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Submit ReviewThe pace of change the podcast industry is undergoing is staggering. The implications for podcasters, hosting providers, podcast listening app developers, and advertisers and agencies are enormous. And so is the growth potential. Presented as a companion to the weekly newsletter of the same name, our podcast provides you with direct access to our narrated articles, interviews with industry experts, bleeding-edge research, and can't miss industry news recaps. That Sounds Profitable, right?
Assumptions and conventional wisdom will be challenged. Easy answers with no proof of efficacy will be exposed. Because the thinking that got podcast advertising close to a billion dollars annually will need to be drastically overhauled to bring in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars podcast advertising deserves.
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Submit ReviewThere has been much concern over how podcasting will implement AI. Tom breaks down the current landscape, as well as future symbiotic relationships.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week on The Download:
Advertisers and audiences refute the idea that podcasts are on the wane.
Quick Hits:
Like a kid taking a bite of his dessert before his meal is finished, I think it’s time we enter the next phase of podcast adtech even before we finish the last.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week: Lessons from the Podcast Upfront, the Spring 2023 MIDAS report is here, and SXM Media leaders see podcast advertising maturing.|
And for our Quick Hits:
For a full transcript and links to all articles mentioned, please visit SoundsProftiable.com/Podcast
In this episode, Arielle Nissenblatt and Bryan Barletta interview Tom Webster about his recent reporting: an article he wrote for Sounds Profitable called “How To Murder a Podcast” and a YouTube video called “Research Collection Methods.” We talk about Sounds Profitable’s approach when it comes to education for the industry and how understanding research collection methods fits into our mission. We also discuss our upcoming research projects and where you can go to learn about them.
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This week, we have a special guest post from Newton Schottelkotte! Newt recently graduated from college this year, but do not let their age fool you - they’ve been in podcasting for seven years now, and seven significant years at that. We asked Newt to share some perspective on how podcasting has changed, and how it can continue to grow as a viable career.
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week's stories:
Quick Hits:
The Edison Research Share of Ear shows podcasting’s share of daily audio listening for Americans 13+ has doubled over the last nine years. This week, Tom highlights a related statistic that shows a promising ratio for podcasting’s core.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week's top stories:
How to use CTV as a Roadmap for Programmatic Audio
What downturn? In real terms, ad spending is doing just fine.
Washington State passes sweeping health data law
Research Roundup:
state-of-podcasting-2023-via-podnews.pdf">iHeart State of Podcasting 2023
Podcast Advertising Benchmark Report by Podsights
Quick hits:
Barometer and Audiohook partner to enable Brand Suitability and Contextual Targeting at scale. The partnership aims to allow advertisers the ability to enforce brand suitability guidelines while also taking advantage of Audiohook’s programmatic platform.
New on Data Decoded, Tom shares his love of commercial jingles while examining interesting data in the Soundout Index report. Why is sonic branding seemingly less effective on Gen Z? Find out in Tom’s new six minute video!
In this episode, we discuss baseball! The new pitch clock, our favorites teams…just kidding. We talk about what it means to swing for the fences in the podcast and audio space and the companies who are taking big risks. Sounds Profitable is in a unique position to not only swing for the fences ourselves, but to help others who want to help grow this industry too.
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A recent research report from Japan highlights how podcasting can grow when it germinates from a very different seed. Tom Webster breaks down the data and how it applies to podcasting everywhere
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week on The Download:
And in Quick Hits:
For links to all articles covered and a full transcript of the episode, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/podcast
In this special re-upload, Bryan speaks with U of Digital Managing Partner Shiv Gupta about what it means to create a comprehensive educational approach across an industry. Gupta comes to us by way of the digital marketing space, but has spent his career creating programming aimed at educating and serving across different sectors and levels within companies. Adtech Applied cohost Arielle Nissenblatt joins to set up the chat and break it down with takeaways at the latter half of the show.
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Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: creating opportunities for folks to learn, either if they’re new to a job or looking to move on to the next level, benefits everyone.
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Continuing Sounds Profitable’s mission to provide more for the business of audio, Bryan Barletta announces the Partner Perks Series.
Get in touch to learn more about the Business Leaders Summit at The Podcast Show London!
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week's stories:
Quick hits:
For full transcript and links to all articles mentioned, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/podcast
Did you know that April is Adopt-a-Podcast Listener Month? Now you do! Bryan Barletta speaks with Lauren Passell and Arielle Nissenblatt about Tink Media, this new initiative to grow the podcast/audio space, barriers they’ve uncovered for potential listeners, and how you can get involved.
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Discussed this week:
Ad Spend in the US will grow more than initially expected this year, per S&P.
How brands can tailor their audio ads to target “co-listeners”
Why news outlets are putting their podcasts on YouTube
Quick Hits:
The 2023 Quill Podcast Awards nominations are now open. Public nominations will run until April 24th, with finalists announced on May 4th and winners announced on May 17th. Eligibility guidelines and categories can be found on Quill’s website.
OxfordRoad has published a new study titled Solving Audio Ad Attribution. The white paper aims to teach marketers how to improve performance at scale and proposes vanity urls “no longer cut it.”
A month after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the fallout is just beginning for the ad industry by Seb Joseph and Marty Swant for Digiday. A substantial breakdown of the aftershocks from the SVB collapse and what impacts it’ll have on advertising.
For full transcript and links to everything mentioned, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/Podcast
In this episode, Tom, Arielle, and Bryan recap their experiences at Radiodays Europe, which took place last month in Prague. They discuss the expo hall, the presentation they attended, trends they identified, and much more.
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This week, Tom Webster spots a misapplication of podcast research that he felt strongly enough about to hopefully nip in the bud, wherever the bud may be found.
Contact for information about Business Leader Summit in London.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week on The Download:
Quick Hits:
For all links and a full transcript of the episode, visit SoundsProfitable.com/Podcasts
Podcast advertising is in a weird phase. We’re caught between our ideals and our reality; the technical capabilities of the space and the business decisions of the company. That confusion is starting to cost us trust.
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week on The Download: Google Announces Ad Library, the maturing podcast ad industry attracts more mainstream brands, and Audiobooks could become new audio advertising frontier.
Quick Hits:
Gumball Expands Its Host-Read Podcast Advertising Marketplace Model to YouTube Integrations.
Podcast Company Audacy Shakes Up Its Leadership, Retains Cadence13 Studio by Ashley Carman.
For a full transcript of the episode, links, and other episodes, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/Podcast
Tom Webster recently wrote an article entitled, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Podcasts.” He posits that, while publishers may think they know a lot about their audiences, they don’t really know all that much. He outlines five questions that podcasters can ask of their audience in order to get a better grasp on who they are, what they want, and how the show can potentially appeal to more listeners like them. Arielle Nissenblatt and Tom discuss these five questions and share some more context on how to chat with your audience. Also in this episode, we discuss Sounds Profitable’s “The Medium Moves the Message” research study and Tink Media’s upcoming Adopt a Listener Month initiative.
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From an undisclosed location in Prague, Tom Webster reflects on highlights from recent Sounds Profitable research and why it means radio should embrace podcasting.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week on The Download:
Ad Fraud Yet to Significantly Impact Podcasts
Marketers and creators react to potential TikTok ban
raises-price-of-youtube-tv-to-73-blaming-content-costs.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eDaily%203.17.2023&utm_term=eMarketer%20Daily%20CORE/EMEA%20%28Mon-Fri%29">YouTubeTV increases price due to content costs
Sounds Profitable releases The Medium Moves the Message
Quick hits:
The Biggest Challenge for Podcasters Today is… by Eric Nuzum in his newsletter Audio Insurgent. This issue Nuzum has a conversation with ChatGPT, asking the bot to list the biggest issues podcasters face currently. Interestingly enough, it might have parroted the sentiments of one of Nuzum’s own articles back at him.
Amaze Media Labs Acquires Rockable. Podcast advertising company Rockable, and their proprietary audience growth solutions, are now a part of AMAZE Media Labs.
For a full transcript of the episode, links, and other episodes, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/Podcast
Google has a potentially huge opportunity to grow the podcast industry — both for publishers and for listeners (and even for advertisers) — by way of YouTube Music. The past few weeks have brought more and more attention to this possibility by way of Kai Chuk’s announcement at Hot Pod Summit at On Air Fest and a recent press release shared on Podnews. In this episode, Bryan Barletta and Arielle Nissenblatt discuss the opportunity at hand, what we would like to see, what we will likely see (realistically), and what the future looks like if the opportunity is seized.
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This week Bryan addresses the myth that podcasting has a unique measurement problem, and how the industry as a whole can move forward to address it.
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now.
The stories covered this week are:
Quick Hits:
The JAR Audio Pilot Competition for Emerging Women Podcasters is now accepting applications. The winning idea will be produced as a pilot episode with JAR audio collaborating with the creator. The deadline for submissions is May 1st.
Sessions from Veritonic’s Audio Intelligence Summit are now available on Veritonic’s website. For those who missed out, or are interested in reviewing what they saw in person, the seven sessions are now live, including the panel on attribution and brand lift that includes our own Bryan Barletta.
What Are the 3 S’s of Programmatic Podcast Advertising? By Mattia Verzella on AdMonsters. Spreaker’s Head of Business Development breaks down the rise of ad trading in podcasting, the challenges faced by both publishers and advertisers, and details how the three S’s can solve for them.
For the episode's full transcript, please visit SoundsProfitable.com/Podcast
Does the medium move the message? Spoiler alert - yes. This week Tom Webster previews the next research project from Sounds Profitable.
Sounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron
Gavin: 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 Gavin Gaddis, in for Manuela Bedoya.
Shreya: And I’m Shreya Sharma.
Gavin: The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now. You can find a link in the description or visit Magellan dot AI.
Shreya: This week: Spotify Stream On Announces New Features, RSS.com and Spreaker make transcripts more accessible, Marketers adapt to serve niche communities, and The Infinite Dial turns 25.
Let’s get started.
Spotify live stream
Gavin: Yesterday Spotify hosted their annual Stream On live event from LA. Throughout the 90 minute presentation a series of guest speakers, ranging from Spotify executives to the Jonas Brothers, debuted new features from Spotify and the company’s goals in the near future. Let’s look at the ones relevant to podcasting:
Starting yesterday the Anchor brand has been retired. The hosting service and other podcasting features will be brought under the name Spotify for Podcasters. In addition to the new coat of paint for Anchor, several features originally only available to podcasts hosted on Anchor have been made platform-agnostic.
Chief among these features is the ability to upload video podcasts to Spotify, a particular pain point for video podcasters outside the Spotify umbrella. In addition to video uploads, users will have access to net-new features like Q&A posts and polls that will be visible on the podcast’s page in Spotify. The Spotify for Podcasters dashboard will also feature more advanced analytics. As one slide of the presentation announced:
“Spotify is open for business.”
Speaking of business, during the segment focusing on the Spotify Audience Network, Chief Business Officer Alex Norstrom announced the newest publisher to join SPAN is none other than podcasting giant NPR.
In the world of monetization, Spotify podcasters are getting a sizeable upgrade in the form of a Patreon partnership. Now podcast listeners will be able to listen to premium content hosted on Patreon from within Spotify itself. With this announcement, Spotify now has a direct answer to Apple’s paid podcast subscription service.
This year’s Stream On was a promising one, with a healthy focus on the podcasting industry overall. This renewed focus on upgrading the platform, adding new features, and making older features more accessible to podcasters everywhere is a promising one. Spotify seems to be interested in growing with podcasting instead of growing independently. We love to see it.
RSS.com and Spreaker make transcription free
Shreya: To continue the trend of features that benefit everyone in podcasting we have two big transcription announcements. First: this Monday RSS.com announced all podcasts hosted on their platform will now have access to automated transcription.
When generated, these transcripts will be posted automatically to the show’s episode page on RSS.com, as well as pushed the show’s RSS feed. This will allow the transcript to be displayed in podcast listening apps that support Podcasting 2.0 tags. According to this Monday’s issue of Podnews, the list of apps that actively support transcripts through this method includes Podverse, Podbean, and Podcast Addict.
At launch the automatic transcripts support thirteen languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Catalan, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish.
In the official press release, RSS.com co-founder Ben Richardson said there were several features the company considered essential to the tool for it to be ready, including multiple languages and ease of use for the podcaster. From the press release:
“We encourage all types of podcast player apps to facilitate the use of captions and transcripts our podcasters can provide in order to open up even more of podcasting’s potential.”
And for the second part of this Monday transcription tale: the folks at Spreaker launched FreePodcastTranscription.com, a free tool available to anyone regardless of affiliation with Spreaker. The website touts a high level of privacy and security due to everything being run locally in the user’s browser. From the site’s copy:
“We don't send the mp3 file to a server. All the processing happens on your device.”
Since that processing is kept in-browser instead of farmed out to an expensive server network, the burden of effort and cost is shifted to the user, allowing a lightweight, free option for podcast transcription. Users pick from one of sixty language options, select the file needing transcription, and run the process. After some time, dictated by the power of the computer, a .SRT file is generated for download.
The easier it is for podcasters to generate transcripts, the more pressure there will be for podcast apps to fully implement them. Not only does the popularization of transcription make podcasting more accessible to a wider audience, it increases the search engine optimization far beyond what can be written in a given episode title or description. More people can enjoy podcasts, and more people will be able to find them. A win-win scenario.
Marketers adapt to serve niche communities as culture fragments.
Gavin: This week an eighth-part article series on social fragmentation in the internet era kicked off on Digiday. The first piece, written by Kristina Monllos focuses on the death of the classic “water cooler moment.” From the article:
“Today, we not only don’t have a watercooler — as the return to the office hasn’t been a return to pre-pandemic normal — but we have fewer mass cultural moments where everyone is paying attention to one thing. In recent years, the proliferation of content online has made the experience of the internet more individualized, according to agency execs, allowing people to focus on specific niches that they find interesting rather than tune into whatever they’re supposed to like because everyone else says they should.”
A natural reaction to this fragmentation is to focus down on appropriate niche groups and meet the individuals at their own individualized online experiences. Unfortunately this also comes with the task of convincing marketers to buy in, as they tend to want to stretch their budgets as wide as possible. Some of this convincing comes in the form of sobering conversations explaining that even the largest brands don’t have the money to target every audience at once.
Fragmentation has lead to more digital boots-on-the-ground marketing, such as Cristina Lawrence, EVP of consumer and content experience at Razorfish, aiding a CGP company in establishing a viral TikTok account. Primarily by being flexible and producing content quickly, the company could pursue moment-to-moment trends as they developed and meet users where they naturally were going.
Much like when Apple Tracking Transparency turned the advertising world on its head, save for podcasting, our industry is uniquely positioned to serve targeted communities. Podcasts, by their very nature, create their own niche groups. If properly maintained and surveyed, a podcast community is the perfect place for niche targeting.
Edison Research Publishes 25th Anniversary Edition of The Infinite Dial
Shreya: For our final story of the week, why not end on some more good news? A flashy 25th anniversary edition of Edison Research’s report The Infinite Dial dropped last Thursday. Here’s some highlights from the 73 page document to take you into the weekend:
Monthly podcast listening for the total US population 12 and up dipped last year, going from 41% in 2021 to 38% in 2022. Listenership has risen once more, with 2023 numbers sitting at 42% of the population, an estimated 120 million listeners. Weekly podcast listening took a similar dip in 2022, slipping from 28% of the population to 26%. This year it has climbed back up from the slump to 31%, or an estimated 89 million podcast listeners in the US alone. From the observations slide:
“Data appears to reflect ‘post-pandemic’: on pattern from previous years.”
In essence, it appears the number fluctuations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic severely changing daily routines have calmed. Now the industry is back to the familiar, steady growth seen in previous years.
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:
Advertisers can use their own first-party data to target podcast ad campaigns, but are they? By Alyssa Meyers. A piece interrogating how podcasting can implement first-party data in ad campaigns, as well as interrogating why certain companies prefer or avoid it. Spoiler alert: first-party, like programmatic and any other tool, has its uses and can work well when used appropriately.
Not All Audio is Created Equal: Why Media Buyers Should Avoid Bundling Podcasts with Streaming in Programmatic Transactions by Acast. A brief article highlighting the potential downsides to bundling podcasts with digital or streaming inventory. Bad things happen when trying to fit the square peg of podcast ad measurement in the round hole of streaming measurement.
Ambie Awards: ‘Chameleon: Wild Boys’ Wins Podcast of the Year by J Clara Chan. The Podcast Academy’s yearly awards ceremony, known as the Ambies, took place earlier this week and The Hollywood Reporter has coverage, including a list of the big winners.
Spreaker is now free, a press release by Spreaker. Spreaker’s existing free plan has new offerings with unlimited episode uploads, access to Spreaker’s programmatic monetization, and customizable RSS feeds. For more on Spreaker’s offerings, check out the Sounds Profitable DeepDive.
Gavin: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today’s episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.com
I 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 Gavin Gaddis
Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.
This week we bring you a feed drop from Insider Interviews, in which E.B. Moss interviews Linda Bethea. The original show notes follow:
Linda Bethea, Head of Marketing for Danone North America - a top 15 Food and Beverage brand and the country's largest B corp - gives Insider Interviews host, E.B. Moss, the insider's scoop on marketing 20 different beloved CPG brands, and staying true to a corporate mission of sustainability. Hear how she developed her leadership skills during stints with PepsiCo, Frito-Lay and Diageo, and is now "delighting" consumers with everything from International Delight partnerships with the iconic show "Friends" to the hit Super Bowl commercial for Oikos with Deion Sanders and family.
Linda and E.B. discuss:
• Linda's path from soda to spirits to spirited field work that taught her how to negotiate and earned the nickname of The Velvet Hammer
• Her definition of brand purpose and how proper marketing of it impacts consumer choice and company values
• The growing demand for plant-based foods today
• How Danone is rescuing fruit and repurposing bottles into shoes and what E.B. eats as an "ova-lacto-pesce-vegetarian"! (And a lot more about plant-food trends, like Danone's new campaign for Silk with a "faux" milk moustache on stars!
Linda Bethea is smart and inspiring and mission-driven. Don't miss this conversation with a conscientious consumer marketer and leader.
In preparation for Podcast Movement Evolutions and South by Southwest, Bryan Barletta sits down with Tom Webster to discuss research, presentations, and his new weekly video series Data Decoded.
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
Manuela: This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I’m Manuela Bedoya.
Shreya: And I’m Shreya Sharma.
Manuela: The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now. You can find a link in the description or visit Magellan dot AI.
Shreya: This week: Podcasts are coming to YouTube Music, Digiday breaks down the Google antitrust case, Podnews publishes a deep dive on podcasting in Japan, and how marketers are looking at Q2.
Let’s get started.
Podcasts are coming to YouTube Music
Manuela: Since the release of the YouTube Podcasts webpage last year, there has been little in the way of concrete feature announcements from YouTube, leaving some skeptical of Google’s commitment. After all, podcasting has been burned by companies veering away from podcast support at the 11th hour.
Last Thursday, during the Hot Pod Summit at On Air Fest, YouTube Podcast Lead Kai Chuck took to announce YouTube is releasing a beta version of podcasting functionality for YouTube accounts, as well as adding podcasts to YouTube Music in the near future. A quote from Chuck, pulled from J. Clara Chan’s coverage:
“The message that I would hope folks are taking away is YouTube, at large, independent of YouTube Music, is looking to better support podcasters and [recognizes] that podcasting is generally an audio-first medium.”
Once implemented, YouTube Music listeners will likely have a comparable podcast listening experience to current offerings with Spotify and Apple. As reported on the official YouTube blog in August, YouTube Music has a subscriber base of around 80 million users split across YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Not bad, but it pales in comparison to YouTube’s over two billion users.
According to Chuck, there are intentions to bridge the gap between the platforms. A quote from Chuck, pulled from Ariel Shapiro’s coverage:
“I don’t expect podcasts to only live on YouTube Music, that’s the only way that people consume podcasts on YouTube,” Chuk said. “We expect there to be kind of a back and forth between the two.”
Shapiro then says Google product lead for podcasting Steve McLendon gave an explanation of how the feature would ultimately work, describing seamlessly continuing a podcast episode that had been started on a desktop computer watching YouTube to an audio feed while driving home from work.
While not directly related to podcasting, another promising audio feature was announced for YouTube last week: multi-language audio tracks. Currently in beta and piloted by popular content creators like Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, the feature will allow creators to upload alternate audio tracks to dub new and existing videos in different languages. If properly supported and implemented, this could have interesting implementations for podcasting in future.
In the February 21st issue of the Sounds Profitable newsletter, Bryan Barletta detailed several ways Google could win back trust from skeptical podcasters and show they’re committed to integrating with the industry. One way mentioned was a commitment to RSS ingestion and integration. While a step in the right direction, Chuck’s announcement didn’t completely deliver this. A quote from Chan’s presentation:
“Definitely support for RSS is something we are looking at. I would say, probably initially, we will leverage RSS to make it easier for podcasters to bring shows to YouTube. In terms of future plans, things like that, we’re sort of exploring what should our goal be.”
So podcasts are coming to YouTube. Kind of. As Chuck said, the current vision for RSS integration is less integration and more an automatic import to bring the file into YouTube’s ecosystem. Promising steps are being made towards YouTube integrating into podcasting, instead of YouTube turning podcasters into YouTubers who occasionally upload audio elsewhere, but we’re not out of the woods yet.
WTF is going on with the Google antitrust case?
Shreya: Back in late January the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging the search engine giant had created a monopoly in the ad tech market as well. The 155 page lawsuit argues Google has used a combination of ad tech tools like their ad exchange and publisher ad server to corner the market on programmatic ads. Last week Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson published a brief piece collecting together the first three installments of a series of videos explaining the DoJ’s lawsuit, as well as the basic fundamentals of ad tech needed to understand the situation.
In general, the crux of the lawsuit centers around Google having a DSP in the form of Display & Video 360, an ad exchange platform in AdX, and a publisher ad server in Google Ad Manager. A tech stack that, if leveraged a certain way, would give preferential treatment to Google’s interests. A quote from the DoJ lawsuit:
“By allowing only its own publisher ad server effective access to important, unique Google Ads’ demand, Google could force publishers to adopt and remain on its publisher ad server; other ad servers could not compete to offer a similar product.”
