Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
From Triton Digital co-founder and audio entrepreneur Mike Agovina we learn that he has partnered with broadcasting and production firm Guaranty Media to make a new podcast creation enterprise called Drop Biscuit Studios. This announcement shines light on a project… Continue Reading
Daryl Battaglia is SVP, Market Development & Strategy, at Triton Digital. This lunch conversation is all about podcast measurement, arguably the most important topic on the business side of podcasting. Daryl discusses current trends and a new audience measurement product soon to be released by Triton. Continue Reading
Facebook is exiting the podcast space which the company was barely in. No shut-off date is publicly assigned to Facebook’s various rudimentary explorations of structured audio. We reviewed Facebook podcasts, twice, and mostly savaged it. Click for details. Continue Reading
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