James Cridland’s International Radio Trends: More talk, less music

Posted on by James Cridland

by James Cridland

James Cridland returns with the latest installment of his weekly column. In this edition, James examines The Spoken Word Audio Report, produced by Edison Research with support from NPR. Speaking words is where radio should excel in the future, according to this perspective: “Radio’s unique selling proposition – the thing radio does that nobody else does – is the human being. Not the music; we can get that everywhere.” Continue Reading →

Facebook podcasts: Review

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 acquires Criminal Productions, doubles staff, aims for bigger portfolio

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Film/TV powerhouse Bad Robot enters audio with Spotify-partnered podcast unit; raids Audible for exec

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →

Edison Research Top 50 podcasts: Only three newcomers from previous list

Posted on by Brad Hill

Edison Research released the company’s quarterly report of top 50 podcasts, the result of an 8,000-person consumer survey, part of the company’s Podcast Consumer Tracking Report. Edison’s ranker is notable for its methodology. In this edition, as in previous releases, nearly all 50 shows carry over from the previous report. Click through for illustrations. Continue Reading →

Infinite Album wins Midem award for no-royalty AI gaming soundtrack

Posted on by Brad Hill

Infinite Album, a music/tech startup from entrepreneur, consultant, author, and RAIN Summit speaker Karen Allen, has won the 2021 Midemlab award in the Music Creation & Education category. Midemlab is part of the annual Midem music business conference in France. Infinite Album creates AI-generated music soundtracks for online gaming. Click for details and an illustrative video. Continue Reading →

Earned media agency Critical Mention signs Podchaser analytics

Posted on by Brad Hill

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 →