  While the App Store and Apple Podcasts are different services, this change could signal a shift in the winds over in the podcasting world. Currently there are no ads in Apple Podcasts. Apple also puts considerable time into featuring podcasts in places ads would normally appear at no charge. Years of careful curation and optimal placement have caused those spots to become incredibly coveted. By making some of those spaces available for purchase - through search or the home page, or even on pages for OTHER podcasts - Apple would unlock a large revenue opportunity for themselves outside of subscriptions, and provide a new for-pay opportunity for podcast promotion. Ad Economy Downturn Dual Perspectives Shreya: On Monday Digiday's Seb Joseph posted “The downturn ad economy: A tale of two narratives.”  “There are two competing narratives on advertising at the moment. They sit uneasily with each other. But both are correct. Ad dollars are being spent, but they're also being cut. Yes, these two things can be true at the same time. No, the latter perspective doesn't make the former any less valid or vice versa. Really, it's a matter of perspective.”  The two warring perspectives in Joseph's piece are that of the big holding companies and agencies versus the platforms. Both are staring down the barrel of a recession and have different reactions.  “It's no surprise that the marketers who can afford to advertise now are trying to make the most of it.  They're spending ad dollars, rather than looking to pull them. Indeed, economic slumps are usually the best chance to buy share of voice cheaply at the same time rivals reduce their own. It's a cliche for a reason.   Otherwise, Unilever wouldn't have splurged £169.73 million ($206.7 million) on advertising in the first half of the year alone. Coca-Cola did so mething similar, as did McDonald's. The largest advertisers will try and advertise their way through the downturn — to a point, at least.”  Podcasting is platform-heavy, working diligently to get the big advertisers to shift their spending into podcasting. Yet those platform peers are the ones getting the short end of the stick when it comes to ad cuts.  “To survive, companies are cutting costs, including advertising. When these companies advertise, they tend to do so online first and foremost. SMEs and DTCs are nothing but digital-first in many respects. So when these businesses feel the effects of adverse conditions, so do the platforms they advertise on.” When those in the podcasting industry talk about the push for bigger advertisers in our space, it's not only for growth: it's to weather the storm. If some of those spend-through-the-storm big fish can be directed to our corner of the world, they'll keep multiple industries afloat. Quick Hits Section Manuela: Finally, it's time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we're calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week's four great reads are:  First: Google Begins Interest Group-Based Ad Experiment by Laurie Sullivan. Google is testing grouping users into interest groups (the article gives “custom bikes” as an example).This has implications for podcasting. What would be a great way to reach custom bike fans? A custom bike podcast.  Podcasting has a window to figure this stuff out.  Clear your calendar for the afternoon of August 16th as the Latino Podcast Listener Report 2022 is coming your way. The presentation, co-hosted by Gabriel Soto, Edison Research Senior Director of Research, and my co-host on La Descarga, as well as She Podcasts cofounder Elsie Escobar. Registration is open now.  Also: Podcasts are testing out-of-home ads to reach broader audiences by Alyssa Meyers. In a previous episode we touched on the story of Slow Burn buying a billboard to promote their season on Shirley Wheeler in Roe v. Wade battleground states. This covers the wider trend of podcasts dipping their toes in out-of-home advertising, first highlighted by James Cridland over in Podnews. The habit is growing and catching more attention, though it comes with - ironically - less metrics than the already small amount of fingerprinting traditional podcast advertising comes with.  Finally: How Slate's Charlie Kammerer is prioritizing frequency to boost podcast revenue by Kayleigh Barber. In a piece that rarely happens in mainstream podcast coverage, Slate's Charlie Kammerer talks through the outlet's podcasting strategy. Of note is the approach that shows integrated value, using podcast paywalls to drive subscriptions of Slate overall.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.