Ad agency holding company WPP and iHeartMedia have launched a new partnership intended to raise the bar and encourage more experimentation in audio creativity. Dubbed Project Listen, the venture spans podcasts, broadcast radio, digital streaming, smart speakers and live events with a goal of helping marketers mine audio data for insights to be used for creative strategy and media planning and implementation. Read more
The top three podcasts remained the same in May according to Podtrac. The New York Times-produced morning news The Daily remained the most listened-to podcast, based on U.S. unique monthly audience. It was followed by This American Life and iHeartRadio’s Stuff You Should Know. Podtrac’s ranker also includes a rarity: the on-demand version of a broadcast radio morning show. In this case it’s the Premiere Networks’ syndicated The Breakfast Club. Read more
Summer begins next Friday, June 21 and to get a handle on what ad trends podcasters may experience during the coming months Magellan looked back to summer 2018. It found a year ago 61 brands leveraged summer-themed campaigns to reach their targets on the top 400 podcasts. And it wasn’t necessarily the sort of brands that are seasonal. Bedding, online entertainment, and food industries advertised their products the most. Read more
Buying classic rock or hip-hop listeners has been a way advertisers could segment Spotify users. But as the streaming music service looks to monetize its growing investment in podcasting, it will now allow ad buyers to specifically target podcast listeners. Read more
Triton Digital’s a2x programmatic marketplace for streaming audio and podcast inventory is securing a spot in Centro’s Basis, a demand side platform where advertisers and agencies go to purchase digital ad inventory. The alliance puts Triton’s inventory in front of digital buyers while for Centro, it bolsters Basis capabilities for executing global, targeted, non-skippable, and brand-safe audio ad buys through both open marketplace and private marketplace deals. Read more
Apple may not have podcasts geared toward kids in mind as it rolls out an updated iPod Touch, but producers of those shows may be the biggest beneficiaries among audio producers. That’s because new survey data shows that while most smartphone owners don’t see the need for a new version of an mp3 player, the iPod Touch has some appeal to young people who may not need or cannot afford an iPhone. Read more
The median hourly pay rate for people working in podcasting is $30-44 per hour. That’s according to a salary survey conducted by WNYC Studio’s Werk It women’s podcasting festival. That translates to a $55,000 to $80,000 annual salary range. The data shows men reported a median hourly rate of $40-44 compared to $35-39 for women. Read more
The iHeartPodcast Network has cooked up a new podcast that seems tailor-made for people whose Instagram accounts feature more photos of food than faces. Food 360 with Marc Murphy is a new podcast hosted by the chef, and regular judge on the Food Network’s “Chopped.” Murphy says the podcast will take an “all-encompassing look” at the world of food “bringing history, science, and culture to the table.” Read more
It has been three years since Bill Simmons launched The Ringer, a sports and pop culture brand led by its website. The Ringer has also become a big player in podcasting as it amassed 53.5 million downloads in May for its 30 podcasts. Simmons tells Adweek the company had $15 million in advertising sales and it’s tracking to be up significantly from that number in 2019.
