Technology podcasts earned the highest category CPM rate (cost per thousand ad plays) in March, according to Libsyn-owned AdvertiseCast. For the month, the average CPM for a 60-second podcast spot was $23.43, while the Tech category average was $32. Kids & Family posted a $28 CPM, and the Business category came in at $27. Click for a trendline and additional details. Continue Reading
The Webby Awards, which since 1995 has been operating an annual ceremony for excellence on the internet, now announces a spinoff podcast award program. Called the Signal Awards, the first ceremony will be in January, 2023. Click for categories and submission info. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia is partnering with digital talent network/studio to form a new network called Curativity. The alliance kicks off with three kid shows. Continue Reading
In our latest intermittent check-ins to Podtrac’s weekly podcast download report, we see a 45% increase between March 22, 2021 and March 27, 2022. The Society & Culture category showed the strongest week-over-week growth at +5%. Science showed the weakest week-over-week growth at -7%. Click for graphics.
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Spotify has dropped an interactive graphic website which presents statistics promoting Spotify’s value (and the value of streaming music generally) to musicians at many levels. Up top, Spotify notes that it has paid over $30-billion in royalties to the music industry as a whole, including $7-billion last year. Following that is an interactive card deck, called Top 10 Takeaways,” which highlights selected payout metrics. And there is much more. Click for illustrations and a link. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In the latest guest column from Steve Goldstein, he marches through a litany of podcast listening apps, “a curious business” according to Steve. “Developing a large following is hard and expensive, yet the apps keep coming.” It’s difficult — but not impossible — to break through to scale. Continue Reading
Two French podcast publishers, Bababam and Choses a Savoir, have chosen Spotify subsidiary Megaphone for creation, monetization, and metrics analysis. As part of joining Megaphone, these two publishers will be early testers of the Spotify Audience Network in France. The announcement includes metrics from Chartable, acquired by Spotify to bundle into Megaphone. Continue Reading
Public media organization PRX today announced a podcast streaming partnership with Sensical, a relatively new free streaming service from Common Sense Networks. Sensical debuted in June of last year, and launched its podcast slate in December. Continue Reading
Jottings of Note
— Programmatic Need (Heather Osgood)
— Q&A (Francis Currie)
— New Drops (CNN)
Macmillan, the only Big 5 book publisher with its own podcast networks, will partner with kids podcast company Pinna to publish books based on the Pinna original podcast Quentin & Alfie’s ABC Adventures. This interesting partnership leverages Macmillan’s crossover expertise between books and podcasts. Also interesting inasmuch as the deal represents a rare directional crossover of podcast to book. Continue Reading
Spotify has announced what is, by our count, the third Sound Up program of podcast creation mentoring. This time the field is Kids & Family shows that will compete. At stake is what the company describes as “an immersive week of in-person training at our Spotify offices in Los Angeles, to be followed by a series of virtual workshops and classes, and finally production of a podcast pilot episode.” Click through for lots of detail. Continue Reading
Popular listening platforms, from streaming music to broadcast radio, have stepped into podcasting by pulling podcasting onto their platforms, mostly through acquisitions. Alphabet/Google/YouTube is taking a somewhat different tack, offering six-figure grants to podcasters and podcast networks to create video versions of their shows. This according to Bloomberg, which cites anonymous sources. Continue Reading