Financial services company Square is acquiring a majority ownership stake in the TIDAL music streaming service, as announced by Square founder/CEO Jack Dorsey on Twitter (which he also founded and runs). Dorsey made the announcement on Twitter, befittingly. Click through for his statement and rationale. Continue Reading
Jottings of note:
— Evergreen Podcasts awarded “Top Media Startup”
Evergreen Podcasts has been named a Top Startup in the Audio Content category by MDI Ventures. Evergreen CEO Michael DeAloia will speak at the Media Top Startups Summit, March 24-26. Free registration HERE
— Tyler Moody leaves Warner Media
Tyler Moody has left Warner/CNN. “I wore a lot of hats from CNN to Turner to WarnerMedia, but always worked on audio in some way.” Find him on LinkedIn to discuss the future.
— Entercom podcast hire: Brian Swarth
Entercom’s Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studio name Brian Swarth Head of Marketing, Podcasts, a newly created position. He was previously SVP at Showtime Networks.
— Thursday, March 4 Continue Reading
The fifth annual RAIN Podcast Business Summit played on Zoom to a large virtual audience today, presented by iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Triton Digital, and founding partner NPR. Other sponsors supporting this event were Megaphone, AdsWizz, WideOrbit, and AccuRadio. In a compact 3.5-hour schedule, 22 speakers held forth on the business side of podcasting. Click for lots of quotes. Continue Reading
The RAIN Podcast Business Summit, the leading podcast business event now in its fifth year, is set as a Zoom event on Wednesday, March 3, starting at 10am ET.
Info HERE
Register (free) HERE
Continue Reading
iHeartMedia (NASDAQ: IHRT) sent an announcement, just after market close, describing a new corporate reporting and business operation structure. In the new arrangement, all of the company’s digital ventures are broken out as iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group. Alongside, the iHeartMedia Multiplatform Group will include the radio business of America’s largest commercial radio holding company. Click through for the new executive assignments and other details. Continue Reading
Bauer Media, a leading European digital commercial broadcaster and audio operator, will acquire Communicorp, Ireland’s largest commercial radio group. In this merger, Bauer expands its audio business to eight countries reaching over 55-million listeners. Communicorp owns and operates a portfolio of media channels with a strong focus on commercial radio and emerging digital media. Price is reported to be €100m. Continue Reading
Digital audio advertising exchange company DAX is announcing today that it has reached agreement with NPR to manage the public radio juggernaut’s Canadian podcast ad inventory. The agreement establishes DAX as the exclusive third-party partner for handling sponsorship deals across NPR’s podcast inventory in Canada. Continue Reading
Online counseling service BetterHelp and used car retailer CarMax were the leaders in Magellan AI’s two January podcast rankers: Top Spenders and Top Movers and Shakers. Click through for details and graphics. Continue Reading
Jottings of note:
— Frequency and reach
This Harvard Business Review article separates correlation from causation in digital advertising. Which is better: frequency or reach? P&G and Unilever cut their overall budgets and increased returns.
— Digital marketing predictions
Adobe presents “Three Digital Marketing Predictions for 2021 and Beyond. In briefest summary: Non-linear, privacy, and AI.
— New podcast book
Director of Podcast Pioneers Katharine Kerr is out with a new book: Step by Step Podcasting for Business.
Wednesday, February 24, click through for links Continue Reading
Many of the announcements in Spotify’s flood of news in yesterday’s “Stream On” presentation were about platform features for creators and advertisers. But new and exclusive podcast content was also featured. The biggest headline is certainly the launch of a Barack Obama / Bruce Springsteen conversational show called “Renegades: Born in the USA.” Also, DC Comics and Ava DuVernay. Click through for info, audio, and video Continue Reading
In the slew of announcements during Spotify’s “Stream On” presentation Monday, the company seemed to recognize an affinity between podcasting and blogging. Spotify’s new agreement with WordPress.com, which leverages Spotify’s Anchor podcasting platform, bridges the two realms. The result is near-instant podcasts. We now await the reverse.
Spotify grabbed part of competitor Tidal’s key differentiator yesterday by announcing the introduction of a new subscription level called Spotify Hi-Fi. We have always questioned the degree to which most people can distinguish hi-rez differences, especially given the degrading audio signal chain most people use. Still, it’s a market, and Spotify says users ask for it. Continue Reading