ESPN podcasts are moving to enterprise podcast tech company Megaphone for hosting and monetization via dynamic ad insertion. It’s an important “get” for Megaphone; ESPN has been makiong podcasts since 2005, owns 69 shows, and served 425-million downloads in 2019. Continue Reading
RAIN’s Pod Drop podcast, a unique flash review of new podcasts, released Episode 8 – Heaven Bent, Borrasca, Hope in Darkness. The three new shows selected for this episode all touch on the unusual and strange. Pod Drop is a five-minute, highly produced audio tour of new podcasts, weaving in excerpts. It is a unique podcast discovery podcast, Continue Reading
Is the world returning to normal life? There are many answers to that question. One set of answers can be derived from information released by Apple. The company has released a fascinating dataset of mobility information, covering the period from January 13 to June 8. The info comes from Apple Maps, and carries three trendlines: Driving, Walking, and Transit. Continue Reading
The 2019 Peabody Awards winners are announced (oddly not referenced as 2020 winners), and they include four podcasts in the News, Radio/Podcasts category. One of them is “Threshold,” produced by Montana Public Radio. Continue Reading
Podtrac’s “Podcast Audience Category Ranking” report for May is finalized for subscribers, and the company offers a public peak. This month it is the News category which is spotlighted: The fragmented release (five out of 30 shows in a single… Continue Reading
According to a recent Nielsen survey, most Americans (83%) are listening to radio as much as, or more than, they did before the Covid-19 pandemic. but a shift has been happening, to streaming and on-demand listening via mobile devices and smart speakers. A WideOrbit blog post adds context. Continue Reading
A startup called Podhero is making waves today with its official launch, helmed by Pete Curley and Garret Heaton, founders of HipChat (sold to Atlassian, and from there sold to Slack). Podhero is a subscription service and podcast listening app… Continue Reading
Pod Drop features new and returning podcasts. Today, great music from a legend, great fiction starring kids, and a harrowing true story of governmental abduction. Continue Reading
We got a note from Acast this morning announcing the formation of a nascent podcast network within branded podcast consultancy Jam Street Media. The new network of original podcasts will be led by Jam Street founder Matty Staudt. Staudt was Vice President, Podcast Programming at iHeartRadio during 2018 and 2019. Continue Reading
In a survey by Pivotal Research Group, a panel of advertising executives responded with optimism that the Covid-related advertising slump reached its low point in May. That month showed signals of a rebound, according to a panel of advertising executives. Continue Reading
FOX News Audio is announcing that its daily news digest has started playing on SiriusXM, and that all of FOX’s podcasts are now on Pandora (a Sirius subsidiary). The reach expansion is pegged at 100-million listeners. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
“The podcast wars are here,” says Steve Goldstein in this guest column. With comparisons to baseball, TV, and satellit radio, Goldstein lays out the anatomy of podcasting’s new competitive parameters. It’s not about just getting users to sign up for Premium service — Daniel Ek is going after radio. Read this exceptional anlysis. Continue Reading