NPR announces the finalists in the netwrok’s most recent Student Podcast Challenge, targeted to college students for the first time. Fascinatingly, the contest intersected the Covid pandemic, a collision might have given students more time to focus on audio projects, and definitely influenced the content. Click through for links to each submission for listening. Continue Reading
Gina Garrubbo, President/CEO of National Public Media, and RAIN Summit speaker, has been elected as Board Chair at the IAB. She has served as the IAB Board’s Vice Chair since August 2020 and as the Co-Chair of the IAB Audio Committee since 2017. Garrubbo’s placement atop the Board puts an eminent audio executive in the top seat of the trade group which represents digital advertising across all media categories. Continue Reading
Digital audio advertising exchange company DAX is announcing today that it has reached agreement with NPR to manage the public radio juggernaut’s Canadian podcast ad inventory. The agreement establishes DAX as the exclusive third-party partner for handling sponsorship deals across NPR’s podcast inventory in Canada. Continue Reading
NPR unleashed its Podcast Report Winter 2021. This interesting document is a combined growth report, best practices manifesto, and case study. Click through for details and a link to the free report. Continue Reading
NPR is the leading podcast network in both types of measurement used by Triton Digital in the company’s most recent U.S. Podcast Report. NPR also grabbed both #1 spots in the Top 100 Podcasts rankers, with a show that posted 840 episodes in the four-week measurement period. The top network lists are almost unchanged from the previous reporting period. Click through for details. Continue Reading
In the December 2020 Top Podcast Publishers report from Podtrac, iHeartRadio held the #1 slot and NPR maintained its #2 ranking — those two networks remaining invulnerable to competitive infringement in the entire history of Podtrac’s ranking. As we have noted before, iHR and NPR pursue opposite audience concentration strategies. A glance backward shows that each of these two juggernauts has doubled down on its strategy. Click through for numbers and an illustrative chart. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In this year-in-review guest column, Steve Goldstein ruminates on audio’s growth from outdated also-ran in the media universe, to an essential component of the media mix. And the audio story is more than just Spotify and SiriusXM. Continue Reading
Podtrac released its monthly Top Podcast Publishers ranking for november. The company noted that global unique streams and downloads decreased for the Top 10 publishers by 10% from October and increased by 40% over November 2019. This makes sense, as the long Thanksgiving weekend might disrupt podcast listening routines, while the overall category growth over a year made November a growth story over that longer time frame. In the numbers: A large catalog disparity, in which iHeartRadio operates ten times as many podcasts as NPR does, illustrates different strategies of two powerhouse podcast networks. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein chats with Edison Research SVP and ubiquitous keynote speaker Tom Webster about the podcast experience through smart speakers. the conversation is informed by stats and charts from the Edison/NPR Smart Audio Report. Continue Reading
The Spoken Word Audio Report 2020, produced by Edison Research and NPR, is out. One broad and important finding: 75% of the U.S. population (18+) listens to spoken word audio monthly. Daily, it is 43%. AM/FM is paying the price for increased listening to other platforms of spoken word audio; the trend is clear from 2014 to 2020. Click through for much more, and graphics, and a link to the download. Continue Reading
Announced at today’s IAB Podcast Upfront (Day 1), NPR is changing Consider This into a localized news podcast serving 10 regions. will hear a version of Consider This with reporting on their community from their community, alongside a national view from NPR. NPR notes that this program is unique to podcasting, and made possible by public radio’s shared journalism and digital networks. Delivering the right localized show to each listener is accomplished by AdsWizz and Nielsen. Continue Reading
If Q2 was the Covid Quarter, NPR was infected. The U.S. public radio network lost about a quarter of its audience during that period. The main influence? Loss of morning and evening car commuting. But this trend is balanced by shifts to in-home device listening, increasing reach overall. Podcast revenue will surpass broadcast ad revenue for the first time. Click through for details. Continue Reading