“Some things worked in our favor, like the industry has really grown,” said Simmons. Read more
President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, has jumped into the podcast business. Speaking at the Brilliant Minds conference this week in Stockholm, the former President credited another podcaster for opening him up to the potential of the audio format. What caught his interest was people are more open when they listen to something than if the read it. Read more
What do Pat Boone and the Boston Tea Party have in common? They’re both going under the microscope in a new podcast. Also, Conan O’Brien’s TV sidekick gets his shot at being the star of the podcast. How AI is impacting the workplace. And a new podcast from public radio about how money impacts life in your 20s and 30s. Here’s some of what’s new in podcasting this week. Read more
Podcasters may notice a bit of a listening dip from the Pocket Casts app this weekend. That’s because the company has announced it will have limited capabilities during downtime scheduled for Sunday, June 16. The disruption is expected to begin at 8:30pm Eastern/5:30pm Pacific and last about eight hours. Read more
Thrillist co-founder/CEO Ben Lerer says he’s a “big believer” in podcasting in a wide-ranging interview with iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman for his podcast Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Lerer said it’s something the website known for its food, drink, travel and entertainment coverage is looking to expand into. “It’s just a super-compelling medium and it’s something that we’re investing in and looking at doing,” he said. Read more
Americans are spending a nearly obsessive amount of time with digital media, according to the highly anticipated, just released annual Internet Trends Report from tech guru Mary Meeker. She says consumers logged 6.3 hours a day online in 2018, a 7% increase from the prior year. That’s good for podcasting, which the report notes has seen its user base double during the past four years. Read more
It was just a month ago we reported on the beta-launch of a Spotify redesign that put podcasts front and center on the music service’s app. Now that update is being rolled out to all Premium users. The company says the “reimagined” Your Library version “makes getting started and staying up-to-date with podcasts on Spotify a seamless, personalized experience.” Read more
Five months of immersive reporting has produced a four-hour limited-run series by New Hampshire Public Radio that examines the transition from life in prison to what happens once a convict is on parole. Reporter Emily Corwin began work on the story that became the podcast Supervision in 2017, and continued to work on the four-episode series even though she jumped to Vermont Public Radio. Read more
If Lacey Henderson’s past is any indication, her new podcast is sure to prove to be a success. Henderson, who was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue tumor at age nine and had her leg amputated above the knee competed in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games in in the Long Jump. Now she’s launch the Picked Last in Gym Class from DCP Entertainment. Read more
Samsung’s foray into the red hot smart speaker marketplace has been delayed yet again. Its Galaxy Home was unveiled to great fanfare in August 2018, but the new tech has yet to come to fruition. It now says that the launch is set for the mid-second half of 2019. Read more
Triton Digital is diving deeper into podcasting as it announces it has acquired Omny Studio, the Australian-based podcast software and services company. Triton has already been working with Omny since 2017, integrating its audio publishing products and reselling them to Triton clients. Omny is used by big radio groups, including Entercom and Cumulus. Financial terms of the deal weren’t released. Read more
Apple is putting a bigger focus on Siri Shortcuts as it aims to make its voice assistant more user-friendly. An iHeartRadio software engineer has discovered an intuitive feature that will also make it easier for iPhone users to discover new music and podcasts. Read more
Play a few songs, and then hear a newscast. It may sound like traditional morning drive radio. But it’s how Spotify’s newest feature will integrate the streaming service’s music and podcast content. Your Daily Drive is a playlist that combines a user’s music preference with news and talk podcasts from NPR, PRI and the Wall Street Journal. Spotify says the podcasts will be updated throughout the day to keep both the news and music choices “fresh.” Read more
Podcasters not interested in throwing up a subscription paywall have a new option to make money from their listeners. Seattle-based Glow launched in beta this week. Its platform allows show producers to offer “memberships” to fans, who in exchange for paying a monthly fee, gain access to ad-free content, early access to new episodes, back catalog, and exclusive content. Read more