The situation is further exacerbated by Google’s sheer size in the adtech industry. According to the lawsuit’s allegations, Google’s market share for ad servers jumped from 60% in 2008 to 90% in 2015. The DoJ cites a 2016 customer presentation in which Google stressed this 90% market share, describing their publisher ad server as the quote-unquote “defacto” choice. Even now, as alleged by the lawsuit, header bidding can’t escape Google’s first-look clauses. From the lawsuit:
“Critically, through dynamic allocation, Google’s ad exchange always received this “last
look” advantage, essentially a right to buy any impression as long as it had at least one advertiser willing to match the competing bid price from the header bidding auction.”
Podcasting as an industry has many paths in front of it right now. If we choose to go down a handful of current options available, we might find ourselves in the same situation Digital found themselves in with Google. Let’s hope podcasting doesn’t get to a point where even header bidding can’t break free of one company’s control.
It has been said before on The Download and it will be said again: independent third parties are vital for a healthy industry.
Japan: A Podcasting Deep Dive
Manuela: The first in a series of deep dives into different East and South-East Asian podcast markets by Guang Jin YEO was published last week on Podnews. A sequel to January’s Japan: a country overview, this deep dive examines the driving factors behind an industry-defining podcast (such as Serial), explores Japan’s existing podcast industry, and explores what could be a podcast category driver in Japan to the point of reaching a similar impact to Serial.
It’s an uphill battle in Japan, for sure. A snapshot of podcast listener statistics out of the internet population in several countries shows podcasting’s weekly reach is just four percent of the total population in a country with an 83% internet-connected population. For comparison, the same graph’s data for the US shows 26% weekly reach to the population.
Some significant barriers to entry do stand in the way of a thriving Japanese podcast industry. Popular commercial radio syndication apps like Radiko undercut the motivation of radio to repackage segments as podcasts, Japan has far stricter content copyright laws than the US, and most how-to guides built for educating new podcast listeners are only available in English. From the article:
“But is it all doom and gloom? Not exactly, TBS - Tokyo Broadcasting Station, the first radio broadcaster in Japan is planning to release a large number of new original podcast programs on all the mainstream podcast outlets - which means that they see value outside of Radiko. Covid also encouraged a surge of creators globally, including Japan which means more people are willing to tackle the complicated copyright laws and more people are willing to explain them to creators.”
Global podcasting is growing, and as this deep dive shows, some markets remain full of untapped potential with only a few speed bumps in the way of mainstream adoption.
Mixed outlook for Q2, marketers hold hope for second half
Shreya: This week Digiday’s Kristina Monllos published an article exploring marketer’s tempered expectations for the upcoming quarter, as well as hopes for Q3 and Q4.
“Marketers are spending, and there are signals that spending could pick up in the second half of the year with more new business pitches happening now, according to agency execs. But there’s still a “cautious optimism,” as one agency exec put it when asked to sum up marketers’ current mood. At the same time, spending is down compared to the second quarter of last year — agency execs say that it’s down roughly 10%, a smaller percentage than many had expected earlier in the year — and marketers are holding onto dollars longer and seeking more flexibility rather than longer-term commitments.”
As covered in similar stories over the past few weeks in The Download, the general tone of the industry is that brand building has taken a back seat to performance marketing. Stacey Stewart, U.S. Chief Marketplace Officer at UM, told Digiday the marketers are focusing on short-term planning and flexibility over signing long-term deals.
Creative agency Mekanism CEO Jason Harris reports some marketers have adopted a “keep calm and carry on” strategy by continuing to spend and accepting lower profits for higher revenues. Stewart’s comment about flexibility is backed up by Harris, who also reports having seen it bleed over into new business pitch practices. While new clients are focusing on taking baby steps with test projects, he also sees promising indications for the future. A quote from Harris in the article:
“Pitch activity tells me clients are planning the back half of the year to be busy,” said Harris. “I think this year will turn into a good year.”
2023 rolls onward. Q1 has developed into something far less terrifying than predicted four months ago, and the vast majority of us are still alive and kicking. Despite it all, it’s hard not to have hope for the rest of the year. It might not be the most stellar year on record, but signs point to good things.
Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
The 2023 IAB Australian Audio State of the Nation Report released yesterday and is now available for download. Check it out now for the latest data from down under, including the finding that 78% of media agencies intend to increase investment in podcast advertising this year.
And in Sounds Profitable’s weekly series Data Decoded with Tom Webster, Tom looks at a graph from Podsights’ newest quarterly Benchmark report. Preroll ads now have higher conversion rates than midroll. What could that mean? Tom breaks it down in five minutes on the Sounds Profitable YouTube channel.
Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today’s episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.com
I know we went through today’s stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned, right in your podcast listening app, or on SoundsProfitable.com/TheDownload. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Manuela Bedoya.
Shreya : And I'm Shreya Sharma. Our producers are Bryan Barletta, Gavin Gaddis, and Tom Webster. Special thanks to Art19 for hosting The Download. And thanks to you for joining us.
Writing for Sounds Profitable recently, Bryan Barletta posited the idea that Spotify has a big opportunity to use their streaming ad insertion technology to grow the industry. In this episode, Arielle Nissenblatt speaks with Bryan and Tom Webster about this opportunity, what it means for the larger industry, and how this all fits into the current zeitgeist around the future of audio (i.e. there have been some doom-and-gloom-focused articles popping up).
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Every podcaster thinks they know what their audience likes. This week Tom Webster shares strategies to actually get that audience talking and directly telling you what they like.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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: The App Tracking Transparency Recession, Streamers struggle with frequency capping, Bumper calculates listen time, and IPG Equity Upfront Spotlights Lack of Diverse Adspend.
Manuela: The Download is brought to you by Magellan AI. Track the trends in spend, ad load, podcasts on YouTube, and more with Magellan AI's advertising benchmark report for Q4, available now. Link in the description or at Magellan dot AI
Shreya: Let’s get started.
The App Tracking Transparency recession
Manuela: While not hot off the presses, an early January article from Eric Benjamin Seufert discussing the effects of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency has come across The Download’s desk. As with most things in advertising, there’s nuance in the numbers.
Quick refresher for those who haven’t seen the letters ATT dozens of times: App Tracking Transparency was a privacy policy introduced to iOS in 2021 that turns most forms of mobile data tracking into an opt-in service. As a result, a significant portion of iOS users have digitally disappeared for advertisers. An upset to the status quo, for sure, but the overall numbers provided by Seufert show the digital advertising market is not in a cyclical downturn.
That said, social media platforms and other industries most likely to be affected by ATT have experienced a significant downturn due to a combination of both ATT-influenced changes and changing consumer preferences.
Which is to say, not macroeconomic factors. A market-wide downturn, as well as more stress on those companies most affected by ATT, would primarily come from an actual 2023 recession. Overall, digital advertising has been working as intended. Consumers are consuming.
Seufert points to a Bureau of Labor Statistics graph tracking US employment in December of 2022. According to these, unemployment is the lowest it has been since August 1969. From Seufert’s piece:
“But one might assume that the economy has utterly imploded from reading the Q3 earnings call transcripts of various social media platforms. Alphabet, Meta, and Snap, in particular, cited macroeconomic weakness, headwinds, uncertainty, challenges, etc. in their Q3 earnings calls.”
In the weeks since Seufert’s article, the overall numbers are trending to agree. The Download has recently mentioned podcast ad spend has remained up while others decline, but the same holds true for other areas. Last week a piece by Ethan Cramer-Flood for Insider Intelligence reports mobile app install ad spending increased 24.8% in 2022, on track to a market growth of 12% this year.
Meanwhile, still on Insider Intelligence, Daniel Konstantinovic reports that while market concerns aren’t gone, ad-cost inflation has slowed. 84% of ad executives told Insider Intelligence they're not lowering budgets for 2023. From Konstantinovic:
“But now, the industry is adjusting to a new normal. With inflation steadily falling and the cost per ad decreasing, some of the advertising spending that was staunched in the second half of last year may return.”
The future may be uncertain, but for the wider advertising economy, podcasting included, things tend to be stable or trending upward. And, it bears repeating, podcasting has never benefited from mobile device IDs. From this industry’s perspective, at least, ATT has had little to no impact. It feels fitting to end with this quote from Seufert’s article:
“While one might materialize, the belief that an advertising recession is currently and comprehensively depressing advertising spend is difficult to support with analytical rigor.”
Streaming advertisers continue to struggle with frequency caps.
Shreya: If you’ve used a video streaming service with advertisements, you’re likely intimately aware of the industry’s issue with frequency caps. Last week’s Future of TV Briefing from Digiday’s Tim Peterson zooms in on this particular issue with the section Capping Out.
Streaming advertisers are in a bind. Some viewers are getting underexposed to ads, while others are overexposed. Problems that will only exacerbate as digital video streaming continues on its overtake of traditional television. 704x748.png%3Fq%3D70%26auto%3Dformat&w=750&q=70">According to a recent eMarketer graph, US adults only averaged five minutes less digital video time than television last year, and are projected to overtake TV’s declining numbers for the first time this year.
Of course, addressing the frequency issues isn’t as easy as it sounds. A myriad of reasons exist, from lack of ability to track exposures across multiple streaming platforms, to multiple DSPs buying from the same pool.
Even when the solution exists, sometimes it comes at a price. Peterson reports some streamers are charging more in exchange for placing stricter frequency caps. An anonymous ad agency executive told Digiday:
“Some will endeavor to charge more for more restrictive frequency caps, which could be prohibitive or incentivize lower spend from partners. But more and more, they’re willing to waive those fees. And hopefully that will be the case going forward as I think these lower frequency caps are the expectation, not the exception anymore.”
This particular piece made the cut this week for two reasons.
Something to keep in mind before the next headline about ‘podcasting’s frequency capping problem’ rolls around.
Bumper Calculates Listen Time
Manuela: Back in January, Bumper’s Jonas Woost posted a proposal for the podcasting industry to move past the download and evolve similarly to how YouTube has evolved past the view. While not abandoned by any means, video view counts have taken a back seat to watch time metrics in recent years. Bumper’s future aims for podcasters to have their own metric with listen time. This week Dan Misener has followed up Jonas’ post by calculating listen time on an episode of his podcast Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. From the article::
“Inconveniently, many podcast apps simply do not report Listen Time, or equivalent metrics. At Bumper, we try not to let perfect be the enemy of good. So to calculate Listen Time for podcast episodes, we do the best we can with what we have, then use reasonable estimates for the rest.”
While not a herculean effort, Misener’s step-by-step guide on how to pull your own numbers from Apple and Spotify require some arithmetic and a teeny bit of opening your browser’s code to find a specific JSON file. For anyone finding themselves interested for business reasons, or perhaps for a geeky weekend math project, the article also provides a Google Sheets template to start from.
In addition to the guide for Apple and Spotify, Misener tosses in a few extra-credit opportunities into the assignment with suggestions for also implementing YouTube watch time, Google Podcasts ‘minutes played’, and ‘hours listened’ data from applicable embedded web players.
As Misener says in his closing bullet points, the download isn’t going anywhere. Bumper’s goal is to aim for a future where downloads are not the only metric considered. Now to see if various platforms and apps share a similar outlook and make steps to provide Listen Time. We’ll keep our ears open.
IPG Equity Upfront Spotlights Lack of Diverse Adspend
Shreya: This month the IPG Mediabrands Equity Upfront event in New York brought together around thirty publishers to focus on media with owners of diverse backgrounds. Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew was in attendance to cover the event. From his article:
“Nearly two years after many in the advertising industry revealed plans to invest more money in Black-owned media, those publishers said they are still educating media buyers and advertisers about what they have to offer.”
According to Magna US president Dani Benowitz, IPG Mediabrands increased its ad spend in Black-owned media 61% between 2021 and 2022, as well as a 7% increase in Hispanic-owned media and 32% in AAPI-owned media.
Still, money isn’t flowing in as fast as old promises implied. According to Magna’s estimates from Nielsen data, only 2% of total ad spend goes to Black-owned media, despite 14% of the US population being Black.
This week Marketing Brew’s Katie Hicks writes on similar pay inequity in influencer marketing:
“In December 2021, influencer education platform The Influencer League and PR agency MSL US released a study that found that Black creators, on average, made 35% less than white creators. While the issue has gotten more attention in the last year, Brittany Bright, founder of The Influencer League, told us that efforts to address it are still in their early stages.”
Cavel Khan, CCO of Group Black, a collective of publishers and creators focused on bringing more ad dollars to Black-owned media, ends Barwick’s piece explaining events like IPG’s Equity Upfront put a stop to excuses for industries not prioritizing minority-owned media companies. From Khan:
“Everyone who’s going to present to you is creating value…You’re going to have an overwhelming amount of evidence when you sit here for three days. You have to act.”
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:
If you work for a podcast network, we’ve got a webinar signup link you’ll want to check out. Clear your calendar for Wednesday, March 1st, when Bryan Barletta takes to the virtual stage with Frequency CEO Pete Jimison to talk about Frequency’s next generation of podcast workflow tools. Catch a live demo and hear directly from Pete about automating vetting processes that can help you gain speed, efficiencies, and scale your network. Visit the link in our show notes to register. Please note, registration requests will only be accepted for those that work at podcast networks.
ARN’s iHeart and Magellan AI have released the Australian Top 15 Podcast Advertisers for Q4 2022. From Amazon to Aldi, the list covers a wide spectrum of businesses.
The Digiday Media Awards deadline for submissions is approaching, with the regular deadline being March 9th and the last-chance deadline on April 20th. This year will be the first edition of the awards to include Top Podcast.
IAB Tech Lab’s First Data Clean Room Standard is Open for Public Comment by Allison Schiff. A solid explanation of the standard and what impacts it could have.
Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today’s episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.com
I 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. 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.
On this episode of the Sounds Profitable Podcast, Bryan Barletta sits down with Audiohook's Jordan Bentley to discuss pre-bid. What is it, what does it mean in the world of display advertising, and how can it be brought to podcasting?
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There has been a cooling of Google and YouTube's enthusiasm for podcasting as of late. Bryan Barletta details what they can do to to heat things back up.
Frequency Webinar Signup Link.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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: The ‘slippery slope’ of podcast endorsements, Netflix’s ad-supported tier has teething troubles, why ad buyers are hesitant to embrace DSPs, and a look at modern contextual advertising.
Let’s get started.
Navigating the ‘slippery slope’ of personal endorsements in podcast ads
Manuela: Over the past few years there have been multiple headlines spotlighting instances of social media influencers butting up against the Federal Trade Commission. This period of adjustment as new media incorporates modern advertising rules has matured to the point the FTC has a official page just for coaching influencers on advertisement disclosure.
As MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers pointed out this week: the FTC hasn’t similarly cracked down on podcast advertisements just yet, but it has come close. Listeners of The Download might remember a case in November when Google and iHeartRadio settled with the FTC out of court. The case concerned allegations that several iHeart on-air radio personalities were given ad copy with personal endorsements for a Pixel phone the hosts had not used. From Meyers’ article:
“Though the FTC’s guidelines for endorsements and testimonials in advertising don’t mention podcasts, the agency proposed a change last May that would, if approved, add an example concerning a podcast host related to disclosing material connections.”
Podcasting is no stranger to ad copy that flirts the line between advertisement and personal endorsement. Meyers opens her article asking if the reader has ever questioned if podcasters really made the meal kits they endorse, or if their mattress sponsor actually fixed their back problems. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but endorsements are a big factor in the appeal of host-read ads.
David Plotz, CEO of City Cast told MarketingBrew he has experienced advertisers requiring ads to contain personal endorsements or, more worryingly from an FTC perspective, attempt to slip a personal endorsement into the ad copy.
Meyers spotlights two approaches that eliminate any FTC concerns: Lauren Lograsso and NPR. Lograsso prefers ad deals with required endorsements and the authenticity of having tried the product herself. Conversely, NPR has a blanket policy of zero personal endorsements, a byproduct of the company carrying over its radio journalism ethos into podcasting.
The article then closes out with advice from Veritone One VP of podcasting Hilary Ross Shafer and Adopter Media CEO Glenn Rubenstein: onboarding calls between podcasters and advertisers are useful, if not vital, tools to establish goals and prevent miscommunication.
While host-read remains the preferred method of podcast advertising, it’s worth remembering Sounds Profitable’s first study, After These Messages, found the gap between host-read and announcer-read was smaller than conventional wisdom might suggest. 81% of respondents trusted host-read ads, followed by 71% trusting announcer-read.
While it’s certainly possible podcasting will get a headline or two on par with, say, Instagram influencers selling teas that claimed to cure cancer, the data shows there’s no need for such extremes. Podcast listeners, especially in comparison to other forms of media, are quite accepting, if not supportive of advertising.
Netflix Ad-Supported Tier Experiences Teething Troubles
Shreya: Time for an update on a continuing story involving Netflix. Back in early November we covered the details of Netflix’s new Basic tier with advertisements, as well as the big brands buying space at a reported CPM between $60 and $80. Now Basic with Ads has been out a few months and experienced its first teething troubles. Danielle Long, writing for The Drum, reports the streamer has had to issue refunds to Australian advertisers after failing to meet projected audience numbers. From the article:
“Media reports suggest Netflix’s Basic with Ads subscription tier, which launched in November, has underperformed by as much as 70% in the first three months of operation.”
While Australia’s ad refunds are the most eye-opening headline, Basic with Ads is reportedly slower to start than expected on a global scale. From a US perspective, last week an Insider Intelligence piece from Sara Lebow digs into the question of why, in the face of a recession, consumers aren’t downgrading their Netflix memberships to Basic with Ads. In fact, as economic worries mount, CivicScience numbers show there has been a three percent decline in US citizens who only have one subscription video-on-demand service since January of 2022. From Insider Intelligence analyst Daniel Konstantinovic:
“Not only have people shown they are willing to pay for entertainment through difficult economic times, but they’re actually adding more.”
One bright spot for Basic with Ads is the recent rollout of Netflix’s password-sharing restrictions in certain markets, with plans to implement them in more places over time. While controversial on social media, kicking people off shared accounts will likely drive Basic with Ads subscriptions as people begin to sign up and see the ad-free experience they’ve grown accustomed to comes with the sticker shock of $16 a month.
Audiences can be ad-averse and comfortable with paying to get away from ads. Even in podcasting, where we have seen audiences be particularly accepting of ads, there’s a booming market of premium subscriptions that frequently offer ad-free feeds. The question remains if consumers will value ad-free Netflix at the price point of three premium subscriptions on Apple Podcasts.
Why podcast ad buyers are hesitant to spend through demand-side platforms
Manuela: It’s no secret that programmatic has yet to be wholly adopted by podcast advertisers. This Valentine’s Day, Sara Guaglione of Digiday has published a piece specifically to investigate why the hesitancy still exists. From the article:
“There are a variety of reasons for this: host-read ads are still king in the medium, not all podcast networks or shows have inventory available to buy programmatically, and buyers often feel the need to vet the content to ensure contextual alignment when targeting specific audience segments or category verticals across a number of podcast networks.”
This commitment to host-read and lack of programmatic accessibility also leads to a shortage of inventory available to plug into an SSP. Podcasting is also light on SSPs, with few exceptions past AdsWizz and Triton Digital. As Marketecture founder Ari Paparo told Digiday for another piece, it’s not likely we’ll see a lot of new SSPs pop up anytime soon. Paparo’s quote from that article:
“I think that, fundamentally, the SSP business is not very attractive … It’s not growing, and it’s very competitive as publishers really treat you like a commodity, they have like 10 or 20 of them implemented on every page.”
It’s not all grim news, though.Guaglione reports some buyers Digiday spoke to are either in the testing phase or outright investing in programmatic podcast ads for the first time this year. She also cites a prediction from Insider Intelligence that programmatic’s 2% of total podcast ad spend in 2021 will grow to just under 10% by 2024. That said, there are still some outliers who take issue with programmatic as a concept. From the article:
“One buyer — who did not feel comfortable speaking on the record to summarize agencies’ hesitancy to buy podcast ads programmatically — said there is a “sect of the podcast ecosystem that is anti-programmatic that does not exist in other mediums,” which they believe is due to being “burned” by issues with programmatic display ad buying.”
It’s perfectly fine if buyers prefer host read. It’s a proven and sound strategy, but it’s also not a good look to trash alternatives that appeal to a larger buy-side. As has been said many times on this podcast: programmatic advertising is a tool, not a magic button. When used correctly, it can do amazing things. When implemented suboptimally, it can deliver suboptimal results.
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.
Before we get into the articles, we want to take a quick second to point you to a new video from Sounds Profitable partner Tom Webster. The first episode of Data Decoded, a series where Tom breaks down interesting data from studies done in podcasting in bite-sized videos, is live now. Check it out for context on some numbers from the newest study out of audio fiction network Realm.fm.
Benedict Evans’ latest annual presentation on macro and strategic trends in the tech industry - evans.com/presentations">The New Gatekeepers - is now live on his site in both slide and video form, as well as an excellent breakdown of three takeaways by Conor McKenna on LinkedIn.
YouTube’s influencer program pivots to self-service after staff cuts, an article by Amanda Perelli, Lara O’Reilly, and Geoff Weiss. This piece breaks down the upcoming transition from YouTube’s previously hands-on program that helped connect creators with relevant marketing campaigns.
The Royal Rumble Is On For Who Wins Contextual Advertising by James Hercher. A bird’s-eye view of contextual advertising, what it looks like in a post App Tracking Transparency world, and potential issues it faces with older brand safety methods like keyword-blocking.
Here’s what a $7M, 30-second Super Bowl ad can purchase in digital media in 2023 by Kristina Monllos. A fun breakdown of what the money necessary to book a thirty second ad during the most-watched football game of the year could buy on other platforms. In case you’re curious, at the industry average CPM, that’d buy ad space on about 280 million podcast downloads.
Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today’s episode was built using Spooler and hosted on Amazon’s ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and Art19.com
I 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.
On Air Fest is a yearly event that celebrates sound by way of the podcast and audio industries. It’s in its 7th year, and this year, there’s an added bonus to the three-day-long event: the Podcast Experience. Bryan Barletta speaks with On Air Fest founders Jemma Brown and Scott Newman about the festival, this year’s inaugural “experience,” their hopes for the future of events in the audio space, and more.
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This week, on a very special Law and Order-flavored article, Tom Webster recounts his experience serving on a jury and what the defense’s tactics taught him about podcasting. Don’t look at the chicken.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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 Media
Manuela: ‘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 you
Shreya: 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 2.0
Manuela: 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 Podcasting
Shreya: 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.com
I 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.
