RAIN News

RIAA full-year 2022: Music subs leap upward, breaking through $10-billion U.S. revenue

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Brad Hill

“Streaming continued to account for a large majority of recorded music revenues in 2022.” Thus reports the first line in the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)’s full-year 2022 earnings report. All streaming platforms grew seven percent year-over-year, amounting to $13.3-billion. About 75% of that was subscription streaming revenue, which totalled to $10B. Click through for more, and detailed trend charts. Continue Reading →

TuneIn soft-launches TuneIn Explorer, an interactive map-based radio tuner

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Brad Hill

In one of the more delightful recent product releases, TuneIn has unleashed TuneIn Explorer, an interactive map-based radio tuner. As an audio browsing tool, we find it superior to World Radio Map and Radio Garden, two other inateractive audio maps. Click for the review, images, and linkage. Continue Reading →

RAIN Notes: Monday, March 20

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Brad Hill

Jottings of Note

— GPTAircheck (Futuri Media & Rusty Hodge)

— Medium-moved Messages (Sounds Profitable / Signal Hill Insights)

— Stats Roundup (DemandSage)

Continue Reading →

YouTube’s podcast portal opens, optimizing discovery, recommendation, and search

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Brad Hill

The awaited opening of YouTube Podcasts has arrived. Podcasts have long been posted to YouTube, of course, but until now there has not been a structured presentation of them, or promotion and discovery tools specifically for them. It is detached from traditional RSS distribution. Click through for details and images. Continue Reading →

James Cridland’s International Radio Trends: Can your presenters publish to your website?

Posted on March 20, 2023 by James Cridland

by James Cridland

In today’s guest column, James Cridland discusses difficulties with the BBC, and a strike among BBC Local Radio journalists. Then, coverage of the imminent disappearance of AM radio reception in U.S. cars — “Broadcasters relying on AM for their flagship services need to have an urgent plan to fix it.” Finally, James’s list of links. Continue Reading →

LinkedIn Podcast Academy seeks to foster conversations with selected creators

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Brad Hill

LinkedIn, the leading social network for professionals, has launched the LinkedIn Podcast Academy. The structure of this initiative is simple — LinkedIn selected 19 business and startup podcasts created by LinkedIn members, and publicized those creator profiles. The program provides coaching, exclusive programming and LinkedIn co-branding. Aspiring podcasters can fill out a form. Continue Reading →

Triton Podcast Ranker for February: Three new shows in a hundred

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Brad Hill

The latest Triton Digital US Podcast Report shows only three new shows in 100 listed, all three in the bottom twenty. Nine of the top ten podcasts are the same month-over-month. Click through for more stats, including a breakdown of sales representation. Continue Reading →

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Audacy earnings: Macroeconomics, advertising pullback, and 2023 optimism

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Brad Hill

Audacy reported its fourth quarter earnings, and while earnings were up three percent for the year, expenses grew by twice that, pulling down the company’s EBITDA down six percent — “a far cry from what we had anticipated,” said Chairman and CEO David Field. Click through for lots of podcast-specific metrics. Continue Reading →

Podcasters enthused about ChatGPT; listeners middling; a takeaway for advertisers

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Brad Hill

Acast completed an interesting survey of podcasters and listeners to gauge sentiment regarding using ChatGPT in podcasting. The survey is a broad gauge of feeling about using AI in a podcast — podcasters and listeners are clearly of different sentiments, but there is a clear takeaway. Continue Reading →

Steve Goldstein: Where The Podcast Business Is Headed

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Steve Goldstein

by Steve Goldstein

In this latest installment of the Amplifi Media blog, Steve Goldstein summarizes the Podcast Movement discussion panel which he moderated, with plenty of quotes from the panel: James Cridland, Jeanine Wright, Daniel Albright, and Mayowa Ajayi. Under discussion: Is the bloom off the rose in podcasting? Continue Reading →

“What’s a radio?” asks NPR announcer

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Brad Hill

NPR was the first, and continually a vigorous advocate for smart speakers. The public radio network helped launch the breakthrough Alexa OS by providing the primary daily news program for smart speakers, Up First. It was with amusement that we noticed that program’s host exclaiming, “What’s a radio?” during his sign-off. Click for audio. Continue Reading →

iHeart Podcast Awards: Winners and most-nominated

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Brad Hill

The annual iHeartPodcast Awards ceremony took place yesterday in a livestream online ceremony. Winners were selected in 28 categories, plus a grand prize Podcast of the Year winner — Las Culturistas produced by Big Money Players and iHeartPodcasts Network. We trolled the complete competition results to discover which producers earned the most nominations. Continue Reading →