Four months after Mike Boudet relinquished hosting duties of the true-crime podcast Sword and Scale — after controversial comments he made about International Women’s Day cost the podcast advertisers and the loss of its hosting company – he’ll return to the show in July. The independent production company Incongruity says it has been “inundated” with tweets, emails, and voicemails from fans asking for Boudet's return. Read more
San Diego public broadcaster KPBS is jumping into the daily news podcast business. It has launched San Diego Matters, a local news-focused podcast that targets morning commuters. The station says the 10-minute podcast will be released by 6am each weekday morning. Read more
If you’re someone who gets to the movies early to watch the previews, you may already know what a new analysis about podcast previews indicates. Dan Misener, head of audience development at Pacific Content, examined the best-performing shows on the Apple Podcasts ranker and found a link between those at the top and those with a show trailer. Read more
The latest Edison Research Infinite Dial study found 62% of monthly podcast listeners discover new shows through recommendations they hear from hosts of other podcasts. A new TuneIn discovery tool may help grow that number. It has launched what it’s calling Pod Club, a new series about podcasts where hosts talk about what has caught their ears. Read more
The fast growth of podcasting has sparked interest in the investment community, and that’s paying dividends for podcast companies looking to raise capital. A new analysis shows venture capital firms worldwide have already invested nearly $100 million more into podcasting this year than in all of 2018. Not only was that a record first half for the podcast industry, but the numbers assure 2019 will bring a new high water mark for VC funding. Read more
As if the story of the murder of a Washington, DC power couple didn’t have all the elements needed for a true-crime podcast, the series produced by all-news WTOP-FM (103.5) had its own plot twist. The investigation for the podcast led to the discovery of confidential audio recordings of the trial of the man charged in what became known as the D.C. Mansion Murders. Read more
The Wall Street Journal continues to staff up its podcast team as it looks to launch its new flagship podcast. Branded simply as The Journal, the new offering is set to launch in beta on June 27. Ahead of that, the paper has promoted Jarrard Cole to deputy head of audio for the Wall Street Journal and executive producer of The Journal podcast. Read more
One of the hardest things to do is naming a podcast. Even harder is picking a new one. That’s what Elaina Smith has done. Her Women Want to Hear Women podcast has been retitled Breaking Thru with Elaina as it launches its second season and expands its focus, putting both men and women in front of the mic. Read more
Cabana, the podcast advertising rep firm that’s part of AdLarge Media, says its show portfolio has just grown by 10. The company has added new podcasts from publishers including New Hampshire Public Radio, Inc. magazine, and celebrity hosts like Jen Kirkman. The additions bring the Cabana podcast ad network to more than 175 shows. Read more
Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez believes the podcast industry’s is already bigger than what the IAB revenue numbers indicate. He thinks the industry pulled in $500 million last year and expects it to hit $700 million this year. Even more boldly, he predicts on the latest episode of KindredCast that U.S. podcast industry revenue will hit $1 billion in 2020. “You’re going to see a realization in a lot of the large traditional media companies that audio deserves taking a second look at,” Lopez said. Read more
Arguably more noteworthy than what was actually said, is that the weekend’s Produced By conference for Hollywood producers dedicated an entire panel to mining podcasts for content in the first place. The “Power of Podcast” panel was given all the more credibility after the entertainment industry watched as podcasts like Dirty John and Homecoming have translated into successful television series. Read more
A guest host and a break from a usual format – those are two of the things listeners to The Daily will notice this week. The most listened-to podcast is aiming to grow its listener base beyond the U.S. borders and it will do that with a week-long journey across Europe, looking at the rise of populism and nationalism. Read more
Two-thirds of podcast listening is done on smartphones and other mobile devices, according to Edison Research’s latest data. So a new forecast that the number of smartphones in use will grow at a slower clip—including iPhone users that are still critical for podcast consumption—
means podcasts will need to convert more current users than rely on new adopters.