It’s 2023! Sounds Profitable has a whole new look, some new team members, and we’re looking ahead towards a year packed with value for the audio and podcasting industries.
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This week Bryan Barletta discusses Spotify's streaming ad insertion, what it means for their future, and how it could better the podcast industry overall.
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
This week: Podcast Ad Spend Isn’t Slowing Down, IAB CEO Airs Beef with Apple, Several podcast companies are hiring, Brands Seek Alternatives Amidst Digital Clutter, and an updated edition of The Podscape is live.
Open Podcasting Positions
Manuela:In light of recent layoffs in the podcasting space, we would like to take a moment at the top of the show to highlight some companies that currently have positions seeking applicants.
JAR Audio is hiring a full-time Audience Growth Specialist
Wondery is currently hiring seventeen full-time positions, 15 in the US and two in their UK office in London.
ai.breezy.hr/">And Magellan AI is currently hiring for the positions of Account Executive, Measurement Success Manager, and Sales Development Representative.
Podcast ad buyers have yet to see a slowdown
Shreya: Yesterday, Digiday’s Sara Guaglione published a piece detailing how solidly podcasting has handled the much-debated recession. But to get to the good, we gotta hit the bad. As Guaglione points out, ad spending overall has taken a hit recently. Last week Insider Intelligence writer Arielle Feger reported ad spending in the US fell 12.1% in December, making it the sixth consecutive month ad spend has gone down. Insider Intelligence has cut five billion from their 2023 US digital ad spending forecast, bringing it down to 278.59 billion.
Now for the good news; Guaglione is finding that decline hasn’t sunk into podcasting. Four buyers spoke with Digiday and report their client’s budgets aren’t getting cut, and they see an increase in podcast ad spend. Employees of Horizon Media, Ocean Media, and CMI Media Group report increased spending on podcast ads, often from clients who are backing down on ad spend in other forms of media.
The piece reconciles increase in ad spend with recent industry layoffs, cancellations, and cost-cutting with a proposal from Elli Dimitroulakos, Acast’s global head of ad innovation: production houses are shifting away from multi-million dollar minimum guarantee signings. As headline-grabbing pandemic deals begin to end, small-to-midsize podcast inventory rises to take its place with inviting prices.
“The buyers Digiday spoke with said there is plenty of ad inventory available despite the recent reports that investment in new and existing shows may be decreasing.”
It’s a good day to hear good news in podcasting.
IAB CEO Airs Beef with Apple, Lands Meeting
Manuela: Things have gotten interesting with the IAB and Apple. Last week, during the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, CEO David Cohen took to the stage with a prepared speech titled “It Starts Here.” A speech so vitriolic it prompted a joint response from the ANA and 4A’s to criticize its tone and “polarizing political rhetoric.”
The first segment dedicates multiple paragraphs to proposing the FTC, members of the Biden administration, and politically-opposed members of Congress are funneling ‘dark money’ into a common goal of destroying the advertising industry under the guise of controlling ‘Big Tech.’ Cohen then transitions to Apple. From the speech:
“After years of failing to build a significant market for ads in Apple Music, in Apple TV, and on the iPhone, Apple has decided the next best thing is to stop anyone else from making money in advertising. That’s why they are the Poison Apple.”
The crux of Cohen’s issues stem from App Tracking Transparency and the billions of dollars of ad revenue it has destroyed since Apple deployed the feature. Attention is given to both the damage ATT has done to third-party advertisers and the fact first-party iOS apps aren’t given the same treatment. From Cohen’s quote given to AdAge’s Garett Sloane:
“So, we want to call it out for the hypocrisy that it is, and we want to invite them back to the table.”
In his postmortem interview with Ryan Barwick, Cohen announced that since the Poisoned Apple speech, Apple has reached out to the IAB to schedule a meeting in February. Whether the meeting will be productive or not remains to be seen, as it was spawned by a speech with digs like, and I quote:
“Apple will try to smother the advertising industry just like they did to the recorded music industry. We can’t sit back and watch that happen. “
The fact a meeting has been booked is a step in the right direction, regardless of how it was achieved. Whether or not Apple will have any motivation to re-engage with IAB podcasting groups remains to be seen.
Brands Seek Alternatives Amidst Digital Clutter
Shreya: Last Thursday Julian Cannon, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering recent examples of companies recontextualizing print advertisements.
“Last month, General Electric took over The New York Times’ print advertising for a day throughout the news, business and arts sections of the paper amounting to 22 full-page color ads as well as five partial pages.”
Not only was this an impressive buyout, it was the first of its kind for the Times. It’s also the latest in a series of big plays as marketers embrace out-of-home advertising and the freedom from on-screen clutter that can come with digital. Senior partner and co-head of marketing and sales at Prophet Mat Zucker explains the appeal of a full-page newspaper ad in 2023:
“Full-page ads command attention and gravitas for the message. There’s no need to fill the space but the statement says we mean what we’re saying and it owns the space preventing clutter from other marketers or messages which could cloud the message or distract from it.”
Every ad in podcasting is full-page, from the perspective these marketers are aiming for. And many podcasts explore full or single-episode sponsorship opportunities. What General Electric sought in newspaper, podcasting can offer them, along with the fact podcasting has a bit more sex appeal than print.
Podscape 2.0 is here.
Manuela: Before we get into Quick Hits, we have a story to quickly revisit. After some wonderful feedback from the industry the second edition of The 2023 Podscape, a collaboration between Magellan AI and Sounds Profitable, is now available for download.
The Podscape, a sizable infographic, aims to give a birds-eye view of podcasting that takes inventory of companies, agencies, services, and anything else that could be classified as podcasting. The current edition is available for free download now on Magellans’ Podscape page.
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:
Marketers Predict Programmatic Advertising Spend in Podcasts to Triple by 2027, Acast Study Finds, a press release provided via Podnews. While the future might be interesting, what matters now is we have a new report from a company that prioritizes programmatic in podcasting so it can be valuable for those considering its possibilities.
Understanding podcasts in East and South East Asia by Guang Jin YEO for Podnews. The first publication in a multi-month series covering the region’s podcasting and its opportunities. Country overviews for Japan and South Korea are currently available.
Nielsen to Shop Edison Research Data by the Podcast Business Journal. A brief explanation of the announcement that Nielsen will start marketing Share of Ear and Podcast Metrics to advertising agencies. Two notable contenders in the space working together to lend the industry further credibility.
About three-quarters of people who plan to watch the Super Bowl said they’re excited for the ads, research says by Alyssa Meyers. It’s early February, which means we’re bound by advertising-adjacent tradition to share a story about how much audiences love Super Bowl commercials.
TuneIn Forms Distribution Pact with Amazon’s Audible by the Podcast Business Journal. WIth this new deal TuneIn will begin to distribute Audible Originals podcasts.
For this final entry, instead of focusing on a single post, we want to spotlight a newsletter that covers this industry we love and has been covered several times on The Download. We recommend you check out The Rebooting. It’s a free twice-weekly newsletter written by Brian Morrissey that focuses on the mechanics of building sustainable publishing businesses. Brian brings over twenty years of industry coverage and nearly a decade of building a profitable publishing business to the table. If that sounds your style, check out The Rebooting.
Manuela: And that was The Download, brought to you by Sounds Profitable! Today’s episode was built using Spooler and hosted on ART19. Find out more at Spooler.fm and ART19.com.
I 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 Bryan brings you a feed drop from Marketecture.tv, featuring his interview with Ari Paparo. This episode marks the beginning of a partnership between Marketecture and Sounds Profitable! Look forward to interviews conducted by Bryan himself in future on official Marketecture channels, as well as Sounds Profitable DeepDives on the Sounds Profitable YouTube channel.
From the original description:
In this conversation with Ari Paparo, Bryan Barletta provides an overview of the audio advertising industry and its enabling technologies. After providing a level set on the size and maturity of the podcast ad vertical, he describes the mechanics of audio ad buying, serving, and measurement. Bryan also discusses the market dynamics in the podcast space, led by enterprise players like Spotify, IHeartMedia, and Triton Digital which operate their own ad tech platforms.
This week Tom Webster demonstrates how even seemingly small pieces of data can have big implications if given the right context and a story.
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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.
Tom took a look back on all of the great research that was done at Sounds Profitable in 2022 and came up with a handful of the most impactful data points. Here are his three favorite data points from 2022!
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week: Opportunity in Kids podcasting as recession looms, Podcasting’s ‘recession era’, some audio publisher’s teams still growing in 2023, and Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights.
Podcasting’s Recession Era and how podcasters are approaching it.
Manuela: This week our first segment is going to cover a variety of articles centering around an overall theme: podcasting’s reaction to the recession in early 2023. To kick things off, we continue a throughline of covering how the Kids & Family category has quickly evolved into a juggernaut. Over the first half of 2022 the genre made itself known as a force to be reckoned with over several big deals and signings.
Now as the recession looms, along with doom-and-gloom articles about said recession, big-name deals are becoming more scarce. Tumble Media CEO Lindsay Patterson has worked in kids podcasting for years and likens the 2022 surge to being invited to a party late. Kids & Family has arrived just in time to find the host is taking down the decorations. From her January 11th Medium post:
“With a general pullback on spending on podcasts, it’s likely that companies will be hesitant to invest in strategy and content for kids, who require a new approach to audience development and monetization. It’s a different model than “grownup” podcasts. But the good news is kids’ podcasts may be a welcome guest at other parties — and in many other industries. There are choices. Nay, there are opportunities.”
Patterson proposes Kids & Family’s relative newcomer status to the wider industry leaves it plenty of unpursued avenues that are already well-tread ground for others. Her article touches on concepts like adapting existing kid-friendly IP to podcasts and pursuing new platforms. Interestingly, she points to nonprofits, grants, and research studies as potentially viable funding paths. Patterson speaks from experience, having partnered Tumble Media with a non-profit organization to win a grant. The partnership has been funded to spend three years studying how both listening to and making podcasts can engage blind and sighted students in the classroom.
“In a way, the warnings and scrutiny of the podcast industry makes me more optimistic than ever before about the kids’ space. We can take a clear eyed look from the outside, and see how kids’ podcasts can and should be better.”
Patterson’s suggestions of creativity and adaptability come at a good time for smaller creators, as even larger presences in podcasting are beginning to feel the effects of hiring and investment freezes. This Wednesday the Hollywood Reporter published a piece by J. Clara Chan titled “Podcasting’s Recession Era: Dealmaking Gets More Selective in Slower Ad Market.”
Chan begins the piece with a big-picture view of investments made by major players in the industry before setting the article’s goal answering the question: “What will podcasting’s next era look like during a recession?”
Her article begins with a focus on the deal-making side of the industry, sourcing two anonymous dealmakers and their observations of industry performance in recent months. Big companies seem to have covered their bases on wide demographics. Chan gives the example of Spotify’s coverage of Gen Z and millennial women with acquisitions of Call Her Daddy and Emma Chamberlain’s Anything Goes. \
BIPOC Podcast Creators co-founder Tangia Al-awaji Estrada gives a perspective from a smaller, independent side of the industry:
“It feels a little bit premature at this stage because we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but it does feel like there’s some panic in the air. We’re seeing companies who’d normally be investing in up-and-coming talents, indie creators — smaller companies are pulling back and saying, ‘Well, we’re not doing that right now. We’re not doing that at all.’ So, there’s definitely a feeling like folks are holding their breaths to see what’s going to happen.”
Last Friday Sara Guaglione, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering the phenomenon of smaller production houses growing as larger entities condense their audio teams. A tally of jobs on sites like Indeed with the word ‘podcast’ in the description shows there has been a downward trend of open positions since the peak in May of 2022. Still, companies are hiring.
“A number of media companies posted new podcast job openings this month. Vox Media, for example, posted a job opening this week for a $200,000+ executive producer position for its daily show “Today Explained.””
Guaglione also points to Tenderfoot TV, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal as places that are actively growing their audio teams.
Returning to the Hollywood Reporter piece, we reach the advertising side of podcasting. The conclusion reached by J. Clara Chan’s reporting will be a familiar one to loyal followers of The Download. In general, advertisers are pacing themselves from brand awareness campaigns and doubling down on direct response and prioritizing sales conversions.
The piece ends with a final sentiment from Al-awaji Estrada, quote:
“Podcasting is going to be just fine. I really believe that podcasting is still so young that a huge market change isn’t going to blow up the entire world. There’s going to be some tightening of the belts, probably, across the board. But by the time we come out of this thing, I think we will have seen podcasting continue to grow through the recession.”
Paul Riismandel joins Signal Hill Insights
Shreya: For this segment we’re covering something of personal significance to Sounds Profitable. Last Thursday podcasting veteran Paul Riismandel joined Signal Hill Insights as the company’s new Chief Insights officer. From the Signal Hill press release:
“At Signal Hill, Riismandel will help solidify the company as a critical independent third-party voice providing industry-wide and custom research solutions. He will focus on furthering innovation in podcast measurement, combining ad effectiveness, creative analysis, and audience insights, in order to help partners and the industry at large understand how best to serve both listeners and advertisers, together.”
Having overseen hundreds of ad effectiveness studies since 2014, Riismandel takes research seriously. From his blog post on the Signal Hill website last Thursday:
“I cannot overstate the importance of independent third-party research in the development of any media platform. That said, publishers are a fundamental driver, and many invest in internal research, done with integrity, to build their business. In turn this elevates the whole medium.”
For those newer to Sounds Profitable, Riismandel is a big figure in the company’s history. It was him who got Midroll Media to become a day-one Sounds Profitable partner back in September of 2020. Now, in 2023, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Riismandel and everyone else at Signal Hill Insights in producing more independent third-party research.
Quick Hits
Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles called Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
Magellan AI launches Spanish language podcast prospecting and competitive intelligence tool, a press release provided via Podnews. With their new Spanish language support, Magellan AI already has data on Spanish-language ads from more than 2,000 advertisers in the US. A better way to measure podcast success: Listen Time by Jonas Woost for Bumper. In which Woost tells the story of YouTube switching from using views as a metric to ‘watch time,’ and suggesting a similar update to the podcasting industry as an alternative to the download.
A Tale of Two Bytes: Prefix vs. Host-based analytics by John Spurlock for Livewire Labs. An excellent explainer on why third-party analytics download stats might be different from the downloads reported by one’s hosting company.
The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis.
Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We’re off to the races in 2023, and we’re taking you with us.
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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.
8d20-11ed-90bf-eb28b07a51e0.html">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.
Join Bryan in kicking off this year with a review of the notable acquisitions and fundraising that happened in 2022.
Credits:
Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
ChatGPT and other new forms of chatbot are already able to credibly write like humans, and it’s getting harder to tell who - or what - writes any given blog post. This week, Tom explains why this is a good thing for podcast creatives, and not the apocalypse.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: Amazon advertises podcasts offline, Twitter dissolves its Trust and Safety Council, Automakers phasing out AM radio, and a roundup of new research published this week.
Amazon pushing podcasts offline.
Manuela: This Monday Podnews covered Amazon Music’s new physical-space advertising campaign for their Best of 2022 podcast selections. The best-of collection has prominent placement on the front page of Amazon Music, and now the streamer is promoting it in England and France. From Editor James Cridland’s coverage:
“In London, ads will be appearing for the next two weeks promoting ten of the top podcasters. The company also carried audio ads within the Wondery network for the chosen podcasts, and produced social media assets.”
The ads in London primarily take the form of projected billboards on blank brick walls, along with a more traditional advertisement for the podcast +44 on a digital billboard in Waterloo station. In Paris, poster-sized digital placements for Amazon podcasts were spotted at Gare du Nord, the busiest train station in Europe.
Twitter Trust and Safety Council Dissolved
Arielle: Continuing the trend of a lot happening in a short amount of time at Twitter, the social media giant has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. Originally booked to meet this Monday, members of the council told the Financial Times the meeting was canceled via email with only an hour’s notice. From Dave Lee’s reporting:
“The council was created in 2016 to solicit advice from dozens of experts and external organisations on how Twitter should tackle harassment, mental health issues and child exploitation, as well as suicide prevention. But in a note sent to members on Monday, the social media company said the council was no longer the “best structure” to gain outside insights on its policies.”
The dissolution of the council comes four days after three prominent members resigned, citing concerns over the leadership of new Twitter owner Elon Musk. From the trio’s group statement:
“We are announcing our resignation from Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council because it is clear from research evidence that, contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”
One of the largest social media platforms has quickly become a problematic place for advertisers. Meanwhile, as data from the new Sounds Profitable study Safe and Sound attests, podcasting is uniquely positioned to welcome them to a brand-safe and suitable environment.
As the study’s data attests, podcasting’s opt-in nature creates an environment where programs that feature offensive or uncomfortable content largely have an audience of listeners who are fine with such content. And, more importantly, they tend to have audiences who are supportive of brands who sponsor that podcast. Listeners also tend to be forgiving for outlier examples of offensive content if they prefer podcasts that don’t discuss such things. From the study:
“Regular listeners to otherwise non-offensive shows will highly likely return to the podcast after a single episode featuring uncharacteristically offensive content.”
As advertisers begin to shy away from brand-unsafe places like Twitter, podcasting finds itself uniquely-suited to be a leader in brand safety and suitability.
Automakers sundown AM Radio in New Vehicles
Manuela: On December 1st, Senator Edward J Markey of New York sent a letter to the CEOs of several major automotive brands in the US, including Toyota, Volkswagen, and BMW. The letter strongly urges them to reconsider the growing trend of not offering AM radios in new electric vehicles.
Why is this a trend? Here’s James Gilboy’s explanation from a July article for The Drive:
“So are highly complex EVs incompatible with one of the oldest, simplest electronics? BMW and Volvo told me it was due to audio quality problems rooted in electromagnetic interference, of which EVs' drivetrains produce a significant amount. Cars' engines and other complex electronics have always made EM interference, but low-wattage static is relatively easy to shield against. It's not as simple with EVs that may pull hundreds of watts from their batteries, generating far more interference, reducing audio quality to a level both BMW and Volvo told me they consider insufficient.”
Gilboy goes on to say he finds it difficult to take that explanation without a grain of salt, as US automakers circumvent the EM signal problem without issue. A common thread Gilboy notes is the manufacturers who have phased AM out of EVs tend to have strong roots in European markets. “The frequency has largely been superseded by the DAB format, which is a more advanced form of radio broadcasting with better audio quality and choice of stations. AM radio stations and their listeners are all but gone in Europe, so European carmakers may not need to include technology that many of its customers can't use.”
Understandably, the radio industry isn’t happy with this trend. Gilboy points to the Edison Research stat from 2018 citing 45% of radio listeners only listen to the radio in their car. Senator Markey’s letter ends with three questions asking automakers to give definitive answers as to whether they intend to fully stop offering AM and/or FM radio in future vehicles. If so, his followup questions press them to provide reasoning as to why. He provided a self-imposed deadline of December 22nd for answers to these questions.
Research Roundup: Podchaser, Podsights, Bumper.
Arielle: ‘tis the season for more data. Usually we round out the episode with a collection of articles called Quick Hits, but this week we’re switching it up. Hopefully you saved some room after reading Safe and Sound, as we’ve got three new podcasting research studies to share.
First up: Yesterday Podchaser published a new report titled What’s the Best Day to Publish a Podcast? The study uses six months of data from the top 50 thousand podcasts to segment data by genre.
For those wondering: the most popular day overall for a podcast to release is tied between Wednesday and Thursday, at 17.4%. Monday and Tuesday bring up second place with 17% share of episodes each. Saturday brings up the rear as least-popular, with only 7.1% of podcasts released.
Up next: The newest edition of the Podcast Advertising Benchmark Report from Podsights is here and contains good news. This newest report, compiled from nearly 11 billion impressions from 4.2 thousand campaigns, cites the average purchase conversion rate has increased 19% since last quarter.
Finally, a new blog post from Bumper seeks to answer the age-old question of whether or not to post a podcast during the last week of the year. Published this Tuesday, Bumper published their findings from a team-up with Simplecast that examined both podcast episode publication rates and listenership data from the final week of December in 2021.
Bumper started with a sample size of 988,235 podcast episodes from Apple Podcasts, all published in December 2021. They were then sorted by release date to form a graph depicting release cadence by day throughout the month. For comparison, Bumper did the same with data provided by the Simplecast team from the same period.
The two graphs reflect similar patterns: a visible dip in publication cadence during the final week of the year. The blog then goes on to discuss starts, stream, and play data from two podcasts that volunteered their data from the same time period, which examines if anyone is listening to podcasts during that final week of the year. From the blog:
“Your reaction to this data is a bit like a Rorschach test. You can see in it what you want: an excuse to skip a week, or an opportunity to try and stand out from the crowd during an otherwise quiet period.”
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.
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Brand Safety and Suitability are among the hottest topics in podcasting. But how do the listeners feel? That’s Tom’s topic in this week’s Sounds Profitable.
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Building an app for podcast listeners is a tough sell in this world where Spotify and Apple are so dominant. But Realm has been in the game for a while and have a dedicated fan base – both of the app they launched years ago and the content that’s contained therein. In this episode, Bryan Barletta speaks with Rachel Prisock, head of data and engineering at Realm, about building, maintaining, and utilizing the app as an audience engagement and measurement tool.
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This week: Sounds Profitable publishes brand safety and suitability study, Edison publishes top podcast networks by reach, Libsyn unveils November 2022 podcast advertising rates, Spotify unveils its top five podcasts in Wrapped, and GroupM and Magna predict a ‘durable’ ad market next year.
Sounds Profitable publishes brand safety and suitability study Safe and Sound
Manuela: We begin today’s show with something close to home. Yesterday Sounds Profitable debuted its latest research project, Safe and Sound. The first-ever study of brand safety and suitability from the listener’s perspective.
“Safe and Sound surveyed a representative sample of 1093 podcast listeners to find out what they consider ‘offensive,’ what they are tolerant of, and how they view the brands that support podcast content when it pushes their boundaries.”
The study delivers a wide range of findings, ranging from bombshells like the idea political ads are unpopular with audiences - regardless of political party - to taking the temperature of what audiences consider most offensive. Spoiler alert: people dislike racist language.
That said, it looks like offensive content might not be as toxic to a podcast’s overall image as initially assumed. When asked how they felt about brands that advertise or sponsor a podcast where a guest or host said something offensive or uncomfortable, an average of 30% of respondents said their feelings about the brands had not been changed.
