The Black Podcasting Awards, a first-year enterprise started just before COVID, is within the final two days of a Kickstarter fundraising effort. The crowdfunding goal is modest by Kickstarter standards: $7,500, with 30 hours remaining in the drive as of this post. Click through for the link. Continue Reading
CNN is announcing this morning the launch and first-episode drop of Election 101, which the network calls a political-explainer podcast which “demystifies the American political system while offering a unique perspective on the inner workings of the electoral process.” The show is produced in affiliation with iHeartRadio. Continue Reading
On December 31 SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer will leave the company. Replacing him will be Jennifer C. Witz, currently Director of Sales. Simultaneously, Sirius CFO David J. Frear will step away, his role to be filled by Sean Sullivan, currently CFO of AMC Networks. Meyer has been CEO for eight years, overseeing the acquisitions of Pandora, Stitcher, and Simplecast. Continue Reading
Almost exactly three years after forging an alliance of podcast networks, Australia’s NOVA Entertrainment and Sweden-based Acast are separating their assets and cooperative selling operation. The announcement comes a week after NOVA CEO Cathy O’Connor resigned her position to take a role with Aussie/NZ out-of-home ad company oOh!media. (<< not a typo.) Continue Reading
Westwood One has released its fifth annual podcast advertising study, in collaboration with Advertiser Perceptions. This report is synced with the IAB Podcast Upfront, also in its fifth year. One key takeaway is that advertiser interest in podcasts, and intent to buy, have grown by multiples since 2015. Click through for details, numbers, links, and charts. Continue Reading
A new podcast networking platform, Wildcast, is launching today to facilitate networking among hosts and guests. The main function is to help podcasts find guests, and the reverse, to help people with knowledge or a message to find podcast guesting opportunities. Beyond that core purpose, the overriding mission is networking of whatever type is helpful to the industry. The site is operating free of charge for a preliminary launch period. Continue Reading
From the UK comes news of a new podcast network: Crowd Network, whose mandate is “gripping stories and unforgettable personalities.” The launch is funded by 500,000 GBP from Enigma Holdings. Podcast tech and sales company Acast is partnered into the… Continue Reading
It’s all over the entertainment press, each piece of coverage inching closer to “confirmed” than the last. (See The Mirror HERE.)To us it is still a Rumor Fact(ory) item, but certainly plausible: Spotify offering (or preparing to offer) an exclusive podcast deal to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. The dollars might be relatively modest on Spotify’s balance sheet, though — The Mirror quotes unnamed sources who say that a seven-figure deal is in the works. Continue Reading
Pandora Stories is a music/spoken-word hybrid product which pairs songs with artist recollections. In most cases the artists talks for 30-60 seconds about the song’s history (that’s the story part), and then comes the song. Pandora has now produced 1,000 of these stories. To celebrate, the streaming service has created a “The Greatest Hits” compilation. Click through for details and audio. Continue Reading
In a zoom webinar yesterday, Edison Research Senior Vice President Tom Webster laid out some metrics about podcast listening before and during the covid-19 era. The session was part of a lunchtime series from Edison. Deploying recent research from the company’s Podcast Consumer Tracking Report and the ongoing Share of Ear consumer survey project, Webster described some changes in American podcast listening. The underlying premise why that the disruption of routines, especially the widespread loss of morning commuting in cars, has made significant changes in how much, and when, Americans listen to podcasts. Click through for more. Continue Reading
Back in April, Spotify blogged about musicians setting up virtual concerts as Covid-19 forced them offstage. If the company wasn’t putting two + two together at that time, it might be now. That is an easy conclusion to draw from hacker and reverse engineer Jane Manchung Wong, who uncovered non-public screens within the Spotify app indicating live virtual concert streaming in development. Continue Reading
Taking TilTok seriously yet, as a music exposure, promotion, and distribution platform? Well TikTok is, and so is Ollie Wards if we go by his just-announced job change. Wards is leaving his post at Triple J, the nationally funded alternative music radio outlet in Sydney, Australia, for an appointment as music director in Australia ast TikTok. Continue Reading