Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
Imagine Entertainment, founded by Brian Glazer and Ron Howard, has struck an exclusive co-production, distribution, and presumably monetization deal with iHeartMedia, bringing the TV/film company into podcasting. The partnership will collaborate to launch six new series over the next two years distributed through the iHeartPodcast Network. Continue Reading
Apple released its review of “best and most popular podcasts” today. Although many of the 22 honorees arepretty high in the charts, we think this is a good discovery list, worth exploring. Click for details. Continue Reading
For the second time this week, Audible’s executive staff has been raided. This time it’s an in-house raid. Jessica Radburn, formerly Senior Director of Global Content Programming at Audible, was hired by Amazon Music podcast subsidiary Wondery. Details within. Continue Reading
Facebook launched podcast listening in its mobile apps during the summer. We tested it this week to learn its features and functions. We were interested in how the experience might contribute to raising awareness of podcasting in Facebook’s billions of users around the world — or even just the 221-million Americans on the platform — and how the experience compares to stand-alone podcatchers. Continue Reading
Vox Media has bought Criminal Productions, whose best-known show is Criminal, which has appeared on several “Best Of” lists. Vox plans to double the unit’s staff, expand Criminal to a weekly show, and develop new ones. All this takes place within Vox’s podcast division, Vox Media Podcast Network. Vox also takes over ad sales. Continue Reading
Bad Robot, the film/TV firm founded and run by J.J. Abrams, whose franchises include Star Trek and Cloverfield movies, has jumped into audio with the creation of a podcast unit. Abrams pulled Christina Choi away from Audible to head the venture. The whole thing is tied up with Spotify. Continue Reading
In a sign of podcasting’s influencer power, Critical Mention — an agency which tracks and measures earned media (unpaid publicity) — has announced a partnership with podcast database platform Podchaser. The arrangement will allow Critical Mention agency clients to track and measure brand mentions across podcasting, as Podchaser’s internal dataset is built internally into Critical Mention’s toolset. Continue Reading
The much anticipated Black Podcast Listener Report, with support from Edison Research and Mindshare, was released today and presented in a webinar. Key survey points cover the size of the Black listening audience and how it compares with the total U.S. population, how that audience discovers podcasts, their receptivity to podcast ads, and much more. Click through for many data points and graphics. Continue Reading
by Jeff Vidler
Who exactly is listening to your podcast? It may be the most important question that an advertiser has when they’re looking to make a buy. Yet, no single industry-wide measure has been able to answer that question. Signal Hill Insights and Triton Digital are collaborating with the intent to marry census-level big data with survey results for a hyper-granular level of audience understanding. Jeff Vidler is the President of Signal Hill Insights. Continue Reading
In Podtrac’s newly released October edition of its Top Podcasts ranker, we see extreme stability in the list. Click through for RAIN’s 4-month comparative analysis. Continue Reading
Australian media company and podcast publisher ARN has partnered with podcast advertising intelligence company Magellan AI to create and release a report of the top 15 advertisers across the layer of top 400 Australian podcasts. Click through for the results, and how they relate to Magellan’s recent U.S. lists. Continue Reading
Libsyn makes another deal. PODGO, founded last year, brings together podcasts of any reach with advertisers who want highly targeted, host-read sponsorship messages. Click for more info and a rundown of Libsyn’s acquisition streak. Continue Reading