When presented with the situation of a podcast someone regularly enjoys having an uncomfortable or offensive episode, 49% of respondents said they would stop listening to that particular episode but continue listening in general, while 31% said they’d continue listening to the outlier episode regardless.
The data suggests podcast-listening audiences take a more holistic approach to offensive content on podcasts they already have a relationship with. In general, listeners appear to not hold a single out-of-character episode against a podcast they’re familiar with.
Edison Top Podcast Networks
Shreya: This Tuesday Edison Research published the Q3 edition of U.S. Top Podcast Networks, by Reach. Listeners of The Download might remember Spotify took the lead back in Q2, just edging out SiriusXM Media. This last quarter SiriusXM has overtaken Spotify and returned to the top, leaving the top five at SiriusXM Media, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audioboom, and NPR, with Wondery eyeing the top five from sixth place. From the Edison blog post:
“Within the top ten, the biggest jump in rank goes to Wondery/Audible/Amazon Music, up two rank positions, propelled in part by their acquisitions of major shows like Morbid and My Favorite Murder. Bubbling below the top ten, WarnerMedia gained three levels in rank, now up to 14th.“
Once more SiriusXM takes the top spot, but not without Spotify having broken their streak of having been at the top since Edison first started publishing top network by reach reports.
Libsyn Unveils November 2022 Podcast Advertising Rates
Manuela: Continuing our unplanned theme of discussing data, let’s take a moment to talk about CPM.
Last Thursday Libsyn published the November edition of their monthly CPM rate roundup from AdvertiseCast.
“The Company releases the figures to empower the podcaster and advertiser communities to readily monitor market pricing and provide greater insight into podcasting advertising as a monetization vehicle. The data is derived from actual sales data across AdvertiseCast’s network of over 3,000 shows, including more than 225 exclusive podcasts.”
Rates are continuing to increase, little by little. Last month the average CPM rate was $24.75 for a sixty-second ad spot, up 78 cents from the October average and a 6% year-over-year increase from November 2021.
The report notes that the lower end of the spectrum contains fiction, television, and news content, averaging in the low twenties. On the high side, however, a familiar face for listeners of The Download. We’ve covered the meteoric rise of Kids & Family podcast content multiple times and its popularity continues into this November. The top four highest-earning categories in November are:
Technology and Health & Fitness, tied for third place at $26. Science at $27. And at the top of the leaderboard, Kids & Family at $28, over three dollars higher than industry average.
Spotify Wrapped is here, including its top podcasts
Shreya: Some of you might have noticed a deluge of vibrant colors and boasting about listening habits last Wednesday, as the annual Spotify Wrapped dropped. Kimeko McCoy, writing for Digiday last Thursday, explains how big this yearly infodump has become:
“It’s an awareness campaign that utilizes user data to serve up users’ favorite songs, albums and podcasts to be shared across social media platforms via the app, engaging more than 120 million users last year, according to Spotify. This year, Spotify has launched its Wrapped presence in Roblox, with the goal of tapping into an even bigger audience.”
What originally started as a year-end recap in 2015 has grown to a marketing event large enough to necessitate a custom presence in one of the most popular online games. Since entering the podcast space, Spotify has also begun publishing a Podcast Wrapped.According to Ariel Shapiro in last week’s issue of Hot Pod, the top five podcasts on Spotify this year are, in descending order:
The Joe Rogan ExperienceCall Her DaddyAnything Goes with Emma ChamberlainCaso 63 (in all languages)And, finally, Crime Junkie.
This year only two of the top five podcasts aren’t Spotify exclusives, though one of those two is set to become an exclusive early next year. Only the highly successful Crime Junkie breaks through the blockade of podcasts with strong Spotify ties.
Shapiro attributes this to Spotify’s ability to promote in-ecosystem properties like Caso 63 and its English adaptation Case 63, while podcasts that release on multiple platforms have to deal with divided metrics. Anything Goes performs well on Spotify, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to similar performance on Apple Podcasts. While it got third place on Spotify for the year, Shapiro notes Chamberlain didn’t make it into Edison Research's top fifty most-listened-to podcasts report for Q2. From the newsletter: “The list, therefore, tells us more about Spotify’s strategy than it does about the overall market.”
GroupM and Magna’s Global Ad Forecasts Predict A Durable Ad Market
Manuela: For our final story today we bring up a bit of good news n the face of a recession that we’re either already in, or about to enter (depending on who you ask). Hana Yoo, writing for AdExchanger, covered reports from both GroupM and Magna this Monday.
“Global advertising revenue grew 6.5% in 2022 and is projected to grow 5.9% in 2023, according to GroupM’s global year-end industry growth forecast. Meanwhile, Magna’s December global ad forecast predicts 4.8% growth in 2023 after 6.6% growth in 2022.” Yoo notes that these projections are lower than earlier forecasts. Revised versions to meet current numbers, such as Magna’s earlier prediction of a 6.3% growth for next year. Still, as Yoo reports GroupM’s official line is they’re looking at 2023 with ‘conservative optimism.’ From the article: “And Magna is on the same page. Although we’ll likely see “a slight slowdown in advertising revenue growth in an uncertain economic environment,” said Luke Stillman, Magna’s SVP and group director of global market intelligence, growth should reaccelerate during the second half of the year.”
In addition to forecasting overall growth, GroupM also anticipates retail media to grow from 101 billion to 110.7 billion in revenue next year. They also note CTV’s particular resilience during COVID and its upward trends, even while paid TV subscriptions slip.
Forecasts for next year aren’t cloudless skies, but they’re also not trending towards thunderstorms just yet.
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:
What’s going on in audio advertising? Spotify grows, podcasts go global, and radio is a safe bet, by Shreya Feger for Insider Intelligence. A brief three-point breakdown of insights into the state of audio advertising and predictions for next year. Rephonic analyzed its podcast database to share opportunities for podcasters on Patreon, from last Thursday’s issue of Inside Podcasting. A brief breakdown of Rephonic’s blog post detailing their findings regarding podcasting on Patreon.Magellan AI Taps Experian to Improve Attribution by Magellan AI. A brief press release explaining their new partnership with Experian to use the Experian Identity Graph to power Attribution by Magellan AI.
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.
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Just what is a Sounds Profitable DeepDive, and what have they covered this year? What drove Bryan Barletta to create them in the first place? Read on to find out.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: Samsung Free app issue causes spike in downloads, Transistor joins email spam prevention movement, How streaming TV is bracing for the recession, and Spreaker debuts two new offerings, one of which sounds like a cool robot.
New auto-playing Samsung app spikes downloads.
Manuela: Our top story this week, fitting for a holiday weekend, is one of collaboration and teamwork against all odds. Last week Samsung launched the Listen tab on Samsung Free, a media streaming app pre-installed on every Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
When clicked on, the Listen tab would open a full-screen player with a three second timer. If not manually stopped within the three seconds, the app would begin to auto-play segments of featured podcast episodes, with each episode in the queue pre-downloaded for instant play. This auto-downloading and auto-listening lead to podcasters seeing a sudden spike of listens coming from the Dalvik user agent.
Like something out of a heartwarming holiday special, the podcasting community came together on a long weekend to work together and solve the problem. In the Sounds Profitable Partners Slack channels, employees of Audioboom, Triton, Spreaker, and others jumped into threads to discuss how to handle the issue.
James Cridland’s Monday edition of the Podnews segment The Tech Stuff details why a download spike from Dalvik isn’t necessarily an easy fix. Cridland says:
“Some podcast hosting companies have blocked the “Dalvik” useragent entirely. However, blocking Dalvik - even with the Samsung model numbers - will also block, among other things, Google News’s audio player, which uses an identical audio useragent. At least one app powered by Podcast Index also uses this generic Dalvik useragent along with PodcastAddict, and Indian podcast app Gaana also retains Dalvik in its useragent.”
Luckily, there’s a happy ending to this Thanksgiving story. Multiple employees on a holiday weekend managed to get the attention of Samsung, a company only just now entering podcasting, and get the problem fully solved. According to Podnews reporting, Samsung Free content partner Acast has since demonetized any traffic from the Dalvik user agent, and a fix to the app to prevent any future download spikes is set to be published soon.
What could have been a massive headache for many people was quickly resolved fully without any half-measure bandage fixes, all on a holiday weekend, thanks to the cohesiveness of the community. That we can certainly be thankful for.
Transistor joins email spam prevention movement.
Shreya: Back on November 3rd we covered Buzzsprout’s announcement that they were removing email addressed from podcast RSS feeds. Presented as the company ‘fighting back against email spam,’ Buzzsprout only inserts a podcaster’s email address into the feed on request to verify the feed with other services and platforms.
On August 22nd Apple Podcasts announced updates to RSS feed requirements in 2023, including the end of support for the ‘owner’ tag. “The owner tag and its contact information, including email, will no longer be recommended.”
In addition to Buzzsprout embracing the email-free future, Podbean and - most recently - Transistor have joined the cause. From their blog post this monday:
“Unfortunately, because podcast feeds are public, spammers can scrape these email addresses and use them to send unwanted emails (like pitches for guests to appear on your show).”
Meanwhile, yesterday’s Podnews published an alternate take on this move to prevent email spam. The Canadian Podcast Awards told Podnews they neither agree with nor support the removal of email addresses from RSS feeds. From yesterday’s issue:
“We do not have any plans at the moment to support feeds without contact information.”
Email spam has become a growing problem in podcasting. Back in July, James Cridland published the results of an email spam-trap he’d created in the Podnews RSS feed. Over the course of three months his experiment received 240 unsolicited commercial emails.
Similarly to Buzzsprout, Transistor has removed email addresses from the feed by default, but include a tool to manually reveal it for verification purposes. In addition, they now have a verification code entry field designed to work with Apple Podcast’s new code-based verification system.
A new verification method that, hopefully, will help ease the concerns of objecting organizations like the Canadian Podcast Awards.
How streaming TV is bracing for a recession
Manuela: Depending on who you ask, the next recession is either here already or fast approaching. On November 17th Maia Vines, writing for AdAge, published a piece detailing how streaming television is battening down the hatches. From the article:
“Brands have already started to re-prioritize where they are placing their ad dollars, said Lisa Herdman, senior VP and executive director of strategic investments at RPA.”
Heather Stewart, General Motors’ general director of global media and marketing services presents a contrasting opinion: she expressed concern advertisers might be talking themselves into a recession with reactions to false indicators.
After over a decade of consumers demanding the death of the traditional model of cable television bundling providers together, the a la carte model has begun to slip as multiple platforms come under control of media conglomerates. Currently Paramount, Warner Bros. Discover, and Disney either already group multiple services into one bundle or are planning on offering one in future.
A proposed path to soothe worries during economic downturn is commerce-enabled TV and interactive ads. Netflix VP of advertising sales Peter Laylor told AdAge:
“One thing that I think is a great opportunity is maybe a dual-screen experience, and people have experimented there, but the research shows that the vast majority of people have their phone with them when they're consuming TV streaming content.”
Even with new tactics and status-quo breaking experiments like bringing one-click-buy options to streaming TV in US markets, there’s a consistent throughline to how streamers are prepping for a recession: they’re making things simple for the consumer.
A task podcast advertisers have been refining since the format required listeners to manually copy an MP3 file to an iPod.
Spreaker debuts first-party data audience segments, MAGDA brand safety tech.
Shreya: Time for a special Spreaker segment, as the platform has made two large announcements while we were gone on holiday break and it’s time to get you up to speed.
Starting on the 17th, they announced a new first-party data for high-impact audience segmentation and targeting solution that is now available for both programmatic and direct sales on the Spreaker network. Martín Haro, Data and Insights Lead at Spreaker says in the press release:
“Now with Spreaker’s first-party data audience segments, our solution ingests data through AI and machine learning from real listeners’ listening patterns, behaviors, and podcast content, which has enabled us to build specific audience segments that have proven to be 3X more accurate than third-party data.”
Then, yesterday, the platform followed up with a brand new tech with a cool name:
“Spreaker, the global leader in programmatic ad tech, today announced its first-to-market M.A.G.D.A technology to increase quality in programmatic advertising. This unprecedented technology is set to transform programmatic podcast advertising, adding a layer of control to protect content creators.”
In addition to sounding like a cool robot sidekick from an 80s movie, M.A.G.D.A bridges a gap in brand safety and suitability. Advertisers are well-covered on their end, now Spreaker can provide an extra layer of protection from the publisher side.
Blocking IAB categories to avoid certain kinds of advertisements works pretty well, at least until a campaign is mis-categorized. Spreaker has now solved for that. From the press release:
“M.A.G.D.A technology works by transcribing programmatic ads that go through the Spreaker ad marketplace in real-time. Spreaker has created machine-learning models to auto-categorize ads. In addition, the technology can also detect miscategorized ads. For example, if a political ad is miscategorized as fast food M.A.G.D.A will flag this for rectification.”
What does the M-A-G-D-A stand for? The name serves a dual purpose. First, it stands for Machine Augmented Guard for Dynamic Advertising. Spreaker explains:
“However, Magda is also a member of the Spreaker team. She was the first person to work on ad quality control for the company, and today Spreaker has an entire division dedicated to ad quality spearheaded by Magda herself—the company felt it fitting to name the technology after her.”
In addition to having a touching name dedication, M.A.G.D.A is a fascinating piece of tech that provides a much-needed bit of security in an industry very much concerned about brand safety and suitability.
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:
Can We Stop It With The Brand Safety Double Standard Already? By Allison Schiff for AdExchanger. An opinion piece that addresses a proposed double-standard advertisers have with brand safety concerns. Schiff points out the same brands skittish about serving ads on journalistic content featuring negative stories are prominently featured in between bouts of serial killer-crafted gore on her nightly watch-through of Criminal Minds on Hulu.
Google and iHeartMedia allegedly paid radio talent to promote the Pixel 4—without ever giving them the phone, according to the FTC, by Ryan Barwick for MarketingBrew. Barwick covers the details of a recently-settled case in which the FTC alleges iHeartMedia gave on-air talent scripts for testimonies about how much they loved using a Google Pixel phone they had never actually used.
The Cumulus Media & Signal Hill Insights Podcast Download Fall 2022 report is now available. This year features special focus on the growing prevalence of podcasts with video elements. This includes a finding that 28% of consumers prefer actively watching a podcast with a video component.
The Last Yard - the blog post that started it all, by Adam Curry, published to Podnews. Thought lost for years, a copy of Adam Curry’s 2001 blog The Last Yard has been discovered on the Wayback Machine and duplicated by Podnews with permission. A piece of industry history, Curry’s post lead to a meeting with Dave Winer that lead to the creation of podcasts.
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Multitude Productions has an impressive array of podcasts, resources, events, and more going for them. In this episode, Bryan Barletta speaks with Multitude CEO Amanda McLoughlin about building the company, how they handle relationships with advertisers, scaling, and so much more.
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This week, Bryan comes at things from a different perspective, specifically that of the ways that the podcaster and audience interact. From how we convert a follow to a subscriber, to weighing and prioritizing each subscription solution from both the podcaster and listener perspective, and most importantly to exploring the upper limits of what we can accomplish under a subscription offering.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week on the Sounds Profitable Deep Dive, Bryan Barletta is joined by SoundStack CEO Jon Stephenson to embark on a three-part journey through what the audio-as-a-service company has to offer. Tune in to learn how the SoundStack platform makes podcast hosting/distribution, broadcast-to-podcast, and monetization really simple.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This Week: Apple Podcasts is using machine learning to tag episodes, IAB to require annual recertification, Edison Research shares Share of Ear Q3 statistic, and Headliner announces automated YouTube integration.
Bumper Discovers Apple Podcasts Assigns Topics Automatically.
Manuela: This Tuesday Bumper co-founder Dan Misener posted a new discovery that explains how Apple Podcasts can recommend individual podcast episodes based on topics discussed. The example Misener uses is an episode of Today, Explained which, if one opens the web page source on Apple Podcasts, is tagged with twenty topics ranging from broader concepts like ‘world politics’ to individual names of celebrities and politicians mentioned in the episode.
The catch? Those keywords and topics do not appear anywhere in the episode description or RSS feed. The only way to assign them to that particular episode is a transcript. From the article:
“Here’s my best guess: Apple is using machine-generated transcriptions, then applying natural language processing techniques like topic modeling to generate lists of relevant topics on an episode-by-episode basis.”
According to Misener’s reporting, the current top 250 podcasts on Apple Podcasts consists of 70,094 episodes. Approximately 63.5% of those episodes are currently tagged with topics generated by Apple.
“Here’s my best guess: Apple is using machine-generated transcriptions, then applying natural language processing techniques like topic modeling to generate lists of relevant topics on an episode-by-episode basis.”The topics are also ranked with a per-episode relevance score and appear to be integrated into the Apple Podcasts search function. Misener tested this by searching the phrase ‘war in Donbass,’ which he had seen as a tag on Today, Explained. Apple Podcasts returned an episode of The Inquiry that discusses the issue at length, but also does not specifically include those keywords in the title or description. This suggests the assigned topics influenced its search ranking.
As Misener says in his breakdown of what this means for podcasters, the implications of this automated topic system are numerous and all signal better relevancy in podcast discovery. SEO now goes far beyond what they chose to include in RSS feeds.
In response to the Bumper article, Podnews has quickly developed an episode topic viewer. Visitors can type in the name of a podcast and choose one of the 20 most recent uploads to see what topics Apple has assigned. That is, if it has been assigned any at all. Unfortunately the Sounds Profitable feed has not been fed through their machine learning, so we don’t know what Apple thinks last week’s episode of The Download is about.
IAB to require annual recertification.
Shreya: Last Thursday Podnews reported the Interactive Advertising Bureau is now requiring annual re-certification from podcasting companies. The information came from a note Podnews editor James Cridland discovered on the IAB website. From the IAB post: “As podcast listenership increases and the technology to support that listenership improves, the podcast technical measurement capabilities are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. As such, and to be aligned with other industry auditing programs, IAB Tech Lab is updating its compliance program to require annual recertification. “ The post then cites the fact several complaint companies were certified on the 2.0 version of the standards but have not re-certified under 2.1. As of this podcast 12 of the 25 companies on the IAB list are certified for 2.1. \
For context: version 1 of the Measurement Technical Guidelines was released in September of 2016. Version 2.0 released the following September. Version 2.1 released five years later, finalizing in February of 2022. The bulk of the updates in 2.1 involve guidelines blocking the Apple Watch user agent to prevent duplicate download stats.
Members of the audio committee and the tech lab were not briefed on the upcoming changes prior to Cridland’s reporting on this story. Using numbers available on the IAB website, the original Podnews report cited the cost for annual recertification at $45,000, split between a $35k certification fee and $10,000 annual membership fee. The page has since been updated to reflect previously un-announced, cheaper certification prices. Now the cost of initial certification is $17,500 for non-members and $12,500 for members. Recertification will cost $8,750 and $6,250 for the same respective categories.
Reducing the price for certification is a step in the right direction, creating more competition and reinforcing standards that others are likely to flaunt when compared against those who decide to merely be IAB compliant instead of IAB certified.An issue remains the recertification itself, as the process has had a life cycle of six years between 2.0 and 2.1 with no commitment whatsoever to improvements in the certification process to drive interest into certification. Third party solutions like Podtrac have been shown to receive special accommodations that allow them to uphold questionable behaviors. The most recent example of such behavior being Podtrac’s honoring of downloads for iHeartRadio podcasts generated by auto-playing web players into video game ads, classifying them as legitimate.
Going forward, we hope the IAB standard is applied consistently, updated with more regularity, and accessible to as many companies in the space as possible.
Podcast reach with people 13+ growing, Share of Ear shows.
Manuela: Last Thursday Edison Research published a bit of data from the Q3 Share of Ear that shows good news for the growth of podcasting. The issue of Weekly Insights opens with fond recollections of Cliffhanger, a popular price-guessing game segment on the game show The Price is Right. The game featured a model of a mountain climber making his way up a cartoon mountain based on correct or incorrect bids made by the contestant.
A mountain not unlike the positive trending growth represented in the graph
“In 2014, the first year of the Share of Ear survey, podcasts reached 5% of those in the U.S. age 13+. As of our most recent data, Q3 2022, podcasts now reach 18% of those age 13+ in the U.S. — a 20% increase in the past year (Q3 2021), and over three times the reach of 2014. The years in between show a steady growth in reach. There have been some fluctuations in podcast reach from quarter to quarter as we saw the beginning and end of quarantine restrictions, but this graph that shows the climb of podcast reach should be encouraging for the podcast community.”
Headliner Releases YouTube Auto-Upload
Shreya: This Monday the Headliner blog posted a video and short article announcing their newest feature.
“YouTube has become one of the hot ticket items in podcasting, and for good reason. Each month over 2.6 Billion people go to the site and watch videos. YouTube is a great place to get your podcast in front of new audience and increase your listenership. If you want to get your podcast on YouTube, but have a bunch of older episodes that you’d like to upload, this feature will save you tons of time.”
In addition to Headliner’s normal offerings that allow podcasters to generate animated video clips for social media from their podcast audio, Headliner subscribers at the Pro and Enterprise level can now create a template that will then automatically generate a full-episode video and upload it to the podcast’s YouTube channel. This automation comes at the perfect time as YouTube pushes its interest in podcasting and podcasters, small and large, comes to terms with sizable backlogs of audio-only content.
Fundraiser Roundup
Manuela: Occasionally when there have been a few stories involving fundraising in podcasting and podcasting-adjacent companies, we graduate them from Quick Hits into their own small segment. Today we have two success stories to round out our coverage of news from the past week: Last Wednesday Swedish audiobook and ebook subscription service Storytel announced they have raised 400 million krona, equivalent to 37 million US dollars.
Then, on this Tuesday, French digital audio and podcast monetization startup Audion announced they have raised six million euros in Series A funding.
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:
Alex Blumberg is leaving Spotify. A tweet from New York Times reporter Ben Mullin last Tuesday announced the Gimlet Media and Startup star has left Spotify, where he has worked on Gimlet since its $230 million dollar acquisition in 2019. Goodbye Podland, hello to Podnews Weekly Review. On November 4th the Podnews Weekly Review published its 100th and final episode, technically. The feed has been rebranded to Podnews Weekly Review, starting with its first episode last Thursday.
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.
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Podcasts and Audiobooks are crossing the streams of spoken word content - what else is possible? This week, Tom Webster looks at ideas for hybrid non-fiction content that could open up whole new sources of revenue.
