Week-over-week podcast downloads were nearly flat in Podtrac’s just-released weekly report. The longer year-over-year view shows 45%+ increase in downloads. Click through for charts. Continue Reading
Global streaming music streaming service Deezer has put a stake in the ground of high-resolution audio with a new product called HiFi Room. The virtual room holds 15 exclusive playlists separated into music genres and classic album reissues. The collection is updated weekly, and is drawn from 52-million hi-rez tracks that Deezer has amassed. Continue Reading
CUMULUS MEDIA’s Westwood One today announced a partnership with Rolling Stone to market and distribute their podcasts Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper, and Rolling Stone Music Now. The agreement includes the back catalogue in addition to future episodes. Continue Reading
We got word that Dove was advertising on Pandora in an unusual way that seems to interestingly straddle categories. The bath care company (that’s Dove, not Pandora) worked with Studio Resonate, a division of Pandora that self-describes as “An audio-first creative consultancy […] at the crossroads of creative and data, science and sound.” The outcome is something between a music track and a podcast episode. Continue Reading
The warning is clear, though without a timeline: “You will soon lose access to Google Play Music.” That’s what Android users see when they open the Google Play Music app — Google’s would-be direct competitor to Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. Users are advised to transfer their accounts to YouTube Music, where the subscriptions will continue. YouTube Music is a starkly different UEX environment and library proposition. Continue Reading
After Spotify’s Q3 earnings call this week, SPOT stock demonstrated investor unhappiness with some aspects of the financial performance, along with a wider midweek market downturn. This post digs into the call details to uncover several key points related to content metrics, audience size, and podcast strategy. Click through for some interesting metrics. Continue Reading
In one of its most imaginative studies to date, Magellan AI has released data showing how the two main party presidential campaigns have used podcast marketing. The quick summary is that both campaigns have advertised in podcasts, but on different schedules and in different ways. Click through for details and graphics. Continue Reading
Just over a year since ad-tech company AdsWizz launched PodScribe, a proprietary podcast transcript feature, the company has announced that one-million episodes have been transcribed and are available for word-specific targeting by podcast advertisers. The tool illuminates contexts within podcast episodes and enables advertisers to target brand-safe positioning, and avoid brand-unsafe contexts. Continue Reading
Audible has branched out to the open podcast realm, announcing an addition of 100,000 free shows. These podcasts appear in the Audible app and presumably can be heard by non-subscribers. This is a fairly big movement for the Amazon-owned Audible, a hardline subscription business. But it’s only 100,000 shows in a universe of 1.5-million, and a search for known shows came up empty. Continue Reading
In a startling announcement, which in hindsight seems inevitable, leading media campaign planning and buying platform Strata has accepted the entire inventory of podcast company Acast. Acast’s portfolio of 20,000+ podcasts will be exposed to agencies and advertisers engaged in all kinds of media marketing. This deal will be seen in a future rear-view mirror as breakthrough. Continue Reading
Podcast Radio, the all-digital, all-podcast radio station heard in London, Surrey, Manchester, and Glasgow, has partnered with Curiouscast, the Canadian podcast network and part of the Corus Entertainment Network. A selection of Curiouscast episodes will be inserted into Podcast Radio’s rotation. U.S. listeners can hear Podcast Radio, too. Continue Reading