Infinite Dial 2018: Smart speaker ownership nearly tripled in the past year

The Infinite Dial kicked off with a look at ownership trends in technology and media. Most telling, the research from Edison and Triton focused on the growth in smart speakers. Awareness of the device segment was 71% for Amazon Alexa, up from 57% last year, while Google Home awareness rose from 45% in 2017 to 56% in 2018. Considering the recent ad blitzes for the segment, John Rosso joked that those who haven’t heard of them are “probably living in caves and staring at their tablets.” Continue Reading

Pandora launches programmatic audio; Volkswagen partners

Today Pandora sent an announcement that observers have been waiting for: The leading internet radio platform has launched a private programmatic marketplace for its digital audio advertising inventory. “It’s clear the future of advertising is digital audio,” evangelizes John Trimble, Pandora’s Chief Revenue Officer. Continue Reading

After a year of development, Pandora launches Dynamic Audio ads

When Pandora announced the Dynamic Audio ad product last February, the idea was to create a targeting technology that could personalize audio marketing to the listener to an unusually individual degree. The launch partner for that development venture was British ad company A Million Ads. Now, the two companies are starting to roll out the result of that work, on a testing basis with two advertisers. Continue Reading

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Scripps reshapes for the 21st century: cutbacks coming; radio laid off too

The venerable E.W. Scripps Company, a multimedia national player in newspapers, radio, television, and digital media, has announced a tectonic and identity-changing restructure plan. As with many corporate reinventions, headcount will be reduced over 12-18 months, costs will be lowered, technology will be centralized, resources will be optimized across divisions. And radio will be ditched entirely. Continue Reading