Shattering the image of podcasters recording shows in a basement or garage, WNYC Studio’s newest show will feel more like a late-night television talk show than a podcast. Recorded in front of a live audience, Adulting will mix comedy with the big questions surrounding the permits of adulthood. Read more
Spotify will once again hold its five-day podcast incubator program designed to bring more women of color into the medium. During the five day (August 12-16) event at Spotify’s New York offices, the streaming audio service will teach the ten women selected to attend the all-expense-paid boot camp how to develop their idea, covering issues including technical production, storytelling through audio, and marketing a podcast. Read more
A growing number of blue-chip advertisers are putting their dollars into podcasting with some very familiar names turning up on Magellan’s quarterly analysis of advertising. It shows that during the first quarter a total of 2,440 brands or products advertised on the top 2,000 podcasts. That number is impressive enough on its own, but dig deeper and – as so-called brand awareness ads have increased – Magellan’s analysis delivers even better news. Read more
Since Bear Brook debuted last October, more than four million listeners have downloaded an episode of the New Hampshire Public Radio podcast. But it was a single listener who just helped solve part of the mystery of the murders that were the center of the series. Read more
Atlanta public radio station WABE (90.1) doesn’t have a lot of podcasts in its universe, but what it does have has a pretty good track record. Buried Truths, the show that tells the story of a black man gunned down outside his South Georgia home in 1948 for exercising his right to vote, won a Peabody Award in April. Now WABE is launching its third podcast, exploring hip-hop music in the South. Read more
Coming off a first quarter when its revenue more than doubled, Audioboom is expanding its advertising sales team to keep the momentum growing. Audioboom has hired Jessica Landman as Sales Director and promoted Jordan Imsho to Junior Sales Director to lead brand direct and digital agency partnerships. The company said it continues to expand its sales operation as it looks to fill other sales management roles. Read more
Gimlet Media is trying something a little different for its new podcast The Two Princes. It’s described as a “modern retelling of a classic fairytale” that “celebrates the joys and pitfalls of teenage romance, growing up, and facing your fears.” The Two Princes is a scripted podcast targeting LGBT audiences. Read more
The “Queen of Mean” gets nice for her new self-help podcast. Two new shows delve into the criminal justice system. A Texas trio offers their take on movies. And a show reveals what happens at the annual Freaknik celebration. Here’s a sampling of shows launching this week. Read more
“The camaraderie and the purpose and the sheer invention of something that didn’t exist was so irresistible.” That's Judy McGrath talking about the launch of MTV in 1981, with Bob Pittman, a founder of the game-changing cable TV music network. The pair reunited for the iHeartMedia CEO’s podcast “Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.” Read more
Audio consumption is “booming” as consumers around the globe spend more of their time with personalized media experiences. In its annual media outlook, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says the “rapid rise of podcasts as a compelling new genre” is one of the driving factors for the “resurgence” of voice. PwC forecasts podcasting will have “extremely strong” revenue growth during the next five years, growing at an annual rate of 28.5%. Read more
How much do you make? And how does that compare to coworkers of the opposite gender? Under the theory that you can’t fix a problem until you know how big it is, one podcast executive is hoping to create a baseline for how much people working in the medium are paid. Simplecast COO Jeanine Percival Wright’s goal is to address the pay gap that continues to reward women and people of color less than their white male counterparts. Read more
We reported in March that Over My Dead Body, the podcast that launched on Valentine’s Day tackling issues related to marriage and the criminal justice system, appeared headed for television screens. Wondery back then was in talks with showrunners about developing a TV program based on the six-episode podcast. Now it looks like a deal has been struck. Read more
It’s a brand built on telling tales of curiosities and oddities. Now, 100 years after the legacy began, Ripley's Believe It or Not! is continuing the quest for strange-but-true tales, launching a new weekly podcast. The The Believe It or Notcast will feature experts, celebrities and authorities on subjects ranging the odd and truly weird to topics out of this world. Read more
President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, have announced a multi-year partnership with Spotify to produce podcasts exclusive to the platform. The former President and First Lady will develop and produce shows on a wide array of topics, as well as lend their own voices to select podcasts. Read more
