News

Podcast networking service Wildcast launches to connect hosts & guests for networking

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Rumor Fact(ory): Spotify tries to acquire Meghan Markle and Prince Harry for podcast exclusive

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 celebrates 1,000 milestone [audio]

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Edison Research webinar: Podcast listening grows and shifts

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Spotify might launch virtual concerts

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Audible launches Plus subscription, less expensive than existing plan, for access to exclusives

Posted on by Brad Hill

In a peculiar reversal of standard audio subscription value and price points, and a demonstration of Audible’s often-overlooked power in audio publishing, the Amazon-owned company has launced Audible Plus, a subscription plan the provides access to the entire Audible Original library (audiobooks and podcasts) of 68,000 productions. It costs $7.95 per month. The legacy subscription bundles the traditional audiobook catalog with Audible’s original productions for $14.95. It is a dramatic example of Audible’s unique consumer economics and value propositions. Continue Reading →

Echoverse podcast network launches with Whalerock funding and plans to extend into TV/film

Posted on by Brad Hill

We received a notice that Lloyd Braun’s Whalerock Industries has founded a new podcast network: Echoverse, which will be devoted to science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy programming. No podcasts are live yet, but nine are planned. CEO Mark Stern has a deep background in TV and film. Accordingly, Echoverse will serve as both a podcast network and an incubator of extensible content for film and TV. Click through for details. Continue Reading →

Adwizz’s AudioGo launches from public beta, offers easy audio ad buying

Posted on by Brad Hill

We’ve been writing about AudioGo, the audio  advertising buying platform from AdsWizz, for over a year, as  it moved through a public beta. During this  time the service added testing partners including Entravision and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. Today the company announces that the service is emerging from beta into a full-on ad-buying service available to all. The platform now has several new features designed to support smaller buyers looking to capitalize on increasing audio consumption. The cost of entry is surprisingly low. Continue Reading →