In the newly released Q1 edition of The Record — the quarterly series measuring how consumers spend their listening day with ad-supported online audio — we learn that radio rules the time spent metric, especially in older demos. Click for details, charts. Continue Reading
In 48 data graphs across 67 pages, local business analyst Borrell Associates tracks how the advertising industry in its many segments has transitioned to a digital medium. “Local digital advertising cleared a historic threshold in 2024,” Borrell states, noting that it topped $100 billion at that point, and accounted for about 70% of all local ad spending.” Click for metrics, an elaborately revealing chart, and a link to an upcoming webinar.
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Professional trade organization The Podcast Academy, which produced an annual awards program for podcast creators, has announced the introduction of two new international honors. Continue Reading
YouTube has launched and announced a podcast popularity chart, awkwardly named “Weekly Top Podcast Shows: Most popular podcast shows on YouTube.” The date range for this debut weekly chart is May 5-11, establishing a reporting cadence with a one-week lag. We examine and compare this ranker to recent Edison Research data on podcast popularity. Continue Reading
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
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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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