The podcast hosting site Podbean is branching out into advertising. The company has unveiled PodAds, its ad-insertion tool that aims to differentiate itself by charging a flat service fee for use of the ad management service rather than taking a cut of ad revenue, the model used by most other hosting platforms. Read more
The average American will spend 3 hours and 43 minutes per day using a mobile device according to new eMarketer data. That’s eight minutes more than last year—and audio is playing a big part in the growth. “Podcasts have taken off in popularity in the past few years,” analyst Yoram Wurmser says. Read more
It’s not just the addition of artificial intelligence that Apple is relying on to help listeners find new podcasts. It’s also implementing something a lot more low-tech. This summer the company is making several changes to show categories—adding some, renaming others while discontinuing some subcategories. It means podcasters may need to update how they classify their shows to ensure listeners can find them. Read more
Detroit’s celebrated Drew & Mike Show has been back on the air since iHeartMedia classic rock “106.7 Detroit’s Wheels” WLLZ inked a deal in April giving Drew Lane and the late Mike Clark a presence on weekends. But for a lot of Motor City fans, the duo never really disappeared. They remained part of their media habit thanks to a daily two-hour podcast which is now cleaned up and repackaged for the weekly on-air program. Read more
In a move that will make it easier for some small and independently-owned broadcasters to make the leap into podcasting, the online streaming platform SurferNetwork has struck a deal with Spreaker. The podcast the hosting platform will plug into SurferNetwork tools that will allow streamers to record a podcast or capture live radio for on-demand listening and then widely distribute the show across various podcast networks. Read more
Bloggers beware: you’ll soon be podcasters. At least that’s what the team at the podcast search engine Sounder thinks. They’re making a bold prediction. “We are forecasting that by 2024, every single business that currently has an active blog will also have a dedicated podcast,” it forecasts. If its numbers prove true, there would be a total of 756,000,000 minutes of new audio content produced each month. Read more
Picture a sports podcast host and the brotastic image of an unshaven guy wearing an oversized jersey and backward baseball cap may spring to mind. But a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon requires a makeover to that mental picture. In between performing nose jobs, facelifts and breast implants, he’s carved out a side career as the host of The Dr. Hockey Podcast. Read more
The end of iTunes for many consumers is bringing a new era for podcasters. Apple announced it will launch a dedicated app for Apple Podcasts, the means by which roughly 60% of all shows are consumed. But that’s just the start. The tech giant is also stepping up its role in how people search for podcasts. And Apple is bringing the Handoff feature to HomePods that means a podcast listener can easily transition from listening to a show in the car to their smart speaker at home. Read more
Nearly one of every five dollars spent on podcast advertising last year went to shows in the news, politics and current events category. The Podcast Advertising Revenue Study from the IAB and PwC shows the category’s share of ad dollars rose 38% last year compared to 2017. That trend is expected to continue into the coming year as the 2020 presidential election cycle leads to new show launches and increased listening to current events-driven podcasts. Read more
The TV production company Glass Entertainment Group has launched a podcast division. It’s called SQRL Media and the unit’s premiere podcast will be a series tackling one of the most notorious true-crime cases of the modern era. Confronting: O.J. Simpson will premiere June 12 on the 25-year anniversary of the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson. “This is an exciting new venture for us and a fantastic platform for storytelling,” says CEO Nancy Glass. Read more
Somebody Somewhere will become the first independently-produced podcast to join the Warner Media Podcast Network when its second season begins June 11. Tyler Moody, GM/VP of Warner Media’s foray into podcasting, says it’s part of the media conglomerate’s plans to expand its footprint in the podcast arena. Read more
In a move that will allow marketers to more finely tune their buys on Targetspot, the digital audio advertising platform has linked with Signal. It brings the Chicago-based Signal’s data platform and real-time identity technology into Targetspot’s new Listener ID service that allows for enhanced targeting capabilities and creation of new segments to help ad buyers to better address their messages to who’s hearing the spot. Read more
Public radio’s American Public Media is once again giving its kid-targeted science podcast Brains On! its own spinoff for the school-free summer months. The limited-run Smash Boom Best will feature host Molly Bloom being joined by a kid co-host in what APM describes as “an epic battle between two adult debaters.” The debate topics will be chosen by the podcast’s listeners. Read more
