In a first-of-its-kind alliance, PodcastOne and the Associated Press (AP) are partnering to create one-minute news podcasts. Special insertion technology will automatically deliver the most current 60-second program to each listener. Eighteen shows will be produced each day, seven days a week.
“This has never been done before, because there has never been a podcast platform with the technology, excellent content, and sheer number of shows with enough audience to cover all time periods, every day of every week.” –Norman Pattiz, Founder, PodcastOne
This announcement breaks the mold in a couple of ways. First, one-minute podcast programs are novel in an audio category whose typical program lengths are closer to 30 or 60 minutes. While some podcast listening platforms (e.g. NPR One and AudioBoom) present very short-form audio, those are clips of longer programs.
Second, podcasting is traditionally an archived medium. Once recorded and posted, a program is static, unchanging, and permanent. The presentation of the AP/PodcastOne series, called AP Up-To-The-Minute Newscast, will offer a single destination for delivering the latest program. the short program length means the shows can be manipulated similarly to advertisements, yielding new business opportunities. In fact, it is PodcastOne’s ad insertion technology which will pull the correct newscast at the correct time.
RAIN News talked to Norm Pattiz, PodcastOne founder, about that technology.
“It springs straight from our dynamic ad insertion technology. Just as we can grab the appropriate commercial to insert at the time of download. That’s especially good for retailers and other time-sensitive marketing. We can do the same thing by grabbing the latest newscast from the AP, every hour.”
Norm Pattiz told us that on the business side, the AP partnership and product will allow two advertising opportunities. “It will increase the inventory in our podcasts. Now we can say at the end of a show: ‘Stick around for 60 seconds of news from the AP.’ That means we can sell that extra inventory. It also gives us the opportunity to sell a “Brought to you by…” within the newscast, which covers our cost of doing this.”
The new programming will start in January.