RAIN Notes: Tuesday, December 26
— A Caffeinated Milestone (Alan Cross)
— Onward and Upward (Conal Byrne & Jen Sargent)
— Elevation (Audacy)
News
RAIN Notes: Thursday, December 21
— Elevating with AI (Rob Greenlee)
— Ranked (Triton Digital)
— Difficulties (Lex Friedman)
New French streaming music tax would finance a music industry support group. Streamers push back.
The French government has created a new tax, targeted to streaming music services operating in the country. President Emmanuel Macron announced the finalization of the levy, which is set to take effect in 2024. “This is a real blow to innovations,” Spotify says. Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: Monday, December 18
“The gravitational pull toward digital” — audio-related highlights of Nieman Lab predictions
Journalism advocacy group Nieman lab has published its 2024 predictions. Featuring what Nieman refers to as “the smartest people in journalism,” the collection features dozens of writers, publishers, newscasters, and industry executives. We look at three audio-related contributions from Kerri Hoffman, Kristen Muller, and Eric Nuzum. Continue Reading
vCreative chooses Frequency for data-controlled ad distribution
vCreative, a cloud-based software provider for the broadcast radio industry has chosen audio ad management platform Frequency to leverage next-gen tools for the production, management, and delivery of targeted ads in radio. Click to learn more about this deal, and a fascinating case study of real-time live ad customization. Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: Thursday, December 14
Video podcast consumers are cross-platform: Sounds Profitable/Signal Hill study
Sound You Can See; Podcasting’s Video Dilemma, a new study produced by Sounds Profitable and Signal Hill Insights, explores the duality of podcasting as an audio and video format. Fielded in November the survey reveals a large volume of granular information about usage habits among video consumers of podcasts. Click for some key details, graphs, and a link to the complete 81-page PDF. Continue Reading
Spoken word share is up, especially podcasts (Westwood One and Edison Research)
Pierre Bouvard of the Westwood One Blog has revealed portions of the Share Of Ear research study performed by Edison Research. Among many results, we learn that spoken word audio is generally up — due initially to the pandemic and accelerating since then — and ad-supported streaming music via Spotify and Pandora is down. Oh, and podcasting share has risen dramatically over seven years. Continue Reading
Warner Bros. Discovery chooses Spotify for podcast distro and sales
In a joint announcement this morning, Spotify and media giant Warner Bros. announced a distribution and sales agreement which will see podcasts in the Warner Bros Discovery unit hosted and monetized in Spotify’s technology and sales systems. The agreement includes shows in over two dozen media brands owned by Discovery, including CNN and HBO. Continue Reading
Acast crosses $30M in ad revenue to Australian podcasters
Global podcast company Acast is publicizing its accomplishments in Australia. As a broad and significant metric, the company has disclosed that it has delivered $31-million in local ad revenue to its indie podcast creators. The time span for this accomplishment is about six years — Acast entered the Aussi market in 2017.
Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: Friday, December 8