U.S. podcast revenue is expected to reach $678.7 million this year according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). That would be a 42% increase over what advertisers spent on the medium last year. The just-released IAB/PwC Podcast Advertising Revenue Study expects the pace of growth to remain strong with podcast ad market revenue forecast to surpass $1 billion by 2021. A dig into 2018’s final tally also shows lots of reasons for podcasters to celebrate. Read more
Podcast ads have been known to run as long as nine minutes—the length of some entire shows—as ambitious host-read ads take on a life of their own. But just-released data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers shows that’s by far the anomaly and not the rule. In fact the most common spot runs a very traditional radio-like one minute. Read more
Not unlike how airlines have offered their passengers content, Surf Media aims to keep people in the backseat of Uber or Lyft cars entertained as well. It’s already operating in ten U.S. cities and it’s just inked a deal that will make the universe of iHeartRadio content available on its tablets. That includes both streaming radio and podcasts. Read more
The PodX consumer-based podcast convention in Nashville last weekend didn't draw huge crowds, but the 300 or so who came to hear from the hosts of their favorite shows were rabid fans. And the experts who came to speak on various panels made them happy by noting podcasting is not a trend, but a business with a bright future. Read more
The global podcast platform Audioboom announced it has raised $4.8 million in additional capital, money which is tells investors it will use to “strengthen” its core U.S. operations through acquiring new “high revenue producing, established podcasts and talent.” Audioboom chairman Michael Tobin says after the “distraction” of the aborted Triton Digital deal, the company's growth trajectory has been “re-established.” Read more
Whatever happened to? For people who find themselves uttering that phrase, a new podcast from the iHeartPodcast Network could be a good fit. Described by iHeart as “eerie yet fascinating,” the show explores all things ephemeral, or anything our world has lost, dropped or forgotten. Appropriately titled Ephemeral, the podcast is hosted by Alex Williams. Read more
Kirk Minihane, the former morning host at Entercom sports WEEI-FM Boston, has jumped to Barstool Sports where he will host a daily podcast. “I want to try to emulate my old [radio] show and keep it loose,” Minihane said during an appearance with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on his Barstool Radio show. Milihane’s live-to-tape podcast for the platform begins June 15. Read more
What role can radio play in launching a major new movie? According to a Hollywood exec, it’s a significant one. Julie Rieger, former President, Chief Data Strategist and Head of Media for 20th Century Fox, talks about how a campaign the studio did last fall resulted in a 12% bump in ticket sales among people who had downloaded the iHeartRadio app. “It was fan-frickin-tastic,” she tells iHeart CEO Bob Pittman in the latest episode of his “Math & Magic” podcast. Read more
Venture capital firms are continuing to show interest in podcasting. The podcast analytics and hosting platform Backtracks is the latest example. It has raised $2.1 million in seed funding from seven venture capital firms, led by Moonshots Capital. Backtracks says the money will be used on product innovation and to fill key staff positions at the Austin, TX-based company. Read more
Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo were paired in afternoons on ESPN Radio from 2009 until 2015 when Van Pelt jumped to “Sports Center” duties on the network’s cable channel. Now the two men are reuniting in front of the ESPN microphones for a new podcast. SVP & Russillo will debut June 3 and, after three monthly editions, in September the show will become bi-weekly. Read more
Ideas that once seemed unpopular, even radical, yet changed history are the jumping off point for a new iHeartPodcast Network show aimed at inspiring listeners to speak up and spark change. The podcast is called Unpopular and the Yves Jeffcoat-hosted show discusses the rebels and revolutionaries who created lasting social change. Read more
Two-thirds of people who listen to podcasts at least once a month say they discover new shows through social media. The podcast listening app Castro has added a new feature to help make shows more shareable. It will allow users to select a show segment of up to 60-seconds and export that clip as a video that includes the artwork, episode title, podcast name and date of the podcast being shared. Read more
From E! Network personalities to three-time Olympians and NBA veterans to reality TV stars, there is a variety of new voices showing up on podcast apps this week. There’s also news of a new show coming with ties to Oprah’s OWN Network. Here’s a sampling of shows launching this week: Read more
