If genius is in the details, Super Hi-Fi is celebrating a moment of genius success: one-billion “audio stitches” — transitions between songs, mainly. The company’s AI tech creates smart and smooth segues between songs, meant not only to eliminate gaps in listening, but to create what Founder/CEO Zack Zalon calls “tapestries of emotional listening.” Continue Reading
The JACK brand, one of the few remaining independent commercial radio groups in the UK, is announcing a deal with Targetspot which will allow advertisers to access JACK’s digital audio inventory programmatically for the first time. Continue Reading
Pod Drop features new, interesting, and returning podcasts. Today, new podcasts from Frequency Machine, Los Angeles Times, and American Public Media. Continue Reading
Stitcher, a top podcast network, enjoyed first-quarter revenue of $17.1-million, a 13% jump year-over-year from Q1 2019 ($15.1-million). (As a timely but random point of comparison, PodcastOne just sold to LiveXLive last week for $18-million.) Projecting across the year, it might be feasible to consider Stitcher a $68-million topline business. Continue Reading
In iHeartMedia’s Q1 earnings call, Chairmand and CEO Bob Pittman laid out his company’s revenue trendlines, a review of strategic decisions, and his views of a hopeful future. In simple coronavirus strokes: Listening is up, advertising is down, and digital initiatives are providing the best result and will propel future recovery. Continue Reading
A weekly column from the preeminent Radio Futurologist. THIS WEEK: How the BBC produced during coronavirus. How is Beats 1 doing? Ten best music radio stations. Radio recovery. Podcast promoter chat. And much more! Continue Reading
The Peabody Awards shared its nominees for the best broadcasting and digital media stories released in 2019. The selection of nominees included 12 from the worlds of radio and podcasting Continue Reading
Today’s headline news that online music service LiveXLive will acquire pioneering podcast network PodcastOne shines new light on both companies and raises their profiles. It is the latest in a category consolidation that is mashing up podcast networks with related — but different — new parent companies. Continue Reading
Warner Music Group shared its interest in going public earlier this year, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused a delay in its plans. Even though the virus continues to wreak havoc on both markets and populations, the company is continuing to lay groundwork to move forward with listing. Continue Reading
Podtrac released its ranking of the top 20 podcast publishers for April 2020. iHeartRadio edged out NPR for the top spot, thanks to a U.S. unique monthly audience of 22.57 million. Continue Reading
PodcastOne has been acquired by LiveXLive. The podcast network includes shows from Adam Carolla, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Shaquille O’Neal, Kaitlyn Bristown, and more. The purchase is reportedly an all-stock deal valued at about $18 million. Continue Reading
Nielson is announcing a new vertical for its Gracenote division: Gracenote Audio On Demand. The company describes this as a comprehensive dataset which is “the catalog of reference driving podcast services with the ability to enhance navigation and discovery capabilities.” In other words, Gracenote is doing for podcasting what it has historically done for music — catalog the entire medium with metadata. In this case the dataset identifies and locates podcasts according to topics, personalities, and other criteria. Continue Reading