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This week: Why sports podcasts are a slam dunk for podcast advertisers, our quarterly earnings roundup, how the buy-side of advertising defines ‘premium’ content, how podcast advertisers are embracing Latino podcasting, and Netflix launches their ad-supported tier.
Why sports podcasts could be a slam dunk for advertisers who know how to navigate the in-demand space
Shreya: There’s no denying the synergy of sports and advertisers during regular game seasons, but a new article from MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers highlights how podcasts can easily fill that gap the rest of the year.
“The sports podcast genre is among the top five most popular in the US, according to Edison Research, and the percentage share of ad revenue for that category more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.”
Several of Meyers’ sources stress that sports is one of the most in-demand podcast genres for ad buyers. Steven Abraham, president of the Oxford Road, said the agency’s biggest clients are interested in the space due to its reach with an active and engaged audience.
“A good sports-podcast media plan includes both, according to Abraham. Major shows that cover entire leagues or sports news in general can provide the benefit of reach, but fan-led shows that focus on specific teams tend to be more targeted and affordable, he said.”
Regardless of a show’s popularity, the CPM of a sports podcast has the benefit of flexibility even in the off season. Locked On Podcast Network CEO David Locke reports listenership spikes more during off-season times like trade deadlines than during important games during the normal season.
Traditional media has spent decades refining their infrastructure around courting sports fans when players are on the court. Podcasting has the flexibility and staying power to capitalize on sports fandom’s dedication for their favorite pastime and make sporting content a perennial avenue for advertisers.
Podcasting Companies Post Q3 Earnings
Manuela: It’s time for what’s becoming a quarterly event here on The Download: quarterly earnings reports are here!
Most of what we’re reporting on today has been released in the past week, but in the interest of gathering everyone together, we’ll open with Spotify. As we covered back in October, Spotify shares dipped after their earnings call, in which CEO David Ek announced price increases coming in 2023.
In good news for Big Green: they report 2022-Shareholder-Deck-FINAL-LOCKED.pdf">456 million monthly active users, up 20% year over year, 195 million of which are paying subscribers, representing a 13% year over year jump.
iHeartMedia is up 7% year over year on revenue, with a Q3 total of $989 million. Their Digital Audio Group revenue hit a 23% year over year increase, with podcast revenue hitting $91 million dollars.
On Wednesday Veritone posted their Q3 financial report. $37.2 million in revenue with 64% year over year growth.
2022-Earnings-Release-Web-Posting.pdf">Audacy’s financial report shows total revenue down 3.8% year on year. Their Digital revenue, including podcasting, made $62 million in the quarter. As Podnews James Cridland reports, this is up 2% year on year but 10% down quarter on quarter. Cridland also said:
“The company is threatened with stock market delisting; stock hit a record low of $0.27 yesterday.”
q3-2022-eng-final.pdf">Acast’s Q3 has been positive with revenue up 21%, amounting to $29.8 million USD when converted from Krona. In their significant events recap they list the Podchaser acquisition, the partnership with Wondery to translate and record successful podcasts in Italian, and their agreement with rep The New York Times and sell UK ad space on NYT podcasts.
They also note Amazon functionally purchasing all ad space on Acast podcasts through the deal struck just after the reporting period so Amazon can run Acast shows ad-free for Amazon Music subscribers.
How the buy-side of the ad industry is now defining ‘premium’ content
Shreya: On Wednesday Ronan Shields, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering how the buyer side of the market is defining premium ad content and the general mood of the industry in regards to the looming threat of recession. The piece quotes panels from multiple relevant conferences in New York City last week.
“Just about everyone in the industry is bracing themselves for a recession with swinging cuts to advertisers’ budgets expected, fellow panelists Jesse Fisher from Horizon Media and GroupM’s Esra Bacher offered insights into how marketers would make budgeting decisions. They both pointed out how priorities will delineate depending on whether they are an emerging or mature brand.”
Fischer predicts smaller brands will focus more on awareness campaigns instead of focusing on ROI.
“But if you look at a more mature brand, you know that’s really well positioned… they might shift spend into more measurable channels and types of activations because they really want to make sure that if they’re spending a million dollars, they’re able to see $1.1 million in ROI.”
Programmatic Investment Lead at GroupM Esra Bacher suggests marketers and media agencies have evolved enough to withstand the brunt of an anticipated economic downturn better than the 2008 recession that lead to sweeping cuts.
While DSPs and premium publishers are using tools like The Trade Desk’s OpenPath to form direct relationships, media agencies are similarly getting together with supply-side platforms. An anonymous source at Brand Safety Week told Digiday:
“It’s not possible for us to talk to 10,000 publishers, but it is possible for us to talk to 50 SSPs. So, we might look to see how much we’re spending with, say, 10-15 publishers via DSPs, and then look to see which SSPs have unique supply, unique data… and transparency on things like show-level data…”
Podcast listening by US Latinos is on the rise. Are ad dollars following suit?
Manuela: Back in August the third annual Latino Podcast Listener Report from Edison Research was published, as dedicated listeners might remember from our coverage. The report delivered promising news, including the statistic that 59% of US Latino adults have listened to a podcast at least once.
This past Wednesday Alyssa Meyers, writing for MarketingBrew, covered both the highlights of the report and how the podcasting industry is adjusting to the rise in Latino audiences.
Latina Podcasters Network and Latino Pods CEO Rita Bautista says their stable of 40+ podcasts broke six figures in ad revenue so far in 2022, working with brands like Ulta Beauty, Pfizer, and Gold Peak. The network does not run prerecorded ads, preferring host-read copy to ensure authenticity.
“There’s absolutely a lot of interest in the Hispanic opportunity by many advertisers,” said Jesus Lara, president of Univision Radio, including its Uforia Audio Network. “There’s other advertisers that will need a little more education.”
Lara stressed that authenticity has to be paramount when building ad creative. Ad Results Media VP of media operations and analytics Lisa Jacobs says she advises brands to only write copy in another language if they have someone fluent around to work on the translation. Jacobs told MarketingBrew this might seem self-explanatory, but there have been situations in the past where someone used Google Translate to try and convert copy to another language.
Bautista says she’s seeing brands follow the advice of people like Jacobs, though there is room to grow.
“The needle is moving. It’s not moving as quickly as it needs to be, but…I do commend these companies that we've been working with for trying their best, and making sure that they are working on these efforts, and asking for feedback, and looking towards the right types of networks to advertise with in order to get this right.”
Brands advertising on Netflix include Louis Vuitton, Subway, and Duracell
Shreya: Previously we’ve covered Netflix’s moves into making its cheapest tier an ad-supported one. Last week the platform officially launched the tier, charging $6.99 for ‘Basic with Ads’ in the US, as well as eight other countries. MarketingBrew’s Kelsey Sutton reports the ad loads are capped at four to five minutes of advertising per hour and the formats are pre-roll and mid-roll.
Sutton and others from MarketingBrew used accounts on the new tier to catch the new advertisement breaks in action.
“Brands we spotted while watching Gilmore Girls and Ozark included everything from luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and Bulgari to tech brands like Beats by Dre and Google. Apartments.com, Best Western, Booking.com, Cadillac, CeraVe, Duracell, Michelob Ultra, and Subway were also spotted in the mix.
Sutton reports the exercise found an average of three ad breaks per episode amounting to around 60 seconds total of midroll plus the preroll that ran before the episode began.
“It remains to be seen how many of Netflix’s ~223 million global subscribers will opt to watch with ads. In a poll last month, most Marketing Brew readers said they’d keep their existing ad-free subscriptions, but 14% each said they’d either sign up for Netflix on its ad-supported tier for the first time or switch their existing ad-free subscription to the ad-supported tier.”
The new service isn’t quite plug-and-play just yet, as Netflix has to renegotiate licensing agreements with studios before it can run advertisements on their properties. They also appear to still be working on implementing the measurement tools produced by their partnership with DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, and Nielsen.
While Sutton mentions some advertisers are waiting in the wings to gauge the public’s reaction to the new tier, it’s clear plenty of big-name advertisers are interested in buying ad space on premium content. Netflix’s CPM for their new ad slots has been reported between $60 and $80. It’s exciting to see both the interest and the price holding in a buyer’s market.
Now to see if Netflix can deliver long-term. For now we can only watch, both literally and figuratively.
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:
The holiday campaigns have begun- here’s what we’re seeing so far by Katie Hicks for MarketingBrew. A breezy breakdown of what tact major brands are taking with their holiday season campaigns this year, with trends developing around addressing inflation and families celebrating together.
These Are the Salaries Warner, Amazon and Sony Offer For Audio Jobs by Ashley Carman for Bloomberg. Last week’s issue of Carman’s newsletter Soundbite features a look at salaries for a variety of companies working in audio now that New York City has passed a new law requiring good faith salary ranges on open positions.
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.
What’s the episode about: If you’re a long time podcast listener, you’re probably familiar with promo codes. In this episode, we discuss how impactful they really are. And, is it possible that they could have even more impact for listeners, publishers, and advertisers? Tom Webster proposes an upgrade. Arielle Nissenblatt and Bryan Barletta are here to discuss with it with him.
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This week, Tom continues his thoughts from last week about what Podcasting can learn from Radio’s worst mistakes.
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This week: Amazon Prime users get ad-free podcasts and music, Buzzsprout combats email spam, new ad placements at Apple cause brand safety issue, and a roundup of the three new podcast research studies.
Amazon Music adds entire music catalog, ad-free podcasts.
Manuela: On Tuesday David Pierce, writing for The Verge, covered the changes coming to Amazon Prime subscribers.
Previously, Amazon Prime members had access to a limited batch of 2 million songs from Amazon Music’s extensive library. Now they have access to all 100 million songs in a limited shuffle-only capacity, similar to how a Spotify free account currently works.
The big change makes the Amazon Prime music offerings comparable to a free Spotify account. However, Amazon Prime members also get ad-free access to a fair few major podcasts. This includes podcasts produced by Amazon-owned companies like Wondery, as well as podcasts produced in partnership with outside companies, including NPR, ESPN, and the New York Times.
“Amazon is also working on podcast discovery. It’s rolling out a new feature called Podcast Previews, which seems to be something like trailers for podcast episodes. You’ll be able to listen to “a short, digestible soundbite” before deciding to dive into an episode, which Amazon thinks could help discovery.”
Pierce says the feature is billed as being “swipeable” and summarizes it as ‘Tinder for podcasts.’
Sounds Profitable asked several large publishers and hosting platforms for their percentage of downloads from Amazon Music. All were below 1% of monthly volume. Giving Amazon’s over 250 million Prime subscribers ad-free access to podcasts might bring that percentage up soon.
In addition to the Prime members, those who pay the $9 monthly subscription fee for Amazon Music Unlimited but do not have Prime get access to the ad-free podcast listening and Podcast Previews tool.
Buzzsprout ‘fighting back against email spam.’
Shreya: This Monday, Buzzsprout posted a short update announcing a significant update to how they’re distributing RSS feeds.
“Email spam has increasingly become an issue for podcasters. Spammers and bots routinely scrape RSS feeds to collect podcasters' email addresses and send them junk emails.”
The inclusion of a producer’s email in the RSS feed has been a mixed bag in recent years. As Buzzsprout says, making it easily available leaves the door open for companies scraping data to create massive databases of email addresses specifically to cold-call in hopes of selling something relevant to podcasters.
On the other hand, anyone who has produced a podcast knows the RSS email is an integral part of the process, with many platforms sending an email to that address with a verification link to prove the person claiming they own the RSS feed is legitimate.
Buzzsprout’s solution to that issue is simple: a new button has been added to the dashboard that puts the account owner’s email back into the RSS feed for 24 hours, enough time to verify the podcast
Barring any teething troubles with the 24 hour temporary email addition process, it seems like Buzzsprout has found an elegant solution to an inelegant problem.
Apple’s new ad placements immediately caused a brand safety crisis
Manuela: As covered in past episodes of The Download, Apple has been interested in expanding advertising offerings on its platforms. This Monday Insider Intelligence’s Daniel Konstantinovic posted coverage of a brand safety speedbump Apple encountered when rolling out new ad locations on the App Store.
One of the new ad spots is in the “you might also like” section recommending similar apps, allowing advertisers to promote their own app. On the 25th when the ads went live, users began to notice inappropriate advertisements appearing on the platform. The chief example of this provided in the article is an ad for the game Jackpot World - Slot Machines on the page for RecoverMe, a gambling addiction management app.
“The influx of gambling ads led to an outcry from developers, who didn’t want their apps associated with such services, and prompted Apple to indefinitely pause ads in the gambling category.”
Podcasting is no stranger to this kind of hiccup. Back in May, Spotify experienced an issue with their implementation of ads on podcast pages, leading to one Wild Turkey whiskey ad getting served to every podcast on the platform, including those about substance abuse and alcoholism, causing a small social media firestorm.
Growing pains happen with large platforms rolling out changes like this. In-depth rules and hands-on verification helps reduce issues when rolling out a new moving part, like ads on every app listing. Apple is looking into expanding similar ads into Apple Podcasts.
It’s best to keep aware of how these changes happen and be comfortable reporting on them as they happen. Apple certainly doesn’t want their own version of Spotify’s whiskey snafu, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out when ad changes debut on any platform.
Podcasting Research Roundup
Shreya: Over the past week three new studies relevant to podcasting have been released, so before we close out with Quick Hits here’s a brief rundown of what has just hit the airwaves.
The IAB New Zealand has published Evolution-of-Audio-Handout.pdf">The Evolution of Audio 2022, built with data collected from 95 survey respondents in late August and early September.
“Respondents are decision makers or influencers in the allocation of marketing
spend across audio advertising including media buyers and publishers and sales
Teams.”
The survey came back with promising data, including several metrics reflecting New Zealand ad buyers have used ads in broadcast streaming and podcasting more than their Australian counterparts.
Then there’s The Spoken Word 2022, from NPR and Edison Research. This edition comes with a special focus on younger demographics and how they interact with spoken word content. The study found a 214% increase in spoken word consumption in the 13 to 24 year old demographic compared to data from 2014.
According to The Spoken Word, an estimated 131 million people in the US over the age of 13 listen to spoken word content on a daily basis, an increase of 26 million over eight years.
And finally, the Q3 version of Magellan AI’s Podcast advertising benchmark report is here. The report examined over 78,000 episodes of popular podcasts to get a snapshot of the state of podcast advertising.
Notable findings include 1,878 new brands or products advertised with podcasts for the first time this quarter, a 2.6% increase quarter over quarter in podcast ad ok spending, and 36% of ads were thirty seconds in length.
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:
Audiences say advertisers shouldn’t avoid hard news, like war or COVID by Ryan Barwick for Marketing Brew. The results of a survey published by the Trustworthy Accountability Group and the Brand Safety Institute suggest audiences are of the opinion ads should be served on all high-quality journalism, regardless of story content.
TikTok developer ByteDance is hiring someone for Podcast Business Development. Two weeks ago we covered the breadcrumb trail of evidence showing TikTok is taking steps to get into podcasting in the near future. Recently, a job posting has appeared on the ByteDance website aiming to hire someone with at least five years of podcast licensing or podcast digital business development experience.
Market Enginuity Podcast Group becomes Soundrise, offering a “revenue-focused partner for values-aligned podcast partners.”
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 we kick off a two part series on the lessons that podcasting can take from radio's struggles.
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This week: A birds-eye view of how podcasting is doing political ads this year, Spotify stock drops after announcing price increase, podcast companies discuss diversity at Advertising Week and the IAB Upfront, and a massive new Nielsen study shows podcast ads universally boost brand metrics.
How podcast networks are making their own rules for political advertising—and how they differ from one another.
Manuela: Midterm elections are approaching fast in the United States and that means political ads are on the rise. This Wednesday MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers published an article giving an overview of how different publishers and networks are handling the sensitive issue.
“Political advertisers, including candidates and advocacy groups, have expressed interest in podcasts, according to several network execs, but not all networks want to play ball. And because the FCC doesn’t regulate political ads in podcasting, the rules are left entirely up to platforms and networks.”
iHeart, Wondery, and Vox declined to comment on Meyer’s story, but those that did gave a wide variety of responses and opinions. Cadence13 has always been open to political ads, for instance. That said, the decision on whether or not to run any particular cause or campaign is left to the individual hosts of Cadence13 original podcasts. Spotify has flipped the switch to allow political ads again, having banned them after accusations of spreading disinformation during the 2020 presidential election. Curiously, both Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts do not directly mention political advertising in their ad policies.
Due to government regulations, NPR cannot run political ads on terrestrial radio. CEO Gina Garrubbo told MarketingBrew NPR chooses not to run political ads on other platforms. Meyers continues:
“Execs from other podcast networks told us they’re starting to see increasing interest from political candidates and issue-based organizations, and though they’re open to these opportunities, some don’t have formal policies in place yet.”
Shira Atkins, co-founder and CRO of Wonder Media Network, has taken the approach of allowing political ads but only as part of sponsored content or via baked-in host-read. She says the network has gotten pitches from PACs and candidates, but some have blanched at the idea of handing over creative control to a host instead of running an ad produced by the campaign.
“While political ad dollars aren’t flooding the podcast space the way they are CTV, as the industry continues to grow, its political ad policies will likely continue to evolve and solidify, even if they differ across networks.”
If there’s one clear consensus in the world of political advertising on podcasts, it’s that there currently is no consensus.
Spotify Shares Slip 10% After CEO Says Price Hikes Coming Next Year
Shreya: On Wednesday Denny Jacob, writing for The Wall Street Journal and reposted to MarketWatch, published coverage of the Spotify’s Tuesday earnings call. The results were a mixed bag for Spotify.
“For its third quarter, Spotify reported 456 million monthly active users, up 20% from a year earlier and above the company's guidance. Paying subscribers, Spotify's most lucrative type of customer, climbed 13% to 195 million, also exceeding the company's expectations, thanks to promotions and household plans.”
That said, Spotify also posted a Q3 loss of 195 million dollars. Spotify Premium has cost $9.99 since the service launched in 2011, but CEO Daniel Ek says that’ll change some time next year. Spotify shares fell 10% after the announcement.
Podcast companies want to increase diverse content—but say they need better ad budgets to do so
Manuela: Time for another article from MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers, this one published on Monday. In it, she covers conversations about the podcasting industry stemming from Advertising Week New York and the IAB Podcast Upfront last week.
“Part of the push for more diversity in podcasting is about getting creators from different backgrounds behind the mic in the first place. Conal Byrne, CEO of the iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, said that podcasting, like other mediums, has a problem with representation, but that there are efforts underway to “course-correct.”
Meyers cites the Edison Research’s 2022 Infinite Dial to demonstrate that the average makeup of the regular US podcast listeners - 53% men and 59% white, has declined in recent years. She also notes the diverse makeup of podcast hosts is outpacing wider US population statistics, using statistics from The Creators, a study published by Edison Research and Sounds Profitable on June 28th.
Conversations about diversification also raise questions about brand safety.
“During Acast’s panel, global head of ad innovation Elli Dimitroulakos said that brand-safety tech can be imperfect as well, because it “has been built by people with preconceived notions or biases.”
Dimitrioulakos provides the example of a retailer avoiding any instance of the word ‘bomb’ in an attempt to distance themselves from any content to do with war, but in the process unrelated content like discussions of bomber jackets are caught in the crossfire.
“Or “if I say ‘a bomb lipstick,’ I’m not talking about a weapon,” added Brooke DeVard Ozaydinli, host of the Naked Beauty podcast.”
Tenderfoot TV co-founder and president Donald Albright says advertisers should be prepared to invest in the industry and support the diversity they want to see in the industry.
“Black content is what creates the culture, all culture, so invest in that,” he said. “Put the money in it, and also pay a premium on it. Don’t just pay the normal rate, pay extra, because you’re reaching a very targeted market that’s going to set the trends. That should be more valuable.”
New massive Nielsen study finds podcast ads universally boost brand metrics, long ads work.
Shreya: On Wednesday Gillian Follett, writing for AdAge, covered a new Nielsen study purported to be the ‘largest ever’ study of podcast ads.
“The study, titled “Podcast Ad Effectiveness: Best Practices for Key Industries,” consolidates the findings of 610 separate studies conducted by Nielsen to measure how ads inserted into podcast episodes affected several performance metrics, including brand familiarity, brand affinity and brand awareness. It also measured consumers’ intent to search for more information about the brand; purchase something from the brand; or recommend the brand to others.”
The individual studies cover a period of four years and involved over 147,000 respondents, leading to the claim this is the largest ever study of podcasting advertising effectiveness. This claim was made by study commissioner Magna, an investment and intelligence unit of IPG Mediabrands.
One notable bit of data is the finding that ads longer than 35 seconds drive better results than shorter creatives. Magna executive VP and managing director of audience intelligence and strategy Brian Hughes suggests this is due in part to the tendency for longer creatives to be tailor-made for podcasting. Shorter ads have a higher likelihood of being repurposed from another medium - such as radio - while longer ads likely have been built with podcasting in mind.
“Additionally, podcast ads largely had the same impact whether they were read by the podcast host or they came from the brand. In fact, custom ads—which typically involve the host sharing their personal experience with the brand, according to Hughes—were generally less effective than those that didn’t feature the podcast host. The report points out that “custom content may not be worth the price of creation given it lags in performance.””
It’s also worth noting with both the results we’ve covered and the rest in the article that Nielsen’s methodology actually suppresses positive results, in a way. Respondents aren’t actually listeners of the podcasts they’re being tested with. It then stands to reason that if a result comes back positive in this study, the results are likely even better with an individual podcast’s actual audience.
Quick Hits
Manuela: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’ve named 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:
Pocket Casts Mobile Apps Are Now Open Source by Yael Rubinstein for Pocket Casts. This one does what it says on the tin: podcast listening service Pocket Casts announces their decision to make both the iOS and Android versions of their mobile apps open source. SoundExchange wins $9.7 million judgment from Slacker/LiveOne for unpaid music royalties by Kurt Hanson for RainNews. A brief rundown of the background behind the case and its outcome.
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.
What’s the episode about: Arielle Nissenblatt chats with Sounds Profitable partners Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster about the two year anniversary of Sounds Profitable. Learn about our content initiatives, our research, our partnership opportunities, and how you can get involved at every stage.
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What does it mean that several podcasts paid to have their podcasts downloaded in a mobile app? Let’s break down the issue at hand, where things went wrong, and what we as an industry can do to solve it.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: TikTok spotted scraping podcast feeds, YouTube launches audio ads and host-read ad service, Internet radio platform Live365 to distribute through TuneIn On Air, the Spoken Word Audio Report debuts next week, and Digiday research shows publishers are warming more to programmatic.