There may be a growing number of options for accessing podcasts but the runaway winner in the race remains the smartphone. Nearly eight in ten weekly podcast listeners say they listen to shows on their phone, according to findings from Jacobs Media’s TechSurvey 2019. “Ultimately it is the smartphone that is the main conduit to listening to podcasts,” Jacobs Media President Fred Jacobs said. Read more
Ahead of its release in theaters Friday, highly anticipated Elton John biopic “Rocketman” is getting a full-court press from iHeartMedia. Working with Paramount Pictures, iHeart will stage an hour-long nationwide radio roadblock across 120 stations at 5pm ET/PT today (May 30) and there’s a podcast element to the blitz. Read more
The Woj Pod, the sports podcast hosted by ESPN’s senior NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, is bouncing from Cadence13 to ESPN Podcasts starting July 1. ESPN says The Woj Pod will remain a weekly podcast but it plans to publish more frequently around big events on the NBA calendar. Read more
One of the big pushes for 2019 is transcribing podcasts in order to make it easier for search engines to direct listeners to a specific podcast of interest among the growing sea of shows. The U.K.-based Trint is giving producers another option to achieve that goal. It has introduced a call recording feature on its iOS app that allows a host to conduct an interview on their iPhone, upload the audio file to Trint where its AI software will transcribe and send the results back to the user. Read more
The more places to find a podcast means more work getting the shows posted on all those platforms. Or does it? A new Spreaker update aims to take the pain out of publishing by allowing podcasters to distribute their show to all the big platforms—Apple Podcasts, Castbox, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts and Spotify—with just a single click. Read more
Podcast.co is hanging the Open For Business sign in America for the first time this week when the U.K.-based podcast platform establishes its first outpost on this side of the Atlantic. Podcast.co says it is opening a recording studio in the U.S. “New York City has always been the world capital when it comes to creativity, music and business,” Podcast.co founder James Mulvany said. Read more
Podtrac’s ranker for the most listened-to podcasts during the month of April brought a familiar list of top shows – despite changes in the algorithm for how downloads are measured. The New York Times-produced morning news podcast The Daily remained the most listened-to show. This American Life and iHeartRadio’s Stuff You Should Know each moved up a spot as Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro Show slid from No. 2 to No. 5. Read more
Apple’s podcast app may be where about 60% of podcast listening takes place but what does that mean in terms of actual users? A new estimate from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz pegs the number at 27 million monthly active users in the U.S. for Apple Podcasts. The firm says Apple’s dominance may also be hurting overall podcast revenue growth. Read more
Then-candidate Donald Trump frustrated many media executives in 2016 by spending less than expected on the outlets where political ads were traditionally found. Now as President Trump seeks re-election, his campaign is again doing things differently. That’s led to what’s believed to be its first ad buy on a podcast. The Trump Make America Great Again Committee was listed by Laura Ingraham as one of the sponsors of her PodcastOne show on Tuesday. Read more
Don’t take it personally podcasters but 51% of monthly podcast listeners recently told Edison Research that the medium is one of the ways they relax before going to sleep at night. It’s why the “sleep timer” function may be almost as important as the “play” button for podcasters. Apps like iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts and Pandora have already offered a sleep timer for podcast listeners and now Spotify is following their lead. Read more
Public broadcasters have long had serving content to kids as part of their core mission. Now as more children are turning to podcasts, that’s again proving to be the case. Public media’s PRX and Boston’s WGBH have partnered with Gen-Z Media to produce what’s described as an “action-adventure podcast” for kids. Molly of Denali is an eight-part series that is designed as a prequel to the new PBS Kids animated series debuting in July. Read more
The Tom Joyner Foundation, the organization created by Reach Media’s syndicated morning radio host, has launched a new podcast that is focused on historically black colleges and university or HBCUs. The weekly HBCUbiquity podcast is hosted by Joyner’s son, Thomas Joyner, Jr., who is President and CEO of the 22-year-old Foundation. Read more
The number of podcasts available on Radio.com is multiplying, thanks to a newly-announced deal with Libsyn to distribute the shows it hosts on the streaming app. Through the agreement, Radio.com’s users will now have direct access to the 62,000 active podcasts, totaling over 4.9 million episodes, hosted on Libsyn. Read more
