Under the theme “Building the World’s #1 Audio Network,” Spotify released its Q4 2020 results today. The main public-facing presentation is a splashy infographic illustrating user growth and recent acquisitions and features, with not a single financial metric in view. Click through for a thorough rundown of main finance results and user metrics. Continue Reading
SiriusXM, whose native and acquired assets address 150-million listeners, one of the largest audiences in American audio, reported Q4 earnings. Here, we recap the major financial points, then dive into key remarks pertaining to subsidiaries Pandora, Stitcher, and podcasting generally. Click through for illuminating quotes from the investor call. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released the January edition of the measurement company’s Top Podcast Publishers ranker. (See graphic below.) As always in this ranking, iHeartRadio (#1) and NPR (#2) reside at the top. We take an interest in remixing this ranker with an eye to the number of active shows for each publisher. The result reorders the list according to the average number of downloads per show, and average number of listeners per show. Click through for the original Podtrac table, and the RAIN remixes.
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The Podscape, a graphic representation of the podcast business landscape created by Magellan AI and Sounds Profitable, has been revised. Of special note in this new edition are colored overlays indicating companies which own podcast entities, often through acquisitions of the past three years. Click through to see the infographic, get the download link and the email address for submitting comments to the creators. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein lays out some Reality with a capital R for new and would-be podcasters. “The truth is well-funded companies with tools, talent, and resources at their disposal often fall into a similar trap of introducing merely adequate content along with vanilla marketing.” Steve itemizes three critical strategic components. A must-read column.
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In its fiscal-Q1 earnings report (quarter ending December 2020), Warner Music Group reported its highest overall quarterly revenue in its history as a standalone company, and 16% digital revenue growth. Streaming was discussed at length by CEO Steve Cooper and CFO Eric Levin. Click through for quotes, numbers, and analysis. Continue Reading
Podsights released an update to its Podsights Benchmark Report series, this one analyzing data collected in Q1 through Q4 of 2020. During that span the report collected 2.5-billion impressions across 1,274 campaigns bought by 421 brands at a total cost of $65-million. Click through for details, graphs, and a link to freely download this dense and informative report. Continue Reading
In its latest podcast network alliance, Triton Digital is announcing that All Things Comedy (ATC) is moving its shows to Triton’s Omny Studio division for creation, management, and distribution, and will use Triton Digital’s measurement tools for those podcasts. ATC aggregates over 50 podcasts owned by comedians. Continue Reading
Audio ad-tech company AdsWizz has won a Digiday Award as the “Most Innovative Technology Platform.” That specific program being awarded is Dynamic Creative Optimization, which enables marketers to dynamically generate 10-million unique audio creative ad variations. Continue Reading
Last August we covered a new and original smart-speaker audio campaign for Lucky Charms, created by short-form audio producer SpokenLayer. Today we learn that the “Lucky Charms Magical Mission” creative has won the Digiday Award for Best Audio Campaign in 2020. The win is a watermark for the company’s extension from short-form audio production to creative studio work. Continue Reading
Mixcloud LIVE, a realtime video-streaming addition to the Mixcloud recorded-audio experience for DJs, is out of a nine-month beta testing period. We tested the platform from the listener perspective and found it exceptional. 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