Jottings of note:
Milestone(s)
Heather Osgood, Founder of True Native Media and featured guest on RAIN’s Podcast Business Lunch series, celebrates the 200th episode of her business podcast, The Podcast Advertising Playbook. The episode itself is a recognition of that long run, revisiting key milestones along the way. “From the early days of explaining what a host-read ad even was, to unpacking dynamic ad insertion and brand safety, we’ve covered a lot,” she says. At the same time, key values remain unchanged: Podcasting is still about connection and trust, Osgood observes. “This episode isn’t just a celebration, it’s a reflection.” Announcement HERE, episode HERE.
Insider Best
Congratulations to long-time RAIN associate E.B. Moss — RAIN Summit speaker extraordinaire, content strategist, B2B marketer, and podcast executive. Her Insider Interviews podcasts has been awarded “Best Indie Podcast: Business Category” at PopCon Creator Summit . See Insider Interviews HERE. See E.B.’s announcemen HERE.
iHeart & Dolly
iHeartMedia partners with theme park Dollywood in the creation of “Dollywood Radio,” a new iHeart station available via the iHeartRadio app. Dollywood Radio features programing from Dolly’s large catalog of music, as well as songs from her favorite artists across country, bluegrass and gospel music. Further, in recognition of the park’s 40th season, the station features songs highlighted as part of Dollywood’s in-park atmosphere music. We are told listeners also will hear special shout outs from Dolly herself. (Somewhat to the side, we see that Dolly is scheduled for a December run at Caesar’s Palace, with ticket prices starting at $1,200. Best view runs above $70,000.)
Living the Live Life
“As brands step up their podcast marketing spend, podcast companies are putting on more live events to meet the growing demand.” That assessment is from Alexander Lee, Senior Entertainment Media Reporter at Digiday. Lee observes that SiriusXM started live podcast shows last year, with 10 events. The same company has produced 18 of them so far in 2025. While the events are not ticketed, the revenue stream is important thanks to an increasing rush of sponsors wishing to be involved — there is a doubling of value for sponsors, when the live production is released as a normal RSS podcast. So far this year, SXM has boosted its total 2024 live-podcast revenue by 50%. More HERE.
July 9, 2025
