Edison Research and NPR have released the 2022 Smart Audio Report, an annual survey study measuring the growth, impact, and user behaviors of conversational AI audio. This field is generally summarized as “smart speakers,” but the Edison/NPR work includes digital assistants built into phones, TVs, tablets, cars, and appliances. Continue Reading
In its wide-ranging and detailed survey of news consumption around the world, Reuters discovered that podcast usage is growing again in 2022 after what it describes as a “COVID-19 pause.” In its conclusion to the general metrics section, Reuters makes a sober assessment about global news consumption across all media categories. Click for details and graphics. Continue Reading
In a recent investor gathering, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek keynoted his company’s presentation with a manifesto which promoted Spotify’s accomplishments — in the product and the financials — and broadly charted a big-thinking future. Click through for a highlight reel (so to speak) of his most meaningful and revealing quotes. Continue Reading
Jottings of Note
— Media Replacement (Jack Myers)
— New Season (Vanishing Postcards)
— Infinity (Edison Research)
In a sweeping proclamation of global audio technology influence, Triton Digital has announced the integration of audio ad-tech platform Jelli into its system. Complementing that development, several Triton execs have been promoted. Click through for lots of details. Continue Reading
In a seemingly win-win scenario, global podcast company Acast has signed a distribution deal with Resso, a streaming music service operating in Brazil, India and Indonesia. Resso was started two years ago by ByteDance, parent company of TikTok. Click for more. Continue Reading
In Podtrac’s Top Podcast Publishers monthly ranker for May we learn that the metrics for download growth were on a slight upswing (1%) month-over-month, and a sharper growth of 32% year-over-year. (Podtrac measures its clients.) Click through for the results and the RAIN remix, which re-sorts the top publishers by average listeners and downloads per show. Continue Reading
With an ambition to make podcasts more accessible, the Crooked Media network has partnered with Adobe and its Premiere Pro’s speech-to-text technology to create captioned videos of podcasts. Production speed is key. Click for details and a behind-the-scenes video. Continue Reading
Kara Swisher, co-host of the Pivot podcast at Vox Media, and former host of Sway — a current events interview podcast at The New York Times — will leave NYT and start a new Vox show. As yet untitled (at least publicly), it will be another interview format. A big get (re-get, really) for Vox. Click for details. Continue Reading
Maya Prohovnik, who was Anchor’s first employee and is currently Director of R&D for Talk Verticals at Anchor parent company Spotify, will become Head of Talk, replacing Michael Mignano when he departs the company this month. Continue Reading
Jottings of Note
— Cannes (SXM Media)
— Upfront (True Native Media)
— Short News (Schwartz Media / SCA)
Buzzsprout is creating buzz (sorry) for its new podcaster advertising program, Buzzsprout Ads, which allows podcasters to purchase midroll spots in Buzzsprout-hosted podcasts. The promotion is absent of details pertinent to Buzzsprout shows which will receive the ads. But by digging into the Buzzsprout Facebook community we were able to piece together the entire picture. Continue Reading