Evidence suggests TikTok to explore podcasts.
Manuela: TikTok is coming to podcasting, or at least it looks to be that way from the breadcrumb trail of hints the company has left behind over the past year.
Most recently, in Monday’s edition of Podnews, James Cridland reported podcast hosting company Audiomeans has spotted a“new bot that is scraping our feeds, starting October 11th.” The host also provided Podnews with details about the bot scraping their feeds that ties it back to TikTok.Back in May the social media giant music-trademark.png">registered a trademark for a new service titled TikTok Music, which happened to include a provision for podcast content. Further back still, in the last week of December 2021 all TikTok users got a notification prompting them to take the ‘TikTok Podcast experience survey’ that collected listener-focused data, as well as audience metrics if the person filling it out identified as a producer. With questions like “if TikTok is going to launch a podcast feature, which of the following do you think will lead to a positive podcasting experience?,” it’s no surprise we’re seeing signs they’re building something podcasting related almost a year later.
YouTube launches audio advertisements, service for host-read podcast spots.
Arielle: This Monday YouTube announced a launch of audio-only ads, including ways to allow advertisers to specifically target podcasts, music, and those using connected TVs. This feature was beta-tested in 2020 but has now gone live globally. Sheila Dang covered the announcement for Reuters. “The streaming video platform said it will expand audio advertising globally to allow brands to market to people who use YouTube to listen to music or podcasts.”
It should be noted, as of this writing the YouTube podcasts homepage is still unavailable outside the US, though the announcement of global audio ads suggests this will change soon. Then on Tuesday MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers covered further development on the story as YouTube brought host-read ads into the mix.
“YouTube BrandConnect, its branded-content platform that connects creators with advertisers, is piloting a program that offers video ads read by podcasters, signaling YouTube’s continued interest in expanding its footprint in the podcast world.”
The BrandConnect system will allow brands testing the program to op into 60 or 90 second host-read ad segments that exclusively appear on the YouTube version of the podcast. The spots will either include video of the host reading the copy or a custom title card with audio overlay. BrandConnect managing director Lori Sobel mentioned skincare company Neutrogena has implemented the tool to run a campaign on the The Financial Confessions. In the future BrandConnect has intentions of using audience insights to pair brands with creators.
Live365 signs TuneIn On Air distribution deal. Manuela: Last Wednesday 200-connected-devices-301646821.html?tc=eml_cleartime">Soundstack’s Live365 platform announced a distribution agreement with TuneIn. Broadcasters on Live365 premium subscriptions now have access to the TuneIn On Air, opening up access to the platform’s 30 million US-based people using the TuneIn mobile app on over 200 connected devices, including integrations with automotive systems by Tesla and Volvo. A quote from TuneIn CEO Richard Stern: “This partnership with Live365 fits perfectly within our mission to reinvent radio for a connected world and democratize access to radio for broadcasters large and small. We believe great conversations are driven by the power of the human voice and we know our listeners rely on us to stay connected to the issues that matter to them most via our content catalog. We're thrilled to help more broadcasters reach TuneIn's expansive audience."
This partnership comes at a time when traditional radio listenership is dropping. Last month Tom Webster, in an article for Sounds Profitable, wrote about the most recent Edison Research Share of Ear study. In recent years there has been a slow decline in Americans 13 and up listening to audio on AM/FM radios, while listening time on mobile devices has grown in almost direct correlation. “I am certainly not the only person to write about this, but radio has as much of a hardware problem as it does a “software” issue. Other than your car, it is getting harder and harder to even buy a broadcast radio receiver. Some mobile phones do offer radio tuners, but Apple has famously rebuffed all attempts by radio lobbyists to include one in the iPhone. And so, as you might guess, AM/FM’s Share of Ear on mobile devices is comparatively quite small, indeed--in fact, today that share is markedly smaller than the share allocated to podcast listening on mobile devices.”Bringing radio to those mobile devices eliminates the issue of limited access to hardware. TuneIn is a standout example of a service modernizing the radio listening experience and making it accessible from mobile devices. Thanks to their roster of connected devices including automotive systems like Tesla and Volvo, their version of portable radio even can take over one of the last bastions of AM/FM hardware.
The Spoken Word Audio Report 2022 Launches Next Week
Arielle: Mark your calendars, NPR and Edison Research are set to release the 2022 version of the Spoken Word Audio Report on October 27th. The study will explore:“specific types of spoken word content, various spoken-word platforms, and devices used to consume spoken word content. With young people in the U.S. listening to spoken word audio more than ever, this year’s study includes a special focus on Gen Z consumption.”
Vice President of Edison Research Megan Lazovick and Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing at National Public Media , will present the study via webinar at 2pm Eastern Standard Time. Registration for the webinar is live and a link is available on the Edison Research blog post announcing the event.
Digiday+ Research: Direct-sold ads lose favor with publishers, while programmatic ads make gains Manuela: The tide appears to be shifting more in favor of programmatic advertising. This Monday, Digiday deputy managing editor Julia Tabisz covered a survey of 200 publisher professionals conducted by Digiday+ Research over the first and third quarters of 2022. Their findings show a growing difference between money made from direct-sold ads and programmatic.
“While programmatic ads still make up a smaller portion of publishers’ revenues on the whole than direct-sold ads, publishers see potential in programmatic, Digiday’s survey found, which could affect how publishers prioritize their businesses through the end of this year and into next. For instance, the percentage of publishers who said they will put a large or very large focus on building the programmatic part of their business in the next six months has risen from fewer than a third (32%) in Q1 to 43% in Q3.”
The survey found the percentage of publishers who self-identified as getting a large or very large portion of their ad revenue from direct-sold ads fell from 59% in Q1 to 45% in Q3. On the flip side, publishers who got a large portion of ad revenue from programmatic ads only shrank from 32% to 30% from Q1 to Q2.
“Digging a bit deeper into how publishers manage their programmatic ads business, it turns out that the open market is the biggest source of publishers’ programmatic revenue — and it’s growing.”
Longtime listeners of The Download have heard this before: programmatic isn’t a dirty word, and an excellent tool when used properly, and we love to see wider industries embracing it.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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: 5 Reasons Brands Shouldn’t Sleep on Co-Listening by Melissa Paris for SXMMedia. SiriusXM, in collaboration with Carat and Edison Research, has published their second co-listening report as a follow-up to their 2018 study on co-listening.
Announcing Independent Attribution by Amelia Coomber for Podscribe. Podscribe has launched their independent third-party attribution pixel for podcast advertising.
The Same People Who Listen To Podcasts Also Stream CTV by Allison Schiff for AdExchanger. Schiff covers the similarities podcast listeners share with connected TV audiences, including data from Acast, The Trade Desk, and Nielsen.
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There are around four million podcasts in the world today - but how many are you actually competing with? The answer is much smaller than you might think.
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This week: ESPN to potentially partner with DraftKings, Podcasting unions make headlines, Netflix confirms two independent measurement companies, advertisers reflect on 2023 spend, and two new podcasting hosts arrive in the US.
ESPN Nears Large New Partnership With DraftKingsManuela: Last Thursday Ed Hammond and Crystal Tse of Bloomberg covered an anticipated deal between ESPN and sports-betting firm DraftKings. According to an update to the piece, DraftKings’ stock rose as much as 8.8% in response to the news on Friday.
“ESPN has already invested heavily in sports gambling, though it has steered clear of taking actual bets. The broadcaster has betting-related shows such as Daily Wager and marketing deals with DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment Inc. where links to the sportsbooks are integrated into ESPN’s website. Disney also acquired a stake in DraftKings as part of its acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019.”Disney has long avoided gambling in pursuit of upholding its wholesome family image. As Bloomberg points out, none of the Disney cruise ship fleet have casinos aboard, nor are Disney characters licensed to slot machine manufacturers. Clearly, their attitudes appear to be changing as they search for a sports betting partner for ESPN.Sean Russo, Research Manager of Magellan AI, offered this when asked about the growth of sports betting and adjacent categories: “As of August, the Fantasy Sports industry is up 22% year to date, although historically spending in the industry has peaked in September. Last year spend more than doubled between August and September, primarily driven by brands like Fanduel and DraftKings”
ESPN is a major podcast network and sports betting, as well as its cousins like fantasy sports, continue to climb in popularity. If this deal comes to fruition, it could be a big deal indeed.
Podcasting gains new union, hears from two recently affected by Spotify layoffs.
Shreya: In this first segment we have two stories fitting in a theme of organized labor in podcasting. Last Tuesday, Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios announced last Tuesday that roughly 75% of their proposed bargaining unit signed up to officially join WGA East. Ashley Carman reported for Bloomberg: “The employees said they’re looking for increased transparency around pay, rights to their intellectual property, protection against favoritism at work and improved health insurance, according to the letter.”Later in the week, the utility of unionizing was highlighted when Spotify pruned their walled garden. Last Thursday Tech Crunch’s Lauren Forristal reported on Spotify canceling multiple shows at once from two of the four Spotify in-house content production companies. Three podcasts from Gimlet and eight from Parcast are either canceled effective immediately or set - in the case of Horoscope Today - scheduled to end in the second quarter of 2023.
Spotify also announced this would cause “less than 5% of layoffs of Spotify’s podcast staff.”
Last Friday both the Gimlet Union and Parcast Union took issue with that number in an official letter posted to Twitter.
“Yesterday, Spotify blindsided both Gimlet Union and Parcast Union with at least 38 layoffs across their studios. Spotify has said in the press that these layoffs constitute less than 5% of people working on original podcasts. That number is misleading. The reality is that each bargaining unit organized with the Writers Guild of America, East has lost about 30% of its members. These are not small cuts, they are massive restructurings.”
The two unions go on to highlight Spotify’s internal reasoning for canceling the podcasts was due to low listenership, which the unions argue was in large part due to decisions made by Spotify itself.
“Their decision to make most of Gimlet’s and Parcast’s shows Spotify Exclusive caused a steep drop in listeners - as high as three quarters of the audience for some shows. Yet the company did little or nothing to staunch the bleeding. Shows languished without marketing support, and teams were not given clear audience goals to meet.”
Netflix strikes measurement deals ahead of new ad-supported tier
Manuela: On Monday Garett Sloane, writing for AdAge, reported on some updates to the ongoing story of Netflix prepping for the launch of their ad-supported tier. As covered in the September 8th episode of The Download, details were scarce about the tier beyond its possible price point and the streamer’s CPM goals. “... Netflix has been asking for high prices for its ad inventory, at least $60 CPMs—cost per thousand views—while only offering limited targeting possibilities and no third-party measurement, according to people familiar with the situation.” Now Netflix has announced they’re working with both Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify to act as that third-party measurement. A measurement executive speaking to Sloane anonymously believes implementation of the two services should be relatively easy for Netflix. Netflix signing two big-name third-party companies to give credence to their measurement stands as another example of why a certain podcasting platform’s decisions come off as odd. Spotify, when in a similar position of needing brand safety and ad measurement as Netflix, chose to not only work with one third-party company, they strongly inferred the partnership intended to create a proprietary brand safety tool.
Surveyed advertisers discuss where they’ll potentially spend differently in an uncertain 2023.
Shreya: Much talk has been had about the uncertainties of how things will look in the future as the economy has a will-they-won’t-they relationship with a recession. This Wednesday MarketingBrew’s Ryan Barwick brought some numbers to the table that demonstrate just how uncertain the industry is. The following numbers are the result of a survey of 43 advertisers run by the World Federation of Advertisers and their media research company Ebiquity. 41% expect to keep their 2022 budgets, though as Barwick says in the article:
“29% said they expect a decrease in their budget. The remaining 29% said they expect to see an increase.”While 43 might seem like a small sample size for a survey, it’s worth noting those companies account for $44 billion in ad spend. 28% said they’d increase performance advertising, while 21% aim to increase their share of brand advertising. 40% of respondents would up their share of flexible or biddable buys. ““With uncertain times ahead, it’s clear that brand advertisers seek more tactical agility in terms of trading and shifting budgets throughout the year, versus annual upfront commitments,” Ruben Schreurs, chief product officer at Ebiquity, wrote to Marketing Brew.”
New Podcast Hosts Cross the Atlantic
Manuela: Two new podcast hosting services have hit the US markets this week. First: podcast recording and editing application Alitu has announced Alitu Hosting, making the service all-in-one. According to Jacob Anderson, head of Growth at Alitu: “We started building Alitu four years ago with one mission in mind: to offer the clearest path to sharing your voice and making an impact on the world, making no compromise over control and creativity. Whether that’s making one person laugh, or lifting an entire community, we want to offer the help you need to achieve your purpose.”
This Tuesday French hosting service Ausha announced the rolling out of their service in the US on their official blog.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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: Platforms used for listening to podcasts in Poland in 2022 by Statista. We make a point of discussing podcasting performance around the globe. With that in mind, here’s a snapshot of data showcasing what podcast consumption looks like in Poland. 465d-11ed-82ef-17c028dde1ff.html">Acast Talks Layoffs, It’s U.S. Moves, The Ad Market, And Why It’s Selling ‘The Heart.’ by InsideRadio. Coverage of Acast’s recent earnings call, including higher-ups talking through their strategies, layoffs, and revealing Acast only sold 28% of their ad inventory in 2021. In the interest of clarity, it’s worth keeping in mind InsideRadio is owned by competitor iHeartMedia.
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.
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As interest in podcasting continues to surge, so does the expectation that podcasting adheres to norms established in other advertising channels. Today, frequency capping takes the center stage.
Podscribe DD: https://soundsprofitable.com/article/podscribeThoughtleaders: https://soundsprofitable.com/article/thoughtleaders-intelligence Sounds Profitable Podscribe A deep dive into Podscribe: critical intelligence for podcast advertisers.
Dec 17th, 2020 Sounds Profitable ThoughtLeaders Partner Intelligence Solution Elsie Bernaiche, Director of Sales at ThoughtLeaders, joins us for our latest product deepdive into the ThoughtLeaders Partner Intelligence Solution.
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This week: Podcasting overtakes talk radio, CPMs increase, video game ads counting as podcast downloads, and Publishers test personalizing newsletters.
Podcasting overtakes talk radio, CPMs increase
Manuela: For today’s first segment we’re going to cover two recent pieces about industry growth. First, Kurt Hanson’s Rain News recap of the Audioscape 2022 talk by Cumulus Media executive Pierre Bouvard. The biggest eye-catching number from Bouvard’s presentation of Edison Research media involves how the 18-34 age group spends their weekly time listening to talk or personality-driven audio content. Terrestrial radio has been overtaken in this bracket, with podcasts taking 60% of those listening hours.
“Even within the older demos of 25-54 and 35-64, podcast listening’s share of talk/personality listening is high — 47% and 39%, respectively, with those numbers up nearly double and more than triple, respectively, compared to five years ago.”
Continuing the trend of good news from new data, Libsyn’s Advertisecast has published their Podcast Advertising Rates 2022 report. The presentation is compiled from reporting data provided by 2,985 podcasts. Podnews editor James Cridland reported on Monday:
“There has been a jump in the average CPM for podcast advertising, according to Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast: the average is now $24.35, the second-highest on record. It’s up 3.7% month-on-month, or 5% year-on-year.”
Podcasting continues its upward climb. More listener share over radio and growing CPMs sounds like a good thing to us.
A follow-up on video game ads counting as podcast downloads.
Shreya: Last week we covered Ashely Carman’s piece covering podcast companies, most notably iHeartRadio, purchasing downloads via mobile game ads. In a follow-up piece covering industry reactions posted last Thursday, Carman got official comment from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
“The standards are in a continual state of review,” said Eric John, vice president of the media center at the IAB. “We’re trying to ski to where the puck is going ultimately, and we’re going to make standards to match the industry’s needs.”
On the same day Podnews reported a response from Podtrac explaining why the gaming ads only playing 20 seconds of an episode of were counted as full downloads. “It’s our understanding they appear as browser traffic without a unique user agent (or [unique] IP address). These downloads don’t have a material impact on the publisher rankings including the rank order of the top publishers.”
Then, in related news, HotPod reported on an InsideRadio piece covering Podtrac suspending its weekly data newsletter after iHeart stopped sponsoring the project. The decision was reportedly made over a month ago. According to HotPod, the last data tracker email they’d received was published September 13th, while the last one with iHeartRadio branding had been sent August 15th.
Since the HotPod publication went live, InsideRadio - a company owned by iHeartMedia - has pulled their Podtrac story.
Publishers test personalizing newsletters with varying degrees of success
Manuela: Last Wednesday Digiday’s Sara Guaglione reported the experiences of publishers who experimented with using tools to generate personalized newsletters for subscribers. We’re covering it here as the tools and methodology involved might just be of interest to podcasting. From the article:
“As companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post experiment with personalizing their homepages to get readers to consume more articles, publishers are also tweaking newsletters to serve readers’ specific interests and behaviors — but to varying degrees of success.
The piece opens with the success story of The Telegraph, which has run the personalized newsletter Headlines for a year. Each time a newsletter needs to be sent, an algorithm selects vertical-specific content recommendations based on browsing history, including making sure to not recommend articles the subscriber has already read.
The Telegraph reports higher click-through rates, page views per click, and time spent on the website from Headlines subscribers vs. their standard hand-built newsletters. In contrast, publications like The Toronto Star have tried similar things and found little to no results. Newsroom director David Topping told Digiday:
Most newsletter subscribers “seem pretty happy getting what everyone else got,” Topping said. The personalized newsletter drove engagement for a “niche audience” who wanted tailored recommendations but it wasn’t “necessarily something that’s going to move the needle,” he added.”
Niche audiences are a thing podcasting does well. The recommendation tech used to create these newsletters could be of use in the podcasting industry. An individual news podcast could build itself live akin to how Spooler allows The Refresh to add new segments on the fly. Except, with a recommendation engine, a news podcast could be constructed of only segments the recommendation tool knows the listener would enjoy.
Or, scaled up to an entire production house or network, the same tech could be applied to give bespoke RSS feeds to subscribers that only dole out episodes of podcasts that company produces that the listener would enjoy. An elegant solution for the existing logjam of either dozens of individual RSS feeds for a stable of similar podcasts, or one feed containing multiple different shows.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
Shreya: Finally, it’s time for Quick Hits, our roundup of articles that didn’t make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
Numbers games by Brian Morrissey for The Rebooting newsletter. An excellent op-ed discussing how recent focus on having writers create content that generates subscriptions to a publication is the modern version of prioritizing writing that generated page clicks. Both overlook the meaty day-to-day content that keeps readers coming back. An excellent piece of opinion about an industry next door to podcasting.
What are the Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions and How Should You Use Them? By Andrew Byrd for Admonsters. For those looking to get into some deep-level tech discussion, Byrd details ten privacy-focused Alternative IDs to future-proof for the day when Google eventually kills third party cookies.
Political advertising is propping up a slow ad market by Jeremy Goldamn for InsiderIntelligence. Political ads are a hot-button topic for podcasting, but there’s no denying it’s a midterm election year and spending is only going up between now and November.
songs-are-staying-on-the-top-charts-longer-than-ever.html">Hit Songs Are Staying on the Top Charts Longer Than Ever by Lucas Shaw for Bloomberg. A companion piece to last week’s Quick Hit from The Guardian, Shaw details how modern streaming analytics are making top charts stagnate. Where a person who buys one CD a quarter and listened to it 500 times didn’t affect charts in the 90s, that same listening habit can keep artists afloat for years on Spotify.
How ad tech aims to build back better by Ronana Shields for Digiday. We’re four years into a post-GDPR world. Shields covers the current state of adtech and privacy via discussions had at the first in-person Dmexco conference since 2020.
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.
With the release of We’ll Be Right Back, part two of After These Messages, Tom Webster has a few questions about promo codes. Is it time to change how we use them?
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Sounds Profitable is two years old this month! Founder Bryan Barletta talks about just how far we’ve come in 24 short months, and where we are headed next as we continue to serve our mission to push podcasting forward and set the course for the future of the audio business.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: Podcasts found using mobile game ads for downloads, a trio of new pixels announced, and the Independent is reframing programmatic for advertisers.
Podcasters Are Buying Millions of Listeners Through Mobile-Game Ads
Manuela: Our first story is a big one! This Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Ashely Carman published a piece reporting on the discovery that podcast companies are serving podcast players as ads in mobile games.
For those not hip to mobile gaming: free-to-play mobile video games traditionally generate revenue by interrupting gameplay on a regular basis with a skippable ad, with the option to watch a 20 second unskippable ad in exchange they receive beneficial in-game items, or more attempts to play that day. Instead of serving a video ad, which is one of the more common uses of these platforms, some companies are serving a web player that plays the an episode of a podcast. The ads are timed, requiring the app user to interact for often 20 seconds or more, which is more than enough time to download an entire 1 hour podcast through progressive downloading. That download and every ad in that download would be seen as legitimate by current IAB podcast standards, even though the app user was prompted to move out of the ad and back to the game after the timer ended.Ad fraud detection company DeepSee’s August examination of ads in the popular game Subway Surfers spotted podcasts from the New York Post, independent podcaster Scott Savlov, and iHeartMedia. Carman interviewed Corey Weiner, CEO of Jun Group, a company specializing in placing ads in mobile apps. The starting rate for Jun Group placement is a $27 CPM for one of the 20 second ads. Jun Group’s main podcast client is iHeartMedia.
“According to a person familiar with the effort, the radio company, which bills itself as the top podcast publisher globally, has shelled out more than $10 million and gained approximately 6 million unique listeners per month through these ads since 2018."During the last week of August, half of the top ten trending podcasts in Podtrac were iHeart productions that hadn’t uploaded new episodes in weeks, if not months, according to Carmen. Podtrac is an industry ranker that only measures podcasts that opt into their platform’s prefix analytics solution, and recently independent developer John Spurlock identified that Spreaker from iHeart had added the prefix to podcasts on their platform en masse.
Yesterday Podnews published exclusive info regarding iHeart rankings: “Are these plays counting for iHeart’s “#1 for podcasting” Podtrac ranking? Podnews analysis confirms that the embedded podcast players used, as documented by DeepSee, makes a call to Chartable and a call to Podtrac.”
