Spotify

Spotify upheaval over Rogan content

Posted on by Brad Hill

Spotify employees are more than unhappy with Joe Rogan’s controversial guests and remarks in some catalog episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, which is starting an exclusive distribution deal. Much of the turmoil is reportedly centered around perceived transphobia expressed in the show. rogan recently apologized … for something else. Spotify staff have petitioned leadership for pre-publishing editorial control of the podcast. According to anonymously sourced reports, Daniel Ek has decided against that. Continue Reading →

Stream listening dipped in July (Triton Digital Webcast Metrics)

Posted on by Brad Hill

U.S. stream listening slipped about 3% month-over-month in July, according to the Triton Digital Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. The two leaders, Pandora and iHeartRadio, each slipped a bit from the month before. Click through for other details and RAIN’s unique long-term Webcast Metrics tracker. Continue Reading →

New from Podtrac: Podcasting rebounds, and Apple grows distribution lead … sort of

Posted on by Brad Hill

In a blast of information preceding its appearance Friday at the IAB Podcast Upfront 2020, Podtrac/Authentic sent us a ream of data and new show deals. CEO Mark McCrery is scheduled to speak at the IAB Podcast Upfront on Friday. Podtrac data indicate that podcast lilsteneing has rebounded from Covid, and that Spotify is chasing Apple hard in audience reach for podcasting. Apple still easily wins in number of downloads. Click through for much more details. Continue Reading →

Joe Rogan lands on Spotify; not exclusive yet; some shows missing

Posted on by Brad Hill

As reported, The Joe Rogan Experience — the world’s most successful podcast by many measures — has landed in the Spotify app. Thus marks the start of this well publicized exclusive distribution deal. Except … not exclusive yet. We are still able to play Rogan in other podcast apps. That’s not totally unexpected; the publicized deal details did note that episodes would persist for some amount of time before lowering the gate. There’s another peculiarity, though: Not all the episodes have made it into Spotify, according to reports. Speculation of censorship is circulating. Continue Reading →

Rumor Fact(ory): Spotify tries to acquire Meghan Markle and Prince Harry for podcast exclusive

Posted on by Brad Hill

It’s all over the entertainment press, each piece of coverage inching closer to “confirmed” than the last. (See The Mirror HERE.)To us it is still a Rumor Fact(ory) item, but certainly plausible: Spotify offering (or preparing to offer) an exclusive podcast deal to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. The dollars might be relatively modest on Spotify’s balance sheet, though — The Mirror quotes unnamed sources who say that a seven-figure deal is in the works. Continue Reading →

Spotify might launch virtual concerts

Posted on by Brad Hill

Back in April, Spotify blogged about musicians setting up virtual concerts as Covid-19 forced them offstage. If the company wasn’t putting two + two  together at that time, it might be now. That is an easy conclusion to draw from hacker and reverse engineer Jane Manchung Wong, who uncovered non-public screens within the Spotify app indicating live virtual concert streaming in development. Continue Reading →

Jeff Umbro: Lemonada Media Moves to Stitcher’s Midroll for Ad Sales, an interview with CEO Jessica Cordova Kramer

Posted on by Brad Hill

by Jeff Umbro

In this week’s column, Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro provides news and commentary about Lemonada’s ad rep move, Joe Budden’s apparent separation from Spotify, Audible’s new plan, Joe Rogan and Apple … and an interview with Jessica Cordova Kramer. Continue Reading →

Google advances its programmatic audio buying tools

Posted on by Brad Hill

Google has raised its game in programmatic audio. Google’s broad digital advertising platform, Ad Manager, is getting audio programmatic for the first time. Additionally, Google’s DV360 is enhancing its existing tools. DV360 is the abbreviated brand name of Display & Video 360, formerly called DoubleClick. The systems stumbles over RSS feeds, perhaps slowing adoption ion podcasting, though independent distribution platforms like Spotify and Pandora work fine. Continue Reading →