by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro provides news and commentary about the Cumulus Media tower sale, the gender unbalance in top podcasts, Amazon’s rules, Sticher’s revenue, the rise of Ashley Flowers, and more. Continue Reading
In last week’s iHeartMedia (IHRT) earnings call, CEO Bob Pittman discussed podcast strategy, podcast strategy, and podcast strategy. And a bit of radio. The financials included the entire business, and the COVID effect. But the go-forward mission leans heavily into on-demand audio, both as a stand-alone advertising business, and a synergistic opportunity with the largest array of commercial radio stations in the U.S. Click through for quotes. Continue Reading
In Entercom’s Q2 earnings call on August 7, CEO David Field held forth with a considerable portion of his opening remarks focused on digital audio and cross-category business in the U.S.’s second-largest commercial radio group. In fact, “radio” is subsumed in Field’s broad definition of Entercom: “Entercom is now a scaled media and entertainment company.” Continue Reading
Veritone One is the latest podcast entity to subscribe to Nielsen’s Podcast Buying Power Service, Nielsen is announcing today. Nielsen’s subscription program ties listeners and their buying habits to podcast categories, to help advertisers (especially brand advertisers) plan more effective and targeted campaigns. The Podcast Buying Power Service launched in July of last year, with five major podcast publishers as charter subscribers. As a new subscriber Veritone One is an audio advertising agency. Continue Reading
The headline number is derived from the Q2 earnings report for E.W.Scripps, Stitcher’s parent company. Scripps has sold Stitcher to SiriusXM, in a deal planned for Q3 closing. Click through for details, quotes from the conference call, and our arithmetic. Continue Reading
Edison Research has released a public version of its subscription product Podcast Consumer Tracker (PCT). The PCT is intended to rank podcasts by reach, while most rankers use downloads as the determining factor of their lists. The time period represented in today’s release is Q3 2019 through Q2 2020. No dark horse surprises here; click through for the whole top-30 list. Continue Reading
ART19 sent us a note that the company has tightened its grip on South Korea podcasting, now providing hosting, distribution, and exclusive ad-repping to all major broadcasters. This follows a December announcement in which ART19 established a dominant footprint in S. Korea, and opened a business unit called ART19 Korea. Continue Reading
After soliciting over 400 nominations, Inside Radio and its sister publication Podcast News Daily have released a top-10 list of podcasting executives. That evidently not being sufficient to represent the field, there is also a second list of 32 “Podcast Power Players.” Conal Byrne (President, iHeartPodcast Network and RAIN Summit speaker) took the top honor. Click through for the top-10 list. Continue Reading
Townsquare Media’s COVID quarter tells a varied story in the company’s Q2 earnings release. Net income for the quarter was down year-over-year (a nearly universal Q2 earnings story), while digital revenue gained in share of total revenue. CEO and RAIN Summit keynoter Bill Wilson noted that sequential revenue (month-over-month within the quarter) rose, and that Townsquare Interactive, the company’s subscription service for digital marketing, earned nearly half of total net revenue. Continue Reading
Signal Hill Insights President Jeff Vidler contributes this very interesting column about how to program (radio and podcasts) for the COVID and post-COVID eras. He notes that radio has worked its way through reinventions before — in the 1950s and 1970s. During those transitions, radio invented new station categories to address changes in audience and listening routines. A must-read. Continue Reading
Wonder Media Network, the podcast content company whose mission is to amplify underrepresented voices, has signed with WME (the talent agency part of the broader Endeavor company). WME will exclusively represent WMN, and help the young network diversify into books, TV, and other categories. Continue Reading
by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro dives deep into the podcast attribution technology, featuring an interview with Sarah Cotenoff from Podsights. Additionally, making up for going dark last week, this newsletter is packed with news and commentary. A must-read. Continue Reading