Podnews editor James Cridland then links to Podnews coverage of a 2018 story in which iHeartMedia was busted embedding podcasts on the websites of hundreds of affiliate radio stations, inflating play counts.The core problem that led to this story existing lies in the fact that there are minimal requirements for podcast players and not requirements for reporting transparency to podcast advertisers. Podcast players like Apple are Spotify are safe to trust as one can be 99% sure it’s coming from their apps. Even web player traffic is generally trustworthy given it’s assigned less inventory in general. That said, it’s time for the industry to figure out stricter guidelines for web players and more obligations to our advertisers.It’s not immediately clear what the finite details of a solution will be, but if all the big players in the industry came together for the sake of transparency they can build something. Something that would get publishers and advertisers alike reevaluating what inventory is or isn’t valuable based on where it’s played rather than simply if it’s played.
Pixels Galore - Podscribe and Gumball launch podcast analytics, and Magellan launches attribution
Shreya: Time to increase your resolution, several new pixels have recently arrived in podcasting. First up: a little trip to the past. Back on August 11th Podscribe announced third party impression verification. Or, in their words, third pod-y impression verification. Once users get the pixel to their publisher they will receive real-time downloads. “As early publishers in all other seasoned media forms discovered, 3rd party verification both facilitates and is required for significant scale.” The new verification comes designed to automatically sync to Google Sheets, allows for flagging of campaigns if suspicious data starts coming in, and GARM methodology brand safety monitoring.
Flashing forward to last Thursday, our second pixel comes from Magellan AI with their new Attribution by Magellan AI. With the new Attribution tech both advertisers and publishers will have details like campaign performance and pacing at their fingertips within the Magellan AI dashboard. “We are helping brands and agencies complete the entire buyer’s journey in one seamless location to enable them to scale with ease as the podcast industry exponentially grows,” said Cameron Hendrix, CEO and co-founder of Magellan AI. And for the final pixel, a bit more recent: This Tuesday Gumball, adtech division of the podcast network Headgum, announced a new feature titled Gumshoe. “Prior to Gumshoe, host-read ad measurement and verification were archaic, requiring podcasters to provide screenshots to verify impressions and download data. Gumshoe, which works with most major hosting platforms and is compatible for both embedded and dynamic ad formats, now digitizes this function to add increased communication and transparency.”
How The Independent is getting brands on board to advertise against breaking news
Manuela: This Monday Digiday’s Kayleigh Barber covered a talk by The Independent’s SVP of U.S. publication, Blair Tapper, about the fight to sell inventory as a publication covering breaking news. In a world where huge negative stories are breaking on a regular basis, a publication that doesn’t have subscriptions to rely on has to ensure skittish advertisers have confidence in where their inventory is being served. According to Tapper, 75% of The Independent’s ad revenue in the U.S. comes from programmatic ads. Given news is a commonly-avoided category, her team has focused on recontextualizing programmatic in a way that combats advertiser’s negative preconceived notions. “Programmatic advertising makes up approximately 75% of The Independent’s advertising revenue in the U.S., according to Tapper. But because news is such a highly avoided category by many advertisers, her team has been working to reframe the idea that buying programmatically means losing control over where and when a display ad gets placed.”
“There used to be this misnomer that programmatic was just all of these underground pipes [that spit out ads like] magic. I really believe that’s not the case. Programmatic is still a human business, it’s still a human sell — it’s just a different way of buying inventory. And so if you can humanize the programmatic relationship, I think a lot of the objections to news go away.”
In addition to that, Tapper spoke to fighting against rudimentary lists of blacklisted keywords that accidentally catch false positives. An example given is if the keyword “shot” were to be blocked to avoid serving ads on school shootings, it also eliminates any sports articles that describe a player taking a shot at a goal.
“To remedy this, Tapper’s team works with IAS, Ipsos and NewsGuard to try and contextualize the articles affected by keyword blocking.”
It has been said before on The Download and we’ll say it again in future: Programmatic is not a dirty word, it’s a tool that works as well as you use it.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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’s five great reads are: Has streaming made it harder to discover new music? By Alexis Petridis. Discoverability in podcasting is a common conversation topic. This op-ed discusses how modern music discoverability has a habit of playing things safe, to the point the charts frequently feature old songs brought to temporary viral fame due to television and TikTok.
Why Kochava says it doesn't want to settle with the FTC by Ryan Barwick. Back in our September 8th episode we covered the beginnings of the FTC lawsuit against data broker Kochava. Barwick is reporting on the story again and, spoiler alert, Kochava’s still not backing down.
‘Harder to dispute’: Ebiquity CEO on why advertisers are slowing spending in the Google-Facebook duopoly by Seb Joseph. While Google and Facebook are doing just fine for themselves, ad dollars are beginning to slow down as a myriad of factors combine to rumble the social media giants.
Digiday+ Research: What are publishers’ priorities heading into Q4? By Julia Tabisz. Back in Q1 Digiday surveyed publishers on where their business priorities lay over the next six months. Now they’ve run the same survey again for Q4.
The Chaos Of Privacy Compliance In The US by Alyssa Boyle. Boyle interviews Dominique Shelton Leipzig, partner at Mayer Brown on the proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act, as well as potential new rules from the FTC.
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: Serial and the importance of content curation, Spotify launches audiobooks, Spanish-language TV is surging, why Wonder Media Network won’t use programmatic, and SirusXM is no longer the biggest podcast network by reach. Let’s get started.
Serial and the importance of content curation.
Manuela: Last week news broke that prosecution would petition for the release of Adnan Syed, whose case was the subject of the first season of Serial. Since then Syed has been officially released. In the interim conversation regarding the case and the part Serial played in popularizing it reached a boiling point on social media. On Friday the 16th attorney Rabia O’Chaudry, host of Undisclosed and the person who originally brought Syed’s case to the attention of Sarah Koenig, tweeted an analogy for how Serial fit into the narrative of Syed’s release: “Imagine you ask someone to help renovate your house. Instead they set fire to it. The story about the fire brings thousands to your aid that rebuild your house.” Media critic and true crime aficionado Rebecca Lavoie quote-tweeted O’Chaudry to start a thread with an important lesson to be learned from Serial. “I have previously heralded Serial as a seminal piece of media and even made a podcast originally based on reviewing it. But given the facts of the case, Rabia’s analogy is precise. Serial doesn’t hold up. And its biggest crime is its abandonment of its own reporting.”Lavoie details several sections of the popular podcast that contain outdated or inaccurate knowledge with seven years of hindsight that, due to the podcast’s popularity, are still being discovered by brand new podcast listeners with. No warnings or amendments have been placed on the original season of Serial. “I am not saying that Sarah Koenig et al have an obligation to report this story forever. But…the owners of the Serial feed (now [The New York Times]) have an absolute obligation to point news consumers to the latest… news.”Lavoie points to dynamic ad insertion tech and how it could be used to retroactively place a warning giving context without having to manually update each episode’s file. Given last year’s scandal with Caliphate, the NYT is no stranger to retroactively adding disclaimers to its own in-house reporting. Lavoie argues they have the same level of responsibility to maintain legacy feeds. Even the most popular true crime podcast in the industry is not above poor reporting or claims that were later disproven by new evidence. Despite being seven years old, Serial’s popularity means statistically it’s still someone’s first podcast in 2022.
Spotify Offers Audiobook Service with 300,000 Titles
Shreya: This Tuesday Spotify announced the launch of their audiobook platform. “Starting today, Spotify listeners in the U.S. will be able to purchase and listen to more than 300,000 audiobook titles—making our platform a true all-in-one destination for everyone’s listening needs. And we’re excited to launch audiobooks with a brand-new user interface that’s geared specifically for listening to audiobooks and fits them seamlessly alongside the music and podcasts you already listen to and love.” The new audiobook interface includes an in-app purchase screen to buy each individual audiobook. Most popular audiobook platforms, like Audible or Libro.fm, use a monthly subscription system that gives users a set amount of credits to exchange for audiobooks at a rate that costs less than purchasing them retail. Spotify’s model requires a Premium Spotify membership for the ability to purchase audiobooks.Press materials include a series of four screenshots depicting the purchase of Colleen Hoover’s novel It Ends with Us for $13.99, on sale from a normal listing of $17.99. This pricing is in lockstep with the average retail cost of the same book at popular audiobook providers Google Play, Kobo, and Audible if the user is not a subscriber. With this addition Spotify is now a one-stop shop for the casual user. While it might not attract many users specifically for the audiobook functionality, any user who listens to music or podcasts with Premium has the ability to buy audiobooks and listen without leaving the app they’re already paying for.
Spanish-Language TV viewership surges despite mishandled metrics, lackluster representation.
Manuela: As is becoming common on The Download, this segment will discuss two articles that are closely related. First off: Spanish-language TV Viewership is Surging by Kelsey Sutton for MarketingBrew. The headline leads into a subheader explaining the surge is accompanied by poor measurement leading to under-investing. Now things are turning around. “We’re sure you’ve heard it about a million times: linear TV viewership is, on average, not looking good. But there’s one segment of old-fashioned TV whose outlook seems downright rosy. Spanish-language TV networks, including mainstays like Univision and Telemundo, are on the upswing, growing daily audience reach even as many other major networks are seeing steady declines.”
Dan Reiss, EVP and chief growth office at TelevisaUnivision told MarketingBrew Univision has seen an increase of brands on-air of more than 200 over the past two years. One of the benefits of podcasting being a younger industry than other media is it can learn from their mistakes and adjust earlier on when it’s easier to do so. Just last month Edison Research’s Latino Podcast Listener Report dropped, revealing 59% of the U.S. Latino population have listened to podcasts. Podcasting is a diverse field and should be treated as such from the ground up. To that note the final quote from an AdExchanger piece featuring Orci CEO Marina Filippelli: ““Gen Z can smell bullshit from a mile away – they know whether or not creative was produced by somebody like them,” Filippelli said. “Representation needs to take place not just in front of the camera, but behind the scenes.”
Why Wonder Media Network won’t sell its podcast ad inventory programmatically
Shreya: This Tuesday Kayleigh Barber published a piece distilling an interview on the Digiday Podcast into article form. The interview features Wonder Media Network co-founder and CRO Shira Atkins enthusiastically explaining why the network refuses to carry programmatically-served ads, instead choosing a more bespoke approach. Not only are ads produced in-network, they’re permanently baked-in.
“But on the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Atkins said she still believes that programmatic is “a tragedy for the podcasting ecosystem at large.” Her team does not sell any of its ad space programmatically. Instead, the podcast network uses its branded content studio to make bespoke audio ads, which Atkins said creates memorable ads that listeners are less likely to skip over.”
It’s worth noting the difference between content provided by programmatic methods and the tool of programmatic advertising itself. High quality memorably ads like those produced by Wonder Media Network for baked-in use can be served programmatically through direct deals that operationalize and improve the process for both buyers and sellers.
NPR, for example, does this currently with great success. Programmatic distribution is a tool, not a particular flavor of advertisement.
“We don’t [carry programmatic-sold ads] because the reason that we’re able to demand such high CPM [or sell flat rate deads] is that we’re selling embedded ads in perpetuity. It makes me feel like an old lady whenever people ask me about this, because they’re like, ‘I can’t believe you don’t do dynamic ad insertion.’ But it works for us.”
Host reads, baked-in, and dynamic ad insertion are all excellent tools that podcast audiences are receptive to, and companies like Wonder Media Network are an excellent example of how the power of the podcasting industry can allow individual facets of the industry to exist and thrive on their own.
Sounds Profitable’s first research study - After These Messages - has the data to back up the efficacy of host-read ads. The study shows the audience preference for host-read ads over generic announcer-read ads, which Atkins conflates with programmatic, is much smaller than one would expect.
Spotify hits the top of Edison
Manuela: For our final story I don’t have to summarize the info, as they do it for me.
“This week Edison Research publicly announced the ranking of the biggest podcasting networks through the second quarter of 2022, based on Edison Podcast Metrics survey of over 8,000 weekly podcast listeners age 18 and older.”
For the three years Edison Research has done this report on podcast metrics, SiriusXM Media has held the top spot of the U.S. Top Podcast Networks, By Reach report. This last quarter the top contender was unseated by the relative newcomer. As of Q2 of this year Spotify is the #1 network by reach. They’ve gradually risen up the charts over years, using a combination of acquisitions, licensing deals, original content, and a fertile walled garden to grow the platform.
As of this last quarter the top five now reads Spotify, SiriusXM Media, iHeartRadio, Audioboom, and NPR.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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:
Athletic Greens gives us the scoop on its podcast advertising strategy by Alyssa Meyers of Marketing Brew.The article features company CRO Jonathan Corne explaining their strategy of carefully selecting podcasts to sponsor with intent of establishing a long-term relationship.
‘Gaming is very much here to stay’: Why Axe body spray is taking a bigger swing at esports marketing by Kimeko McCoy of Digiday. Axe isn’t a stranger to sponsoring esports outside the US, but the company is renewing its efforts at home and getting into TikTok. Which is to say influencer marketing, a thing podcasting is very good at.
On that same note: Roblox will be one of the first major platform to launch in-game ads by Daniel Konstantinovic of InsiderIntelligence. For anyone without a kid: Roblox is a big deal. Arguably bigger than Minecraft. Allowing outside advertising without locking it to the game’s internal currency is a big step.
RIP Broadcast TV? Legacy Broadcast Execs Say Not Just Yet by Alyssa Boyle of AdExchanger. A breakdown of the new trend of broadcast TV getting into streaming media by simulating traditional always-running broadcasts.
The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis.
Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Sounds Profitable: Arielle Nissenblatt and Tom Webster sit down to discuss Podcast Movement, the Sounds Profitable Business Leaders Summit, and most importantly: an update on Tom’s dog Walnut.
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Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: “When things don’t seem settled in the space, try to organize as best you can with other voices and take strong positions.”
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We talk a lot about the unique content advantages in podcasting, but one key to growing the medium with an older audience might be even simpler.
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This week: Analyst predicts programmatic will get podcasting to six billion in ad spend, the new iOS update takes care of AppleCoreMedia, Apple announces virtual neighborhood for Latine Heritage Month, brand-lift studies are catching up with the times, and kids content is booming for Paramount+.
Programmatic advertising could make podcasting a $6 billion industry by 2026
Manuela: In last Friday’s Hot Pod Insider, Ariel Shapiro covers B. Riley analyst Daniel Day’s newest publication about the industry. His most attention-grabbing prediction, as the headline spoils, expects podcast ad spending to be up to six billion dollars within four years.
It’ll be an uphill battle to get there. Shapiro points out the potential downsides of programmatic without the right data and infrastructure by recalling the infamous Wild Turkey incident. Back in May Spotify accidentally ran an ad for budget whiskey on every podcast on the app simultaneously, leading to a social media firestorm as users posted screenshots of the most inappropriate examples of podcasts to pair with Wild Turkey. Day is of the opinion more detailed location data will be a game-changer that avoids such issues in future.
“Small and mid-sized businesses really have almost entirely sat out podcast advertising to date,” Day told Hot Pod. “These advances in geo-targeting and programmatic allow mom and pops and local, regional businesses to access this medium in a way that they couldn’t before, absent reaching out to like some local sports or news podcast. Now, they can target audiences listening to some big national podcast.”
Day points to iHeartMedia putting significant investments into podcasting, as well as podcasting making up a larger portion of the company’s revenue each year, as examples of the growth he projects in action.
iOS 16: What’s new for Apple Podcasts
Shreya: Last Wednesday Apple published an update blog detailing some of the new features coming with their iOS 16 update.
The update comes with some creature comforts for the user, such as more prominent placement of the sleep timer button and better Apple Watch integration for podcasts. There’s also a bit of housekeeping noted, in case you missed the multiple emails over the past few weeks: “Show and provider titles will continue to be displayed alongside show artwork on the Library and Search tabs, so make sure your show’s metadata is up to date and that your artwork includes your show’s title for the best experience.”
The most important feature of this update for the business side of podcasting isn’t mentioned in the update blog, though. This update brings the change to AppleCoreMedia user agent that’ll shift how we view Apple’s footprint in podcasting. As covered in our June 10th episode, this will lead to far less confusion as to what traffic is actually coming from Apple Podcasts. Those who didn’t report ACM will no longer underestimate traffic from Apple, and those who labeled all traffic from ACM as Apple will get a more balanced look at just how much traffic is coming out of Apple.
For those that are code-savvy, we’ll include a link in the show notes to the official Apple developer page for the updated user agent key.
Apple Podcast launches "El Vecindario" collections.
Manuela: On the subject of Apple: This Monday an email sent by Apple announced their plans for Latine Heritage Month, which runs from today through October 15th.
“Later this month, Apple will showcase the abundance of Latine created content across genres, formats, and languages – and spotlight many great creators. Apple Podcasts has created a special destination, titled El Vecindario, that honors the spaces where Latine communities come together and conversations originate.”
El Vecindario, the neighborhood in Spanish, will showcase Latine-created content covering multiple genres, formats, and languages.
Influencer marketing brand-lift studies are improving
Shreya: Last Friday Marketing Brew’s Phoebe Bain used the release of the Association of National Advertisers’ organic measurement guidelines for influencers as an excuse to discuss how brand-lift studies have matured.
“Out of more than 1,000 Marketing Brew readers surveyed last month, about one-third said they think measurement for influencer marketing has “evolved significantly” over the past two years.”
A useful tool to track that rapid evolution is the brand-lift study. Bain spends a good portion of the article explaining the basics: two groups are asked questions about something, with only one having experience with that thing. Any differing answers or familiarity expressed by the second group is quantified as - you guessed it - brand lift.
Old-school brand-lift studies would ask simple questions regarding information retention, or whether the audience wanted to buy the product in an ad. Modernized studies take into account the changing media landscape, especially with the popularity of influencers.VP of marketing at creator management platform Grin Ali Fazal explains to Marketing Brew: “With an influencer marketing brand-lift study, questions go a level deeper. Those questions might focus more on brand affinity, or how consumers feel. For example, “is the brand cool? Is it viral? Is it modern?” These questions focus less on what consumers remember, and more on a brand’s overall or social appeal. In an influencer marketing brand-lift study, he said, the questions focus on the full picture rather than just the ad itself. “This measures the true depth of impact that creator marketing has,” he said.
Why should the business side of podcasting care? Podcasting is influencer marketing. In a world of pixel-based brand attribution and walled garden ad solutions, people are finding their options are missing the mark for influencer and podcaster alike. Brand lift studies by companies like Edison Research, Signal Hill Insights, Veritonic, or Nielsen can help fill that gap.
How kids shows are boosting Paramount+
Manuela: Last Thursday Kelsey Sutton published a look at how kids’ content is performing well at Paramount+. While Paramount+ is separate from Paramount’s podcasting ventures, The Download has been covering the boom in kid-friendly podcasting since our March 18th episode. Paramount’s experiences reaffirm that family and kid-oriented content drive engagement.
“When it comes to streaming, parents will go without eating before disconnecting something that entertains their kids,” Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, said Tuesday at the Bank of America Securities 2022 Media, Communications, and Entertainment Conference. “Kids content is an amazing, amazing retention tool for us.”
The streaming platform has done well for itself since the CBS All-Access rebrand. Currently Paramount+ reports 3 million paid subscribers.
“Kids’ programming on streaming can also help fill the audience void as linear viewing continues to drop off. “If you take our linear share and the audience for kids that we’ve picked up on Paramount+, we actually have more audience and share of kids 2–11 than we’ve had in years when you combine them both,” Robbins said.?
As reported back in March, studies show the Kids & Family categories have grown 20% since last year and there’s reason to believe poor categorization of content is causing a lower number than the industry is actually experiencing. Kids content is doing quite well, as any parent will tell you.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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:
Class Photos by Skye Pillsbury, for The Squeeze.
Pillsbury holds a mirror up to diversity on the business side of podcasting by compiling yearbook-style collages of the big podcasting company’s leaders and known executives with deal-making power. A must-read.
Introducing The Mullet Career Strategy™ — Creativity & Business by Steve Pratt.
Pacific Content co-founder Steve Pratt announces his upcoming venture titled The Creativity Business, a strategy firm aimed at helping creatives learn better business and businesses learn better creativity.
17 Stats That Reveal the Power of Podcast Advertising and Host-Read Ads by Connie Chen.
In addition to quoting our After These Messages study, senior manager of content management at Gumball Connie Chen brings a bundle of research to back up the efficacy of host-read ads.
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.
September 22nd is officially the last day of Summer, making our third and final article in our Programmatic Summer series absolutely not late to the party.
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This week: We learned something interesting about Netflix, Cross-promotions work but you might be doing them wrong, Anchor continues to be the top podcast host by episode share, and the FTC sues a data broker.
All we know about Netflix’s ad plans so far
Shreya: Once again we bring you an article that doesn’t feature the world “podcast”, but could have big implications for the industry. Last Friday Kelsey Sutton published a brief roundup of all the news about Netflix that had dropped during the week. The world learned about polarizing new ad-supported tier, charging between $7 to $9 a month. We also learned they’re targeting 15 and 30 second spots for preroll and midroll ads.
“The flurry of reports helps provide a better picture of how Netflix is strategizing the rollout of its ad-supported tier after eschewing Madison Avenue for years. There are still many unknowns, including what kind of metrics the service will provide to measure ad effectiveness. Even without all the details, media buyers are buzzing with anticipation.”
Podcasters and advertising folk alike should take note of how much Netflix is paying per thousand impressions. According to Sutton the streamer is paying $65 CPM, with expectations of that going up to $80 in future.
With those rates in mind for the biggest streaming platform, average podcast CPM is fair to underpriced in comparison.
Do Cross-Promos Work? Hell Yes, But You Are Likely Doing Them Wrong…And We Can Fix That
Manuela: On Monday Eric Nuzum published an issue of The Audio Insurgent that aims to introduce podcasters to a vital lesson learned while conducting research for terrestrial radio nearly two decades ago.
Nuzum is of the opinion that on-air and in-episode content promotion is frequently misunderstood and often poorly executed. This and the next two issues of Audio Insurgent are dedicated to covering the three Rs of program promotion: Reduction, Repetition, and Real Content.
In 2004 Nuzum conducted a study for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting titled ON-air Program Promotions Insight Study, a study of cross-promotion in the radio industry so helpful he continued to get messages asking where to find the study long after the original webpage hosting it had decayed.
For this newsletter series he has done some light editing and uploaded the entirety of the 18 year-old study to Google Drive for preservation.
“Yet despite its age, it can still be very effective and useful to all audio professionals today. But the whole project boils down to one simple sentence: A well-constructed message, delivered to the right listeners often enough for them to recognize it, can increase listening.”