It’s the latest signal that Apple may be paying more attention to podcasts, a medium that it continues to hold outsized sway over with Apple Podcasts controlling roughly 60% of listening. After years of essentially listing the same shows on its “What’s Hot” and “New & Noteworthy” tallies, the two features have sprung back to life. Shows that now have a shot at appearing on the two lists could usher in scores of new listeners. Read more
Fox Sports Radio morning host Clay Travis is adding another podcast to his portfolio with a new podcast for the iHeartPodcast Network. Wins & Losses aims to go beyond the daily sports headlines and offer up the sort of in-depth conversations that Travis says you can’t always have on a morning drive radio show. Wins & Losses will include big names in sports but Travis—who is a former lawyer—plans to also branch out into interviews with people from the entertainment and business worlds. Read more
LiveXLive, the live concert video streaming service, is integrating podcasts into its platform for the first time. In addition to tabs for live events or music stations, app users will now see a “podcasts” tab as LiveXLive features new spoken word audio content featuring interviews, storytelling, music, comedy and pop culture coverage. The podcasts will be offered as a freemium for LiveXLive subscribers. Read more
Sony Music’s just-announced venture in the podcast space is only the latest in a string of moves by record companies to grab a share of podcast listening. The move isn’t entirely opportunistic however. Some see it as a defensive play as streaming music services offer content that pulls users away from the songs and the streaming royalties that record companies are increasingly relying on. Read more
Rock legend Robert Plant is launching a new podcast promising to delve into his back catalogue to revisit tracks from his career, telling the stories of inspiration, collaboration and intervention that led to their creation. Digging Deep: The Robert Plant Podcast describes itself as Plant’s “personal road map,” coveringhis time as Led Zepplin frontman to his more recent solo work. Read more
Libsyn may be best known as a podcast hosting and analytics provider but in the coming months it plans to expand into monetization. It’s working toward the launch of a new advertising platform created specifically for podcasters. The company also made its first public comments related to a push by one of its shareholders to install new management. Libsyn called it an attempt to take control of the company without paying shareholders a premium to achieve that goal. Read more
The most effective marketing is about making emotional connections with people, says GroupM CEO Tim Castree. “Even with the power of all of our data and targeting tools, it’s about moving people—and the only way to do that is with emotional engagement,” he tells Bob Pittman in the iHeartMedia CEO’s podcast “Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.” Read more
Entercom and sports talker Kirk Minihane have parted ways. Less than a week after the former WEEI-FM Boston morning host said he would no longer produce his popular “Enough About Me” podcast until he was given a promised online-only radio show on Radio.com, Entercom responded by handing Minihane his walking papers. Read more
As podcast numbers grow—there are now more than 700,000 shows listed in Apple Podcasts—the quest to address the discoverability dilemma intensifies. The big podcast platforms like iHeartRadio, Pandora and Spotify have developed technology to help users find shows they might like. Another new option is coming to the market with the standalone tool PodFinder. It’s not an app but rather a Facebook messenger chatbot. Read more
The podcast hosting and analytics platform Acast has been rapidly expanding into the European market during the past year and now its mobile app is catching up. The company is adding four new languages: Swedish, French, German, and Spanish. It says podcasting is “growing like wildfire all around the world” and that makes it a good time to grow the Acast app’s language options. Read more
There’s a big variety of podcasts launching this week digging into weighty issues like politics and cyber security. “Audio is a huge space that we are happy to finally be entering,” said a TV network executive about their first podcast. There are also the first ever Native mainstream documentary podcast series. And advice-based shows like a series about breast cancer from Susan G. Komen. And a podcast that radio promotions teams may find useful that’s all about event management. Read more
Pandora has launched its new desktop app with lots of new features and controls. But podcasters may be most surprised by what’s not there: podcasts. The streaming service has put music at the forefront of the desktop redesign as podcasts remain a mobile-only feature for Pandora. The lack of podcast inclusion in the desktop Pandora app is especially surprising since the company in recent months has been taking several steps to grab a bigger share of on-demand audio listening. Read more
