Month: October 2020

Joe Biden, Penn State, and others leap into podcast advertising (Magellan)

Posted on by Brad Hill

Magellan AI has released its always interesting Top 15 Advertisers reports. One is “Movers and Shakers” (greatest increase from the previous month), and the other is top advertisers overall by spend. The Joe Biden campaign dipped its toe into the water with $163,000. By contrast, the top overall podcast advertiser in Magellan’s view was Better Help, spending $5.4-million. Therapy is clearly more lucrative than politics. Continue Reading →

Curiouscast, Corus Entertainment’s pod network, announces fall slate

Posted on by Brad Hill

Curiouscast, the podcast network owned and operated by Canada’s Corus Entertainment, has released its fall schedule of new and returning shows. The lineup features three investigative podcasts including the award-winning Crime Beat (Season 3), and new shows 13 Hours: Inside the Nova Scotia Massacre and Whatever Happened To. Four shows are featured in today’s announcement. Continue Reading →

Wondery pulls “Business Wars” into Wondery Plus subscription service

Posted on by Brad Hill

One of Wondery’s best known shows, Business Wars, is preparing a new season that will be distributed exclusively by Wondery Plus, the company’s ad-free subscription service. Some podcasts presented in Wondery Plus also are distributed via RSS normally, with ads in the programs. In this case, the new season of Business Wars is called and “Wondery + Exclusive.”  Continue Reading →

Entravision takes over Cisneros Interactive with majority investment

Posted on by Brad Hill

Media and marketing network Entravision has announced its majority investment in Cisneros Interactive, a digital advertising company and division of Cisneros. Cisneros Interactive is well known to RAIN readers as the parent company of Audio.Ad, a sponsor and presenter at many RAIN Summits. Both companies serve Spanish and Hispanic American markets. Continue Reading →

Stream listening dipped in August (Triton Digital Webcast Metrics)

Posted on by Brad Hill

U.S. stream listening slipped about 3% month-over-month in August, according to the Triton Digital Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. The two leaders, Pandora and iHeartRadio, each slipped a bit from the month before. Click through for other details and RAIN’s unique long-term Webcast Metrics tracker. Continue Reading →

Local podcast network (Loudspeaker) broadens reach with new name and multiple strategies

Posted on by Brad Hill

If you don’t live in northern Colorado you’ve possibly not heard of NoCo FM, a digital media outlet featuring regional musicians. After expansion to include some California voices, the company has rebranded as Loudspeaker. It’s a three-pronged strategy: Podcast network, streaming music/talk platform, and a live event on Halloween. Click through for more info. Continue Reading →

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Spotify/Anchor launch radio-style DJ’ing, leaping into both radio and music-rich podcasting

Posted on by Brad Hill

“Think of your favorite drive-time radio show,” Spotify says in an announcement. That is the only mention of “radio,” but it is telling. The company has launched a new listening product which jabs an arrow straight into radio’s underbelly, or apparently aspires to. This new product is (oddly) unnamed, but it mixes music and commentary similar to radio and enables users to become public DJs within the Spotify app. Click through for details, commentary, and how to find it. Continue Reading →

Australia’s SCA enjoys jump in streaming metrics

Posted on by Brad Hill

Southern Cross Austerio (SCA) has  released a  basket of bragging-rights metrics for key streaming properties. SCA’s live streaming audience has grown 58% year-over-year, and the company says that digital audio is its fastest growing advertising platform. The combined streaming for SCA networks reached an audience of 1.5-million in September. The total digital audio network includes the two main broadcast networks, Hit and Triple M, and also Soundcloud Radio. Click through for graphs and links. Continue Reading →

Spoken Word Audio Report 2020: Share jumps; 43% listen daily

Posted on by Brad Hill

The Spoken Word Audio Report 2020, produced by Edison Research and NPR, is out. One broad and important finding: 75% of the U.S. population (18+) listens to spoken word audio monthly. Daily, it is 43%. AM/FM is paying the price for increased listening to other platforms of spoken word audio; the trend is clear from 2014 to 2020. Click through for much more, and graphics, and a link to the download. Continue Reading →

Cadence13 partners to release “Fiasco” (season one) out of Luminary exclusivity

Posted on by Brad Hill

Cadence13 is helping to unleash the Fiasco podcast from Luminary’s exclusive subscription service. The three-way partnership involves Cadence13, Luminary, and Prologue Projects, the last of which is the show’s producer. Season 1 will be released via public RSS, containing six episodes. Seasons 2 and 3 remain exclusive to Luminary. Continue Reading →

Amazon acquires podcast.com and podcasting.com

Posted on by Brad Hill

In a blockbuster domain acquisition which indicates strategic purpose, Amazon has acquired the domains podcast.com and podcsting.com, we learned from Podnews. The domains lead to the Audible landing page for podcasts. Audible does not distribute public podcasts via RSS, but it does create originals. This is a land grab by Amazon-owned Audible, and it seems like the company is creating a unique category definition and experience of audio storytelling. Continue Reading →