NPR has hired Michael Smith as its new chief marketing officer. He will step into the post beginning April 6. Most recently he was senior vice president and general manager of digital channels for Scripps Networks. “It’s essential to NPR’s future that its content and audience reflect America’s full diversity,” Smith said. Continue Reading
In an unusual move, Apple Podcasts announced a radical change in its approach. Rather than wait for the world’s celebrities to decide that they want to join the podcasting bandwagon, Apple has proactively moved to create a show for every single one of them. Read on for a credible and 100% accurate statement from Apple representative April Everfirst. Continue Reading
Pod Drop features new, interesting, and returning podcasts. Today: Dr. Brene Brown’s new show produced by Cadence13, a podcast about the podcast business, and a new ARN/iHeart production starring an Australian comedian hoping to lighten coronavirus anxiety. Continue Reading
Huawei, the China-based technology company, has launched its own mobile music service in Europe. Huawei Music is a streaming music app designed to work with the business’ smartphones and tablets. The European launch is backed by licensing deals with the three major labels, and the app’s library includes 1.2 million albums and more than 50 million tracks. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia is the latest to share its internal data about podcast listening in the face of a global pandemic. The company found overall growth in podcast listens, with news, business and finance, and various arts categories seeing notable spikes. Continue Reading
Spotify and Warner Music Group have renewed their global licensing deal. The companies confirmed that Warner’s library be available in India under the terms of their latest agreement. No financial details were disclosed. Continue Reading
Chartable released an assessment of podcast listening, adding a new layer to the picture of how the world is consuming media during a pandemic. It combined data about downloads with its listening statistics from publishers from Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Podcasters. It examined a subset of about 6,000 podcasts and compared their March results with a baseline of those from the second half of February, when there were just over a dozen confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. Continue Reading
With the coronavirus crisis saturating media news, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that quarantine references would seep into podcast advertising — especially when podcasts hosts are controlling the message to a large extent. Magellan, and podcast advertising analytics company, examined the phenomenon. Continue Reading
Podsights, a podcast research and attribution firm, put a survey into the field with general questions about the future of podcasting, and more specific focal points on audience uptake and advertising spend during the coronavirus phase. Continue Reading
Podtrac continues its very interesting year-to-date and week-over-week charting of podcast downloads and audience size. New in this report, Podtrac has added arrays of micro charts for 19 major podcast categories. In these, we see interesting stories being told of attention paid to different types of content. It can be understood as a kind of sociological study of listening in a stressful era. Continue Reading
Plenty of podcasts are informative, but formal educational content is an emerging niche within the audio field. Lyceum is a new operation that exclusively provides educational audio programming. The business will produce original podcasts and audio courses, as well as helping existing educational podcasters to connect with audiences. Continue Reading
Pod Drop features new, interesting, and returning podcasts — now with trailers! Today, two new shows from Pineapple Street Studioes (one unannounced), and the new Joe Biden podcast. Continue Reading