Pandora is celebrating the 5th birthday of the launch of Thumbprint Radio, a playlist based on each user’s “thumbs up” action — a legacy Pandora feature across all usage tiers. The formula mixes thumbed songs with other tracks which Pandora’s… Continue Reading
In the latest addition to Triton Digital’s globe-spanning clientele, Jagran New Media has turned over its podcast content to Triton’s advertising technology, and its Omny Studio unit, to distribute and monetize Jagran’s podcasts. Jagran New Media is the digital division of Jagran Prakashan Limited, India’s preeminent media and communications group, serving 80-million users. Continue Reading
The comedy podcast Off Book: The Improvised Musical Podcast has jumped from Earwolf, a division of Stitcher, to ART19 which will host the show and handle all sales. Continue Reading
Spotify has dropped a group of audiobooks — nine of them — comprising public domain classics read by known actors. The effort is barely a toe in the water of audiobook creation and distribution, but Spotify got its arms around podcasting in little more than two years. So heads up, Audible. Click through for deets. Continue Reading
by Matt Deegan
Guest columnist Matt Deegan (Folder Media) traces the evolution of direct subscription to all kinds of content, and speculates about new monetization methods. Next up for podcasts in 2021: a “battle of the models.” Continue Reading
Triton Digital, parent company of podcast hosting and technology platform Omny Studios, is announcing a suite of auditing features for enterprise clients. These tools enable companies to track organization staff who are creating and modifying objects in the company’s podcast assets. The objects include chapter markers, clips, playlists, and other items. Additionally, the audit log can be utilized to track network and organization activity, such as user settings, invites and permissions. Click through for a link to screenshots of the new tools. 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
Starting in February, ad-tech company Targetspot will integrate Tru Optik’s identity resolution platform, offering Targetspot advertisers enhanced targeting of ads to U.S. homes. Through this integration, buyers and sellers are able to identify and segment audiences across mobile and streaming audio devices, including smart speakers. Click through for details of both companies. Continue Reading
When was the last time you returned a book you purchased? If it was an audiobook you bought in Amazon-owned Audible, you might have benefited from a relaxed and encouraging returns policy which allows a listener to trade one audiobook for another within a year from purchase. Great for customers; bad for authors and publishers (and some voice performers) whose royalty statements were filled with deductions from payments received months earlier. There has been clamor for change. At the new year, Amazon has responded. Click through for the story. Continue Reading
The podcasting daily news space is crowded and successful as a category. The extensive lineup of daily news podcasts fluxes quite a bit, with new additions, and revisions to existing programs. Here, three items of note. Cadence13 partners with a new organization, Punchbowl News, for The Daily Punch. Vox starts a not-podcast which is really a playlist of podcasts, all squeezed into one feed — we were baffled, then curious, and now we like it. A well-regarded news podcast from The Washington Post switches out the host, who becomes an opinion columnist at the paper. Click for specifics. 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
Kast Media, the #11 podcast publisher in Podtrac’s monthly Top 20 Podcast Publishers list for December, has loaded its podcast business into Triton Digital’s delivery, measurement, and monetization products. Kast Media publishes 51 podcasts (according to Podtrac) across many categories. In December the group served over 28-million downloads and streams to an audience of nearly 5-million unique listeners. Continue Reading