Acast grows in the US: from Venice, the latest from podnews.net, with CoHost for Better
Podcast Insights.
Acast released its quarter 3/24 financial report. Sales grew by 12% year-on-year to
US$45.6 million, including North America growing at 29%. Europe as a whole saw just a 3% growth
and comments from Ross Adams seem to suggest that Acast UK is finding it especially tough.
The company remains on track for positive EBITDA for the year, though made a loss of
US$600,000 in the quarter. Acast shows are getting more ad-heavy, though. They say that
they've added a second mid-roll ad slot in two episodes, boosting monetisation potential.
But Acast blames Apple's iOS 17 changes for a drop in listens of 15%. A decrease of 15.2%
was also reported by Podtrack earlier in the year. We covered the iOS 17 changes in full.
You can find that linked from our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net.
Spotify will announce a new tie-up with airline Emirates today, with promotion on the airline's
in-flight front page for Trevor Noah's podcast and a mix of podcasts and music playlists
on the system. I spotted the collaboration earlier this week. Emirates, which carried
51.9 million passengers last year, uses Sparfax for its in-flight content. Our sister publication,
the Podcast Business Journal, spoke to the company about how to get your content there
too.
PodX-owned Platform Media have acquired a majority stake of the world's biggest rugby
show, The Good, The Bad and The Rugby. Platform media has produced and commercialised the
show since its inception. A Russian court fined Apple $36,000 for not removing two podcasts
that it says contained information aimed at destabilising the political situation in Russia.
The New Books Network hit 25,000 episodes today. The network is a consortium of author-interview
podcast channels dedicated to public education, and it's one of the largest podcast networks
in the world.
Have you had an exciting email from CanvasRebel magazine wanting to promote your show?
Is it something? Barnfire PR did some research and thinks it's nothing. The Podcast Show
in London has opened its 2025 pre-sale waitlist, so you get early access to the best rate.
We'll be there. And things to come in podcasting perhaps: Medium, a blogging platform, is now
47% AI slop, according to research.
And in podcast news, Hidden Mentality is hosted by Rishi Kurada, a college student at NYU,
navigating the uncertainty of figuring out what to do in life with a focus on self-development.
And can this month's 29th United Nations Climate Megasummit keep alive the possibility of stopping
global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees centigrade? New podcast Track Changes will be covering
the summit in Azerbaijan. It's hosted by climate journalist Murray Griffin.
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