A few interesting notes related to podcasting from Cumulus Media in the company’s Q3 earnings report. Cumulus owns Westwood One and the Westwood One Podcast Network, although neither entity was mentioned by name in the earnings call remarks by CEO Mary Berner and CFO Frank Lopez-Balboa. Podcasting provided a bulward during trouble performance of streaming and local digital marketing. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia announces today that it has accomplished a partnership with Pushkin Industries, the audio production company founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018. The alliance makes iHeartMedia the exclusive sales partner for Pushkin podcasts. Beyond the sales effort, the two companies will co-produce new shows, with a project timeline stretching over the next two years. Two of those shows are sketched out in today’s announcement. Continue Reading
Podcast pioneer and RAIN speaker Kellie Riordan has launched Deadset Studios, a consultancy and production house. The new company describes its mission this way: “We offer high-level strategic advice to media houses, brands, organisations and independent producers to set you… Continue Reading
by Jeff Umbro
In this week’s column, Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro covers key podcast news items from the past week. Also, he claims to have listened to non-political podcasts … for one day. Continue Reading
Riverside.fm is announcing its emergence from stealth mode with $2.5-million of seed investment from Oren Zeed. Riverside.fm is a video+audio recording and livestream platform for podcasters, with a specialty of hi-rez recording of audio and video in separate tracks. Riverside’s competitive strategy explicitly targets audio connection platform Zencastr, promising to “drink Zencastr’s milkshake.” Continue Reading
iHeartPodcast Network Australia, which is managed by Australian radio group ARN, is partnering with DM Podcasts (Diamantina Media). At the same time, ARN is announcing that iHeartPodcast Network Australia is a sponsor of the 2020 Australian Podcast Awards, which happen later this month. Continue Reading
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