AI meets hyper-exact ad placement in YouTube’s latest pitch to advertisers. YouTube has announced a new ad placement scheme based on AI assessment of something called Peak Points — the moments in videos which have highest engagement, or are emotionally impactful.
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Venerable streaming service and RAIN News sponsor AccuRadio is starting the process of bankruptcy protection in Chicago. The action comes after several months of negotiation with government mandated music royalty collection agency SoundExchange. That negotiation is at an impasse, according… Continue Reading
Audio giant iHeartMedia released its Q1 earnings this week, in which podcast revenue stands out. As always, iHeart separates its Digital Audio Group from overall earnings. That separation carves out the so-called Multiplatform Group with its own quarterly metrics. And… Continue Reading
AI-powered audio studio Wondercraft has released AI in Content Creation 2025, a report which seeks to understand how creators, marketers, educators, and teams are building with AI. Information is based on a 2025 survey. Click for data, charts, and link to the original. Continue Reading
Leaving the Nest – AJ Feliciano
Support – Alison Craiglow
Two Realities – John O’Donnell
Everyone’s a Marketer – Jimmy Fallon Continue Reading
“While others are scaling back, Libsyn is bucking the trend.” Eminent podcast company Libsyn fashions itself as breaking free of a prevailing business environment, as it announces new hires to its Business Development team.
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Organizational mental health consultancy Revelios, based in Oakville Canada, has released a study of mental health in the Canadian music industry. This release covers preliminary results of ongoing fieldwork, representing 804 surveyed individuals. These preliminary results display a nearly unanimous sentiment among Canadian musicians that mental health issues are widespread. Click for details and the download link. (HT: Alan Cross) Continue Reading
Publicly traded podcast giant Acast released a Q1 financial report, disclosing net sales growth and gross margin for the quarter. The fine print reveals key sales, costs, profit, EBITDA, and other metrics, comparing them across one and two years. We see positive movement year-over-year in sales, cost, profit, and EBITDA. Quarter-over-quarter comparisons are also revealing. Continue Reading
Global audio content development and investment company PodX (formally PodX Group) has announced its acquisition of pod studio Lemonada Media. CEO Patrick Svensk calls it “a landmark transaction.” Lemonada is a blazing podcast success story, with a roster that includes Julia Louis Dreyfuss, David Duchovny, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Continue Reading
Media consulting firm Owl&Co has released the latest podcast metrics report in a season of many. Called The Global Podcast Economy: A Complete Picture, and subtitled Beyond Ads: Mapping Revenue Across Audio and Video Podcasts, this piece of work defines, characterizes, measures, delineates markets, asks questions, and provides answers. Click for details, graphs, and linkage. Continue Reading
In a newly completed study called All About The Music, the British Phonographic Industry trade group (BPI) casts a detailed look back at the UK recorded music industry in 2024. It is the (very impressive) 46th edition of BPI’s yearbook. Click through for key findings. Continue Reading
In a RAIN scrutiny of the newly released Podtrac rankers, we see the clear dominance of iHeart Audience Network in the delivery of podcasts. The the RAIN Remix reveals a new list of top publishers based on audience size per podcast. In that re-sorting, Revolver Podcass shifts from #18 to #1. Click for graphics. Continue Reading