Jottings of note:
Metrics of Talk
NPR and Edison Research announce the fifth-year return of The Spoken Word Audio Report. It’s November 9, it’s free, and it will include special emphasis on location — exploring how listeners engage at home, at work, in-car, and other places. The webinar will be presented by Lamar Johnson (VP of Sponsorship Marketing, NPM) and Megan Lazovick (Vice President, Edison Research). Register HERE.
Hitching
If you’ve noticed new shows hitching rides on your favorite podcast feeds, you have observed a growing industry trend — as reported by Sara Guaglione in Digiday. Those hitchhikers can be trailers for new seasons of the original podcast, or even — more audaciously — trailers or episodes for different shows produced by the same network. If potentially confusing to the consumer, the tactic is obviously good for publishers, attempting to shift existing loyalties into new podcasts. READ
Patronage
Mark Mulligan continues a series of columns analyzing streaming royalty opportunities from the creator perspective with “Why artist subscriptions are the perfect partner to two-tier licensing.” He asserts that a downturn for long-term artists is likely given bot farms polluting the streaming financial ecosystem. And it is exactly those self-releasing artists who would be meaningfully served by subscriptions plans that funnel small amounts of fan-paid money directly to them. It’s an opportunity that label artists don’t have. READ
November 2, 2023