Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein lays out some Reality with a capital R for new and would-be podcasters. “The truth is well-funded companies with tools, talent, and resources at their disposal often fall into a similar trap of introducing merely adequate content along with vanilla marketing.” Steve itemizes three critical strategic components. A must-read column.
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by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, The Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro grapples with the often-overlooked, always-challenging topic of podcast content moderation. Should podcasting undergo the level of scrutiny that social networks do? Along with these ruminations, the column catches up with news from Spotify, Apple, and elsewhere. Continue Reading
Podcast advertising intelligence company Magellan AI released its December report of top podcast advertisers. This month’s roundup includes the single-month list, and a year-to-date (YTD) list which serves as a 2020 view of the top marketing money spent in podcasting. We have gathered the list data into three tables that sort advertising spend in three ways: Top December advertisers, top 2020 advertisers, and a concentration measure of money spent per show. Click through for the goods. Continue Reading
Spreaker has launched a new self-serve tool called AdHub. If it sounds like another do-it-yourself way for marketers to buy dynamically inserted commercials, it’s not. AdHub is directed toward Spreaker podcasters, who can place targeted ads for their podcasts into other Spreaker podcasts. Click through for deets. Continue Reading
Evergreen Podcasts, a four-year-old network representing 64 shows that were downloaded over 4-million times in 2020, has acquired an undisclosed equity share of Ars Longa Media. Ars Longa is a preeminent podcast company serving the health, wellness, and medical education genres. The group owns 13 shows. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein describes high points of the recently concluded virtual CES from the audio business perspective. Podcasts, in-car audio, and autonomous cars are highlighted. Plenty of links to session video available to watch.
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by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, The Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro catches up after a mini vacation, rounding up the latest acquisitions, a prediction, a podcast recommendation, and other topical items. Continue Reading
That’s a lot of acronyms. To spell it out: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has given a $500,000 grant to Southern California Public Radio, to support SCPR’s LAist Studios division and its development of podcasts. Click through for details. Continue Reading
Descript gets a cash pile of $30-million to further its audio/video production business. The plan is to expand from a consumer service targeting amateur creators, adding a new focus on enterprise tools for the internal communication needs of companies. Currently, Descript markets to independent creators, amateur, semi-pro, and professional, with smart tools that record, transcribe and edit audio and video combined. Click through for details. Continue Reading
AdLarge Media is announcing its agreement with TPX (Toronto-based The Podcast Exchange) for exclusive representation of AdLarge’s digital audio inventory. The cabana division of AdLarge is where that inventory resides, and is mostly podcasts. This initiative represents AdLarge’s first entry into a non-U.S. market. Continue Reading
by Jeff Vidler
Signal Hill Insights President Jeff Vidler says podcasting has key differences from broadcasting. “Podcasts and broadcast radio are vastly different. Yes, they’re both based on audio, so certain audio skills are transferable. But that’s about it.” He breaks out three important podcast characteristics that radio professionals could be aware of. Continue Reading
In the December 2020 Top Podcast Publishers report from Podtrac, iHeartRadio held the #1 slot and NPR maintained its #2 ranking — those two networks remaining invulnerable to competitive infringement in the entire history of Podtrac’s ranking. As we have noted before, iHR and NPR pursue opposite audience concentration strategies. A glance backward shows that each of these two juggernauts has doubled down on its strategy. Click through for numbers and an illustrative chart. Continue Reading