Podtrac has shared its weekly podcast listening data of audience trends during the coronavirus pandemic. The period of April 20-26 included two promising results: growth in downloads and audiences. Continue Reading
Big news today for the many fans of This American Life. The iconic podcast is now available on Spotify. Its arrival is a move that could help further entrench Spotify as a major podcast listening platform, and marks a meeting of podcasting’s past and present. Continue Reading
Sirius XM has released its financials for the first quarter of 2020. The satellite radio and audio company reported revenue of $1.95 billion, up from $1.74 billion in the same period of 2019. Net income totaled $293 million, or 7 cents per share, up from $162 million, or 3 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Continue Reading
Podcast Radio, the interesting all-podcast DAB+ radio station in London, has announced a weekly interview show of its own called The Pod 20. It’s a chart show with a podcaster guest interview. The show will be hosted by Graham Mack Continue Reading
Tidal appears to be adding a unique new option for connecting with its library. Billboard reported that the streaming service is launching a free tier called Tidal Access. Continue Reading
BIA Advisory Services has released a new forecast for local advertising revenue that reflects the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The original outlook expected that U.S. local advertising would reach $161.3 billion this year, with digital sources pegged to be $66.9 billion. Continue Reading
Venerable podcast giant PodcastOne has joined Nielsen’s qualitative profiling service, Podcast Listener Buying Power. Nielsen’s service launched last August. It’s ultimate goal is to connect podcast advertisers with certain listener types as profiled by Nielsen’s Scarborough category database. Continue Reading
Google is introducing some adjustments to its voice assistant’s responsiveness. A blog post outlined new tweaks to setting up Voice Match with Google Assistant, as well as fine-tuning how likely it is to be activated. Continue Reading
Westwood One and Magellan AI teamed for an investigation into advertising on top 400 podcasts in the United States. Their review collected between the Q4 2018 and Q4 2019. The pair found that the number of podcast ads has risen on the back of similar growth in the number of episodes. Continue Reading
A weekly column from the preeminent Radio Futurologist. THIS WEEK: James compiles the latest coronavirus-impacted listening figures from audio operations around the world, including national radio services, community broadcasters, and podcast companies. Continue Reading
Pod Drop features new, interesting, and returning podcasts. Today: A history podcast hosted by John Meacham, a show about forgiveness with streetwise pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, and a UFO encounter show from Aaron Mahnke. Continue Reading
The Myers Report, issued by the Jack Myers media empire MediaVillage, has issued a set of projections for 2020 advertising spend, comparing pre-COVID-19 with the current and future environment. Click through for a telling chart of projections. Continue Reading