In this week’s third-quarter earnings call, iHeartMedia executives preached digital, podcasting, and the recent acquisition of Voxnest. Click through for quotes. Continue Reading
In an intermediary report before its end-of-year accounting, Podtrac has released a chart of the top 25 new podcasts through Q3. This ranker is based on average number of U.S. downloads per episode. Even though it has been an extremely newsy year, and we observed the launch of news podcasts from major media brands, only two podcasts categorized as News made the list. Click through for key points and the entire list. Continue Reading
Triton Digital, parent company of podcast hosting and technology company Omny Studio, is announcing today that Omny is being introduced into Gaana, India’s largest audio streaming platform. Gaana is perhaps best known as a music streaming app. But, like Spotify which is a better known brand globally outside of India, Gaana also distributes podcasts. Until now Gaana has mostly traded in Indian-produced shows, presented either in Hindi or English. The Omny Studio portfolio will bring a more global reach with nearly 30,000 podcasts. Continue Reading
Podcasting consolidation continues, as Spotify — an acquisition giant in the field — announces that it is buying Megaphone, one of the world’s leading podcast hosting and ad-tech companies. The deal represents not only Spotify’s growing imperialism in the podcast space, but the deepening influence of modern ad technology and audience targeting on the business of podcasting. Continue Reading
iHeartPodcast Network Australia, which is managed by Australian radio group ARN, is partnering with DM Podcasts (Diamantina Media). At the same time, ARN is announcing that iHeartPodcast Network Australia is a sponsor of the 2020 Australian Podcast Awards, which happen later this month. Continue Reading
The warning is clear, though without a timeline: “You will soon lose access to Google Play Music.” That’s what Android users see when they open the Google Play Music app — Google’s would-be direct competitor to Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. Users are advised to transfer their accounts to YouTube Music, where the subscriptions will continue. YouTube Music is a starkly different UEX environment and library proposition. Continue Reading
Just over a year since ad-tech company AdsWizz launched PodScribe, a proprietary podcast transcript feature, the company has announced that one-million episodes have been transcribed and are available for word-specific targeting by podcast advertisers. The tool illuminates contexts within podcast episodes and enables advertisers to target brand-safe positioning, and avoid brand-unsafe contexts. Continue Reading
Audible has branched out to the open podcast realm, announcing an addition of 100,000 free shows. These podcasts appear in the Audible app and presumably can be heard by non-subscribers. This is a fairly big movement for the Amazon-owned Audible, a hardline subscription business. But it’s only 100,000 shows in a universe of 1.5-million, and a search for known shows came up empty. Continue Reading
In a startling announcement, which in hindsight seems inevitable, leading media campaign planning and buying platform Strata has accepted the entire inventory of podcast company Acast. Acast’s portfolio of 20,000+ podcasts will be exposed to agencies and advertisers engaged in all kinds of media marketing. This deal will be seen in a future rear-view mirror as breakthrough. Continue Reading
We received word today that Prisa, the world’s largest spanish-speaking radio group, and a podcast producer, has re-upped with Triton Digital for a broad range of Triton services. They include delivery, monetization, and measurement of its digital audio assets including live radio, on-demand programming, and podcast audio. Prisa will continue to be measured in the Triton Digital Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker of streaming entities. Prisa will also put its podcasts in Omny Studio, a Triton Digital subsidiary. Continue Reading
Enterprise podcast host and ad tech company Megaphone has signed sports publisher The Athletic to its platform, increasing the volume and range of the sports content hosted in its podcast marketplace.The Athletic website shows dozens of podcasts in sports castegories ranging from Fantasy Football to Sports Business, Boxing to UK Women’s Football. Megaphone cites “millions of monthly listeners,” and this new inventory is piled into an already impressive sports lineup for the podcast hosting and monetization company. Continue Reading
Head of MIDiA Research Mark Mulligan has published an article about maximizing YouTube music chanels. Titled “How YouTube can be a music industry growth driver,” the piece asserts that non-Anglo music channels on YT operate differently from their Anglo counterparts, and are finding success. Click through for an illuminating chart and a link to the analysis. Continue Reading