His issue on Reduction stresses the importance of stripping fat from a promotion and ensuring it isn’t airing in a block of multiple other promotions that could distract from the message. An example given from when the promo study was first conducted is Nuzum playing a promo for A Prairie Home Companion. The promo rapid-fire announced the town, state, college auditorium in said town the performance would take place at. Following that, three musical acts and the name of the famous News from Lake Wobegon segment.
“Immediately after playing it, I would ask those in the room to name a single artist or location mentioned in that promo. On a rare occasion, someone could remember “Iowa”--but most times, no one could remember anything. And these people were (supposedly) paying attention.”
Top Podcast Hosting Companies by Episode Share (August 2022)
Shreya: Last Thursday Livewire Labs updated their substantial snapshot of the industry via episode share.
“One of the ways to measure the health of the current podcast ecosystem is to measure the number of new episodes published in a given period. We look at every single new podcast episode published (about 1.6 million in August 2022, up 5.4% from last month) and identify which podcast hosting company it belongs to.”
One of the first things that jumps out about both the list of hosting companies by new episode share and the ranking of hosts by new episodes published in August is the gulf between first and second place. In a ranked list of 234 podcast hosting services Anchor dominates first place at 22.9% of new episodes published. Buzzsprout showed gains in solidifying a strong second place at 9%.
Livewire’s data pairs nicely with the Podnews podcast hosting change tracker, which observes RSS feed hosting changes across the system’s sample size of over 73,000 podcasts. Over the past week 211 podcasts changed from one hosting service to another, 26 which moved from various other services to Anchor. Pundits are fond of depicting Anchor as a dumping ground for single episode or dead podcasts due to their free tier, but they clearly are attracting a lot of new creators.
A sociologist on what advertisers should know when they use health data
And:
FTC picks fight with data broker
Manuela: Over the past week Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew has published two closely-related articles covering the use of data collected in a healthcare environment for advertising.
First, yesterday’s article features an interview with Mary F. E. Ebeling, an associate professor of sociology at Drexel University and recently-published author of a book on the effects of collected data on individuals’ lives. Ebeling provides an anecdote of how a child she lost to miscarriage in the real world continued to live a false life through parenting-related marketing emails.
“Though it’s near impossible to audit a digital ad—how, why, or where it was served—Ebeling connects the experience to her research in the healthcare industry, where patients rarely know they’re feeding “massive databases maintained by healthcare providers and public and private insurers, or payers—often called data ‘lakes’ and ‘oceans.’”
With Ebeling’s account in mind, we look back to last Friday when Barwick covered a much-publicized lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission.
“On Monday, the agency brought a lawsuit against Kochava, a data broker, for allegedly collecting and selling location data “that can be used to trace the movements of individuals to and from sensitive locations” like reproductive-health clinics and places of worship.””
The suit comes several weeks after a preemptive lawsuit from Kochava towards the FTC. Barwick details the two businesses within Kochava in its data marketplace and measurement service. Kochava argues the user is forewarned when they initially agree to share their location data with the third-party apps they purchase the data from. The FTC, clearly, disagrees.
“By the end of the week, many were wondering: Why Kochava? And though we don’t know the answer yet, the FTC’s lawsuit could put the entire location data collection industry under the microscope.”
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
The Ambies, the flagship award program of The Podcast Academy, designed to celebrate excellence in podcasting in the same way the MPA celebrates film with the Oscars, is now taking nominations. In addition, they've also announced a membership program sponsored by Spotify to enable independent creators to submit.
WQXR hires a podcasting chief by Laura Holt. Music remains one of the most untapped categories in podcasting. WQXR is a great example of a station that produces its own content and has access to a number of resources for original content, which is the key to making music podcasting work in a world where licensing music under copyright is still financially not viable in podcasting.
Apple is staffing up its ad business by Ryan Barwick. This might not be breaking news for dedicated audience members of The Download, but it is crystal clear confirmation that apple is fully embracing its advertising business.
The BBC Shares podcast stats by Podnews. A recent talk at Radiodays Asia in Malaysia featured rare info about the BBC’s daily download data, the show in question’s audience profile, and comparison to other podcasts.
Finally, in accordance with The Download’s love of sharing news of podcasting’s performance on a global scale: Otonal has published Podcast Report of Japan, a survey of podcast usage in Japan in 2021.
The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis.
Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Sounds Profitable: Bryan Barletta is joined by Stew Redwine in observing the anniversary of the first audio advertisement in 1922. How have things changed over a hundred years? What even was the first ad?
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Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: “History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes.” - Mark Twain.
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There's a lot of received wisdom that says host read ads beat announcer ads in podcasting. But is this always true? Could it even be a false choice?
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: Podcast ad spending goes strong despite recession fears, YouTube and Twitter launched dedicated podcast spaces, advertising questions what to do if premium users choose not to see ads, and a look into why DTC ads haven’t fallen off as expected.
Podcast Ad Spend isn’t Slowing as a Recession Potentially Looms.
Manuela: Marketing Brew’s Alyssa Meyers brought good news last Wednesday. Things are looking up for the podcast ad spending despite, shall we say, less than ideal economic conditions.
Over on the general advertising side of things, it’s a bit bleak. On August 18th Daniel Konstantinovic, writing for Insider Intelligence, covered the worst month of ad spending in two years.
“July saw ad spending go through its worst monthly decline since July 2020. Ad spending contracted 12.7% year over year in July, per MediaPost and Standard Media Index’s US Ad Market Tracker.”
Several potential causes of this dip are proposed, most of which are interlinked to some degree. Relaxing of pandemic restrictions and the return of larger social gatherings has increased commuting and free time away from screens. Meanwhile, even while the jury’s out on whether we’re technically in a recession, Konstantinovic points out a Brand Keys statistic showing 70% of consumers believe they’re in a recession and thus are cutting back on spending.
Perhaps spending wasn’t great in the general advertising space, but podcast ad spending continues to boom regardless.
“Some of the biggest audio companies reported growth in podcast ad revenue for Q2 despite a softening ad market, and buyers responsible for major audio budgets told us they’ve yet to see a significant retreat from podcasting, indicating that the sector could continue growing regardless of the state of the economy.”
It’s also worth keeping in mind which data we’re looking at and how we’re looking at it, as Magellan AI’s Sean Russo explains:
“We took a look through a few different lenses. When you look at year-over-year spend in July in podcasts, we’re seeing a 19% increase. If we look at Q2 YoY we’re seeing a 48% increase. Worth noting that looking at month-over-month June to July we saw a 7% decrease. So, the bottom line on what we’re seeing is that podcast ad spend continues to grow at a healthy clip YoY, though we did see a minor pullback from June to July.”
YouTube and Twitter Launch Dedicated Podcast Sections
Shreya: It’s time to follow up on two developing stories we’ve covered in recent weeks, as two giant social media platforms have now rolled out sections dedicated to podcasting.
Last Thursday Twitter started the rollout of the new dedicated Spaces tab.
“Integrating podcasts into Spaces, where audio conversations happen on Twitter, is another way we’re continuing to invest in audio creators. To do this in a simple and intuitive way that allows listeners to simply hit play and go, we started with a redesigned audio experience in the Spaces Tab.”
Twitter remains an important space for podcasters to both promote and network. With the addition of podcast functionality that’s native to the app they’ve removed some of the friction between the promotion of a podcast and the potential audience member actually listening.
On that same note: last Monday YouTube launched a dedicated page for podcasts, though only for users in the United States. As covered by Sarah Perez in TechCrunch, the url for the new page was discovered ahead of formal announcement. Despite their thunder being partly stolen, YouTube’s shown a promising amount of dedication to the industry.
“Last year, YouTube hired a podcast executive, Kai Chuk, to lead its efforts in the space and has been offering cash to popular podcasters to film their shows, reports said. This March, a site called Podnews leaked an 84-page presentation that detailed YouTube’s podcast roadmap. In the document, YouTube revealed it had plans to pilot the feature by ingesting RSS feeds. It also mentioned a new URL, YouTube.com/podcasts, but the link didn’t work at the time.”
A quick note from script writer Gavin: yes, that bit of the quote with the phrase “a site called Podnews” hurt me too.
In addition to what Perez covered in the quote, it’s also worth remembering YouTube has recently announced a partnership with NPR to bring their shows to the platform. It’s safe to say YouTube is one of the big companies that is taking the podcasting industry and its potential seriously.
What happens when high-income households opt out of ads?
Manuela: Last Monday Kelsey Sutton, writing for Marketing Brew, approached an important question: what if the people certain brands wish to market to are also the demographic most likely to pay a premium specifically to avoid ads?
“The people that advertisers most want to target are hiding from the advertisers,” said Eric Schmitt, research director and analyst on the Gartner for Marketing Leaders. “It really is going to have some interesting knock-on effects for the ad business over time.”
Podcasting is not specifically name-checked in the piece, but it is a growing phenomenon to keep in mind. Current data tells us most listeners are comfortable with ads as they currently exist in podcasting. Stick around for our Quick Hits section this week if you want a link to some extremely relevant data from a certain study Sounds Profitable published last week.
Sutton’s article points to multi-tired subscriptions to streaming services as the biggest example of the popularization of a premium ad-free option. While these are worth thinking about, there’s ample room for nuance in the discussion, up to and including services like Paramount+ and Hulu, who have baked-in preroll ads before every television episode or movie regardless of subscription level.
“Schimtt hypothesized that the shift may eventually spell larger challenges for traditional ad-supported media channels, including TV, as marketers look elsewhere to reach higher-income consumers or spend more resources marketing to past customers.”
Ad-free listening is a relatively new invention in podcasting, especially on a large scale. For now we wait and see which way the advertising winds blow.
How and why DTC advertising hasn’t cooled off as much as once thought
Shreya: Last Tuesday Digiday’s Michael Bürgi published a brief look into the world of direct-to-consumer advertising in a world anticipating DTC upheaval. With the deprecated ability to track conversions due to changes in iOS 14.5 and the additional changes to cookies and third party data, DTC brands are turning to alternatives like branding opportunities to hit their goals. Surprisingly, after seasonal changes are taken into account, there’s quite a few DTC markets growing.
“Facebook has the highest monthly median spend in July 2022 at $19,022 ($2,000 less than a year prior), according to Varos, a research company that tracks e-commerce spend for about 1,800 companies. Google’s median spend inched up from $8,101 to $8,209 over the same period; TikTok’s grew from $4,095 to $5,981.”
The commonly-held belief that there would be pullback from DTC spending was indeed widespread, even leading to some companies not surviving. Those who did explore other avenues besides the cheapest and fastest clicks have discovered the wide world of influencer marketing, which just so happens to be where podcasting thrives.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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
Sounds Profitable releases their second study, After These Messages.
Do podcast audiences prefer improvised host-read ads, scripted host-read, or pre-recorded radio spots? After These Messages is a one-of-a-kind study polling over 1,000 podcast super listeners to answer that question. Both the study and the half-hour video of Tom Webster’s presentation at Podcast Movement 2022 are available now.
Streaming surpasses cable and broadcast for the first time by Kurt Hanson.
While not a podcasting story, per se, it does highlight a significant milestone for digital media. People are becoming more and more comfortable unplugging from traditional broadcast media and constructing their own media diets from digital sources. Podcasting could ride along with that.
I made a map of Spotify podcast recommendations. Here’s what I learned by Dan Misener.
The inner workings of the aggregators are completely unknown to us. While Spotify refutes Dan’s points, his research with multiple touch-points shows a very interesting story.
Podcasters test offering more bonus content and additional features to grow subscriptions
An interesting look inside podcast subscription content by Sara Guaglione. Long headline, relatively short article. Transparency on trying new endeavors is always exciting and there’s some valuable information in this look into premium podcast subscriptions.
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 three years, Allyson Marino built and sold her own podcast company, Lipstick & Vinyl, a network built around strong female voices. Here is Allyson’s story.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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In this episode of Sounds Profitable: Adtech Applied, Bryan speaks with Tamara Zubatiy, co-founder and CEO of Barometer. Barometer contextualizes podcasts based on the GARM brand suitability components and the Media Roundtable Values.
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Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: GARM marks different levels of risk when it comes to advertising but there’s never an ad partnership that brings zero risk to either party (advertiser or publisher).
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Even with the best intentions, bad ad delivery can happen. But why does it happen?
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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This week: Apple’s funding podcasts, brand safety tech continues to divide advertisers, what more can and should ad agencies do to support journalism, Edison’s Latino Podcast Report, and Spotify bundles Chartable and Podsights access for Megaphone users
Apple Ramps Up Its In-House Podcasting Efforts with Studio Deal
Manuela: Rumors of Apple getting into podcasting bore fruit last week with official confirmation. At least, sort of. Ashley Carman and Lucas Shaw’s Bloomberg piece from last Wednesday explains:
“The investments have been led by Apple’s TV studio, rather than its podcast division. Despite being one of the biggest distributors of audio in the world, the company’s podcasting unit has avoided funding individual shows or buying networks because it wants to be seen as a neutral platform.”
That TV division has entered into a deal with Futuro Studios to fund the creation of podcasts while Apple retains first-look rights on film and TV adaptations. In essence, the deal creates a pilot-factory for Apple to generate new IP and test them in the world of podcasting before graduating to the more expensive filmed version.
“Apple hasn’t pumped nearly as much money into original podcasts as Amazon and Spotify Technology SA, which have each spent more than $1 billion acquiring companies and programming. Spotify, Apple’s rival in music streaming, has made some of the most popular podcasts in the world exclusive to its service and thus unavailable to the competition.”
Podcasting is becoming a relatively affordable testing ground for IP instead of fully committing to a TV pilot, along with the added bonus of any successful IP getting a built-in audience of fans before the first day of shooting. Successful shows like Netflix’s Dirty John adaptation are proving the method can work and work well.
‘A key impediment’: Brand safety tech continues to divide advertisers into haves and have-nots
Shreya: This Monday Seb Joseph of Digiday posted an article detailing the growing divide in how advertisers handle being posted to news sites when big, predominantly negative stories break. Nobody wants to be the next viral sensation getting roasted worse than Mr. Peanut when Planters’ ad campaign temporarily killing their mascot coincided with the death of Kobe Bryant.
In a world full of dangerous news cycles, brand safety tech companies like Integral Ad Science are able to impart more granular control over what content is considered brand-safe in a timely manner.
“Then there are those marketers who don’t use the technology. Take British newspaper group Reach plc, for example, which has said the war in Ukraine significantly dampened advertiser demand.
This won’t surprise anyone. The truth is the downside is too steep and the upside too obscure for many marketers to do anything but avoid the polarizing news. That said, not every marketer sees it this way. And if they could afford to, they would advertise on news sites — just in a more nuanced manner.”
An unintended side effect of advertisers deciding what topics are acceptable to block ads on is that some of the biggest news stories are also cutting off some of the potentially best-written journalism of the moment. Joseph quotes Zefr EVP of Strategy and Marketing:
“We actually don’t accept or use keyword blocklists as a policy in our company, because they end up causing the same damage to over-blocking quality voices over and over again and they just don’t work well in UGC environments. We instead apply the GARM [Global Alliance of Responsible Media] models for debated sensitive social issues as a way to keep brands in front of suitable content while avoiding the issues that they’re concerned about.”
Ad Agencies Can, and Should, Do More to Support Journalism
Shreya: Between hedge fund buyouts dissolving seemingly bulletproof institutions and ad dollars drying up when negative stories drop, things are looking rough for journalists. Ricardo Baca writes an impassioned plea for ad agencies, stressing the importance of not only collaborating with journalists but also supporting them with ad buys and subscriptions. He writes from the perspective of having worked on the other side of the fence as a journalist himself years prior.
“To be clear, agencies are partly to blame here. We’re stuck on the same vicious treadmill as everyone else: We see the web traffic going to social media, so that’s where we buy our ads, further siphoning away support from journalism, the snake eating itself. And with news outlets struggling mightily on the revenue front no matter their size—from local alt-weeklies to major metropolitan dailies—I am making a plea for agencies to step up.”
Baca suggests treating relationships with journalists not as transactional, but symbiotic instead. Value their time and they will value yours. Don’t hold grudges when well-researched reporting generates something the client isn’t happy with.
Then there’s the fact that journalism has evolved beyond gumshoe reporters all working for a monolithic outlet. With more forms of professional journalism becoming the norm, so to must go the advertising support.
“Keep in mind that revenue models have shifted. Consider an agency sponsorship for a Substack newsletter, for example. Sponsoring other popular media formats like podcasts, recognizing both a shift in consumers’ habits as well as the continuity involved—someone’s got to be paid to create the stuff—is another way to directly support the trade.”
Gabe’s Section
Manuela: The third annual Latino Podcast Listener Report was published on Tuesday, following a webinar discussing the results presented by Gabriel Soto, my co-host on La Descarga and Senior Director at Edison Research, and Elsie Escobar, Director of Community and Content at Libsyn and co-founder of She Podcasts. Supported by Adonde Media, LWC Studios, Libsyn, PRX, and SXM Media this year’s report revealed many interesting trends as well as new findings.
The study finds that 59% of Latino adults have ever listened to a podcast, up from 56% since last year and up from 45% since 2020.
The lack of Spanish podcast promotion was a recurring theme of the report, and an opportunity exists to bridge such content with foreign born Latinos. The report highlighted the listening gap between Latinos born outside of the U.S. and their U.S. born counterparts. 37% of Latinos born in the U.S. listened to a podcast in the last month, while 29% born outside of the U.S. say the same.
A new statistic released this year revealed seventeen percent of Latino Monthly podcast listeners identify as LGBTQ+. For comparison, the report cited the Gallup poll’s 2021 estimate of 11% of Latino adult population who identify as LGBTQ+
The benefit of advertising on Latino podcasts was also discussed. According to the report, 64% of monthly listeners of Latino-hosted podcasts, say they ever purchased a product or service as a result of hearing a sponsorship or advertising on a podcast, compared with 25% of those who have never listened to a podcast hosted by Latinos saying the same. .
As Gabriel Soto put it, “Latinos in the U.S. control an impressive $1.9 trillion in purchasing power, and today’s data demonstrate how advertisers who support Latino podcast content are benefitting, while those who don’t are missing out,”.
The Latino Podcast Listener Report serves as an invaluable resource to many creators in the podcast space. We’re happy to see the effort continue. You can download the Latino Podcast Listener Report for free at the link in the show notes.
Spotify Launches New Bundle For Megaphone Users, Adding Access To Chartable And Podsights
Shreya: In an email sent yesterday, Spotify has announced they are bundling enterprise access to recently-purchased services Chartable and Podsights into Megaphone.
“With this updated offering, you will be able to easily apply attribution measurement to showcase the value of your podcast promotional efforts as well as your direct sales campaigns. All Megaphone clients will now be able to obtain unique insights about their podcast audience while also measuring the audience growth impact of their promotional campaigns through tools like Chartable SmartPromos and SmartLinks.”
Attribution and growth marketing are the major focus in the world of podcast adtech. One of the largest enterprise-focused hosting platforms acquiring two of the top attribution and analytics solutions and offering them for free to existing users is a big deal budget-wise. Though it is worth noting there are strings attached: they’re free for the first four million impressions.
Since the big Spotify purchase of Podsights and Chartable there's been a massive hole for third party attribution. Companies like Claritas, Veritonic, and Artsai who’ve started to take on that challenge have had an uphill battle. Both Podsights and Chartable are great pieces of tech, but first-party is not neutral. Offers like this will make it even harder to extract them from their hold on the space and jeopardizes third party measurements value in podcasting.
A good deal, but one to keep in mind when considering the future of podcasting as an industry.
Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading
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 three great reads are:
How alt.NPR's experimentation shaped the early podcasting landscape starting in 2005 by Shirley Liu. They didn’t invent podcasting, but NPR was definitely a pioneer. Podcasting opened up NPR to experimentation and launched the careers of so many podcasters.
Ad Disclosure: Podcast Sponsors Aren't Off the Hook from last Thursday’s PodMov Daily. A story of meal replacement brand Huel getting in hot water over host-read advertising. Podcasting, given its position at the crossroads between radio and influencer marketing, will start to see quite a few stories like this as it continues to enter more mainstream content channels.
Unpaid Internship Rebrands as a $4,000 "Training" by Skye Pillsbury. This issue of Pillsbury’s can’t-miss newsletter The Squeeze covers a story exactly as bad as the headline sounds. A true must-read.
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.
Survey after survey tell us that people continue to discover podcasting every year. But is podcasting growth really a case of three steps forward, two steps back?
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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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, 2022.06.30-Earnings-Release-FINAL.pdf">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.
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In this episode of Sounds Profitable: Adtech Applied, Bryan speaks with U of Digital Managing Partner Shiv Gupta about what it means to create a comprehensive educational approach across an industry. Gupta comes to us by way of the digital marketing space, but has spent his career creating programming aimed at educating and serving across different sectors and levels within companies. Adtech Applied cohost Arielle Nissenblatt joins to set up the chat and break it down with takeaways at the latter half of the show.
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Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: creating opportunities for folks to learn, either if they’re new to a job or looking to move on to the next level, benefits everyone.
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The Summer of Programmatic continues! You may have already decided that programmatic advertising is important, but is it difficult to get started? The answer is...no! And this week, we lay out a simple plan to get you up and running.
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Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.
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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: begins-interest-group-based-ad-experiment.html?hashid=1jKVhxj3S5KWoBP6lY4IYQ">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.
We're such big fans of Laura Mayer and her new show Shameless Acquisition Target, that we wanted to make sure you didn't miss it. Subscribe directly here!
After years of seeing friends (and some enemies) get rich, rich, rich selling their shows and companies to other bigger shows and bigger companies, longtime podcast executive Laura Mayer has decided to get hers. To do this, she'll speak to straight-up geniuses in the worlds of podcasting, entertainment, and business to understand what value is in media and how to make it. At the end, Laura will sell the show itself to the highest bidder. Will she make hundreds, millions, or even dozens of dollars? Will she be able to afford the gray house down the street from her rental apartment? Let’s find out together… shamelessly.
Laura explains why she cares so *very* much about acquisitions And, hopefully, why you should care, too!
Want to buy MERCH (“Hector’s Place” is our newest addition) or buy the show?\Want to learn more about this episode’s sponsor?Want to listen to Harkin’s new fabulous album?Want to give Laura Mayer a PIECE OF YOUR MIND?
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