New podcast creation dropped to a 2022 low point, according to Listen Notes, which produces a monthly report of podcast production. The month of April saw 8,410 new shows launched, down from 16,246 in March. There has been a steady downward trend in 2022 to date. Click for more numbers. Continue Reading
AdvertiseCast, a subsidiary of podcast host/tech company Libsyn, released the April edition of its monthly CPM tracker, continuing a trendline of how much advertisers pay to market in podcasts of different audience sizes. The average CPM for a 60-second spot across all measured podcasts rose by 1.5%. Click through for details. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia today announces that Sarah van Mosel, formerly CRO of Stitcher, will lead the company’s new iHeart Audience Network (“iAN”), an highly scaled audio inventory and audience targeting environment that spans podcasting (iHeartPodcast Network), streaming audio (iHeartRadio), and the vast reach of the largest commercial radio group in the U.S. Continue Reading
Riverside, the remote video production platform increasingly used by audio podcasters, has completed a $35-million fundraising round. The investment is led by Oren Zeev (early investor in Audible and many other startups). The funding windfall comes days after the announcement of a high-level partnership with Spotify. Continue Reading
Warner Music Group (WMG) today unveiled its new podcast network, Interval Presents, which will produce multi-format, culture-forward audio content at the intersection of music, pop culture, and social impact. The initiative marks the first major music label to follow in Sony Music’s lead; Sony entered the podcast arena five years ago in May, 2017. Click for show details. Continue Reading
Industry group Podcast Taxonomy was founded in January 2021 (see RAIN coverage HERE), serving to define roles and responsibilities in podcast creation. Today we learn of updates. Nine new roles have been added to the group’s definitional whitepaper. Click to see them, plus new “also known as” titles. Continue Reading
In its US Podcast Advertising 2022 Report released yesterday, eMarketer projects podcast ad spending to reach $1.7B this year, and $2.2B next year on its way to $2.6B in 2024. Continue Reading
In a significant product evolution, Spotify has announced the release of its Video Podcasts product from testing, making it available to all creators in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K. It is an exceptionally mature launch, startlingly packed with features helpful in production, monetization, audience engagement, and analytics. Click for lots of detail. Continue Reading
This Rumor Fact(ory) comes from Bloomberg, which reports unnamed sources saying that the Obamas will not renew their deal with Spotify on behalf of their podcast creation company Higher Ground. The Obamas are being courted by iHeartMedia and Amazon/Audible, according to those insiders. Continue Reading
Magellan AI released its always-interesting Top Spenders list, listing the highest 15 spenders for March. BetterHelp lands in the #1 spot, as it has for the last 12 months in today’s RAIN analysis of this ranker. Click through for downloadable 12-month chart. Continue Reading
Media Creek, an audio-tech holding company launched in February 2018, announces today a rebranding as SoundStack. In what a company representative calls “a unification/rebranding of all of the collective Media Creek brands,” SoundStack encompasses existing services Live365 and Empire Streaming. Also announced today: A newer service called SoundStack Engine, a platform for both live streaming and podcast distribution. Continue Reading
Cumulus Media / Westwood One has released its 2022 Audioscape bundle of research metrics under the banner of its Audio Active Group brand led by Chief Insights Office Pierre Bouvard. It’s a big book of data; today, we look at the growth of podcast listening share compared to terrestrial radio. Continue Reading