Australians are listening to lots of radio, according to the GfK Share of Audio study. Daily audio consumption totaled 3 hours and 20 minutes. Live radio accounted for 65.3% of time spent listening to audio in the country, edging up from 64.9% last year. Continue Reading
Barstool Sports is the latest podcaster to make the jump to television. ESPN has inked a deal to create a late-night TV show called Barstool Van Talk from the trio behind the Pardon My Take podcast. Continue Reading
Podtrac posted its September 2017 podcast rankings. The month showed some shuffles from the previous month across the whole list. At the top, Stuff You Should Know edged out RadioLab for the No. 2 spot, although This American Life remains at the top of the heap. Continue Reading
In one of the most interesting and consequential deals we’ve reported this year, UK radio juggernaut Global has acquired U.S. digital audio advertising company AudioHQ. Linked with that, Global will launch DAX, its programmatic audio ad platform, in the U.S., operated by AudioHQ — whose name will change to DAX. We spoke with the principles. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: James shares the highlights from Radio Alive, a recent industry event in Australia. Plus other highlights from radio and audio around the world. Continue Reading
Pandora has given RAIN News a first look at its 2018 Definitive Guide to Audio, a report on the state of the industry with some statistics on terrestrial radio, streaming music, and podcasts. It’s a beautifully produced collection of data points and research that (unsurprisingly) creates a narrative showing streaming audio in a positive light. But it also does present some of the pain points facing broadcast in particular as audio consumption changes. Continue Reading
Nielsen released the highlights from its Music 360 report for 2017 at the start of October, but this week it added some further context focused on Hispanic listeners. The Hispanic audience showed larger amounts of spending on music. Continue Reading
Spotify may have reached revenue of 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in the first half of 2017. The results were first reported by The Information, citing “people briefed on the numbers.” If accurate, that first-half revenue is already 70% of the company’s total revenue from 2016. Continue Reading
We’ve been profiling a trend over recent months of the film and television industry of finding new source material in podcasts. The latest project in this vein to hit the airwaves, or at least your fiber optic cables, is Amazon Prime Video’s Lore. The show is based on a podcast of the same name by Aaron Mahnke featuring real-life stories of horror, witchcraft, and medical malpractice. Continue Reading
Ticketing company Songkick is closing down at the end of October. Variety obtained the letter Songkick sent to clients announcing the decision. The company has been engaged in a lengthy legal case against Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation over alleged anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior. Continue Reading
Music rights management company Kobalt has raised Series D financing of $14 million. The round came from Section 32, a VC fund from former Google Ventures head Bill Maris. Maris will join Kobalt’s board of directors as a result of the investment. Continue Reading
China-based CastBox is building out its podcast features with an audio search feature. The service using natural language processing to let listeners search for keywords or topics within episodes of shows in its catalog. For now, the search is only available in English, but may be expanded to other languages once the technology is perfected, according to founder and CEO Xiaoyu Wang. Continue Reading