Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
Pod Drop features new and returning podcasts. Today — new immersive SciFi, a heralded return of a beloved show, and (mostly) SFW sex adventures. Click through for details and audio trailers. Continue Reading
Signal Hill Insights President Jeff Vidler contributes this very interesting column about Apple’s interesting movement toward traditional radio. “It’s interesting that Apple’s latest foray into audio is a doubling down on the old school notion of human-hosted, human-curated radio.” What does it mean for broadcast radio, if anything? Jeff does some blue-sky thinking. Continue Reading
Patreon, the patronage crowdfunding platform, is now valued over $1-billion, the threshold for “unicorn” status — a popular venture-capital term for companies which stand at a pinnacle in their niches. The milestone is publicized in the wake of a recent fundraising round which yielded $100-million based on a valuation of $1.2-billion. Click through for examples of high podcast earners in podcasting. Continue Reading
As reported, The Joe Rogan Experience — the world’s most successful podcast by many measures — has landed in the Spotify app. Thus marks the start of this well publicized exclusive distribution deal. Except … not exclusive yet. We are still able to play Rogan in other podcast apps. That’s not totally unexpected; the publicized deal details did note that episodes would persist for some amount of time before lowering the gate. There’s another peculiarity, though: Not all the episodes have made it into Spotify, according to reports. Speculation of censorship is circulating. Continue Reading
This appears to be a short-term partnership, at least to start — iHeartMedia and The Recount plan to launch three new political podcasts focused on the upcoming election. Perhaps the podcasts will continue post-election, but the stated launch rationale is “to inform voters’ decisions and actions leading up to this historic moment.” The Recount is a media platform best known for its The Daily Recount video series. Click through for descriptions of the new shows. Continue Reading
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has revealed the host of this year’s Podcast Upfront. This year’s event is virtual, and will be hosted by actress and comedian Franchesca Ramsey. The event transpires over three days next week: September 9-11. Three co-hosts will join Ramsey in managing a sprawling presentation of podcast advertising opportunities. Click through for much more detail. Continue Reading
In a data-rich blog post informed by Magellan AI research, Westwood One has published a raft of research findings about podcast advertising. The headline is that podcast advertising is “pandemic proof,” based on the field’s resiliency from pandemic disruption. The study examines month-over-month and quarterly trendlines to track the stability of podcast advertising, a consistently low spot load (to use a radio term), and the continued emergence of brand advertising. Click through for numbers and graphics. Continue Reading
On the Mic, the industry podcast from ad representation company Ad Results Media (the full name is On the Mic with Ad Results Media) is producing a three-episode miniseries about women in podcasting. It starts with Episode 18 in the feed, which features an interview with LadyGang, which is one of the most popular podcasts for women, with 90 million downloads since it’s launch in 2015. Click through to hear the series trailer. Continue Reading
Episode 15 of Pod Drop, RAIN’s flash briefing of new podcasts, has dropped today. As always, the fun and highly-produced five-minute show previews three new podcasts. Hear show excerpts mixed with review descriptions, hosted by RAIN president Brad Hill. Continue Reading
American public media has formed a partnership with revolver podcasts, a Spanish-language specialty podcast Network. The partnership is a effort for APM to reach multicultural audio consumers. reVolver Podcasts specializes in the latino podcast market. Continue Reading
In a burst of platform development, ad-tech company AdsWizz has introduced seven new targeting and advertising efficacy features. The company is positioning the new features as helpful to both publishers (the sell side) and advertisers (the buy side). Leading the… Continue Reading
by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro provides news and commentary about Lemonada’s ad rep move, Joe Budden’s apparent separation from Spotify, Audible’s new plan, Joe Rogan and Apple … and an interview with Jessica Cordova Kramer. Continue Reading