ARN's iHeartPodcast Network Australia announces new partnerships as listener data shows continued growth

Sydney NSW, Australia—ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia has announced two new commercial partnerships with leading podcast creators Audioboom and Kast Media to expand its extensive podcast offering. These partnerships further strengthen ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network’s unique commercial proposition for brands and advertisers by connecting them with Audioboom and Kast Media’s engaged Australian audiences.

As part of its growth strategy, the iHeartPodcast Network has added new titles from Kast Media including: On Purpose with Jay Shetty, The Fighter & The Kid, and Impaulsive with Logan Paul. New titles from Audioboom include: Casefile, No Such Thing As A Fish, The Totally Football Show, and F1: Beyond The Grid.

These highly popular podcasts increase the content diversity across the Entertainment, True Crime and Sport categories for the iHeartPodcast Network Australia and provide enhanced commercial opportunities for clients to align and integrate within.

On joining ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia, Colin Thomson, Founder & CEO from Kast Media said, “We are excited to join ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network, adding our thought-provoking and entertaining shows to Australia’s largest podcast network. The partnership aligns with our mission to create content that brands can integrate and be a part of.”

Stuart Last, CEO of Audioboom said, “Our podcasts feature well-known personalities and top talent from across the world, attracting global audiences, including significant numbers in Australia. The experience of ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network in monetising audiences makes them the perfect fit to further expand our advertising potential across the Audioboom roster. From the entertaining No Such Thing As A Fish to the true crime grit of the Australian-made Casefile, we know clients across Australia are going to love speaking to these new listeners.”

On the two new partnerships, ARN’s Head of Commercial Audio & Podcasts Corey Layton said, “ARN continues to dominate the podcast space, and these new partnerships with Audioboom and Kast Media will further extend and diversify our offering, giving brands access to some of the world’s most compelling and popular content.”

The announcement comes as ARN releases new podcast listener data for May with leading podcast technology provider Megaphone. Again showing growth month on month, the data captured for May shows strong audience growth with an increase of 6% compared to April. Overall, listening on the iHeartPodcast Network from when the pandemic was declared (mid-March to May) is up 22% compared to listening pre-pandemic (January to mid-March 2020).

Growth in genre listening also shows an increase in listening across May. Comedy and Catch-up Radio had the biggest increase in listeners with each category up by 33%, listeners for the Business and Finance categories were up 17%, while Entertainment and Lifestyle continued as the most popular podcast category overall.

ARN’s Head of Commercial Audio & Podcasts Corey Layton continued, “May was ARN’s strongest month for audience growth this year, as we continue to see more and more people turning to podcasts for entertainment, education and escapism.”

Of the increase in audiences and new partnerships, ARN’s Chief Commercial Officer Pete Whitehead added, “ARN continues to expand its client integration offering with the most diverse range of content partnerships, across platforms that continue to grow in listenership. Podcasts continue to lead as a format for content generation and ARN has the very best range of integrated commercial partnership opportunities available for clients.”

About ARN

ARN is one of Australia’s leading Broadcast and On-demand audio companies, ‘Defining Audio’, with ownership or investments in 12 radio stations nationwide in addition to digital entertainment platform, iHeartRadio. ARN’s vision is to deliver the most complete audio offering for audiences and advertisers, and its network brands KIIS and Pure Gold, along with iHeartRadio and The Edge, entertain and influence over five million listeners each week across Australia.

Its KIIS network consists of Sydney’s KIIS 1065 with Kyle & Jackie O, Melbourne’s KIIS 101.1 with Jase & PJ, Adelaide’s Mix102.3 with Jodie & Soda, Brisbane’s 97.3FM with Robin, Terry & Bob and Perth’s 96FM with Botica’s Bunch for Breakfast. The National Drive Show across all stations is Will & Woody.

Its Pure Gold network consists of Sydney’s 101.7 WSFM with Jonesy & Amanda, Melbourne’s GOLD104.3 with Christian O’Connell, Brisbane’s 4KQ with Laurel, Gary & Mark and Adelaide’s Cruise 1323 with John Dean.

The Edge is available on FM as The Edge 96.ONE in Sydney and nationally via iHeartRadio and DAB+. The Edge Breakfast hosts are Mike E & Emma.

iHeartRadio, the world’s fastest growing digital service, was launched by ARN to the Australian market in 2013 and since then, the platform has had over 2.2 million downloads of the app and over 1.6 million registered users. iHeartRadio is a free, all-in-one radio, music streaming, podcast and live events platform. In addition to being able to access their favourite music from around the globe, audiences can access their favourite stations in Australia from ARN, the ABC, SBS and Macquarie Media, as well as stations from New Zealand and the USA. In 2020 ARN launched the iHeartPodcast Network Australia, providing advertisers with access to significant scale across local and global podcasts.

ARN’s suite of digital and social assets are the online home to Australia’s leading radio stations, providing highly engaged entertainment content and news, complementing the on-air experience ARN’s stations are best known for.

ARN is a HT&E company.

About Megaphone

Megaphone is a podcast technology company that provides hosting and ad-insertion capabilities for publishers and targeted ad sales for brand partners. The Megaphone platform connects enterprise-level podcasters and media companies with best-in-class tools to publish, monetize, and measure their audio content. Megaphone Targeted Marketplace (MTM) revolutionizes podcast advertising by offering brands unprecedented listener reach, true measurement, efficient execution, and guaranteed brand safety.

About Audioboom

Audioboom is a global leader in podcasting – producing, distributing and monetizing premium audio content to millions of listeners around the world. Audioboom operates internationally, with operations and global partnerships across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Audioboom provides technology and advertising services for a premium network of 250 top tier podcasts, with key partners including ’Casefile True Crime’ (US), ‘The Morning Toast’ (US), ’No Such Thing As A Fish’ (UK), ’The Cycling Podcast’ (UK) and ‘The Totally Football Show’ (UK).

The Audioboom Originals Network is a slate of content produced by Audioboom including ’The 45th‘, ’Covert’, ’It’s Happening with Snooki & Joey’, ‘Mafia’, ‘Dead Man Talking’ and ‘Blank Check’.

The platform allows content to be distributed via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Deezer, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, RadioPublic, Saavn, Stitcher, Facebook and Twitter as well as a partner’s own websites and mobile apps.

About Kast Media

Kast Media launched in 2016 as a production company for the creation of premium podcast content. Kast has grown to become a leader in the creation and representation of premium shows representing over 50 top-ranked shows in our catalog. We partner with top talent to create compelling content for listeners and viewers based on our multi-channel production studio based in Los Angeles. We are a collaborative team of producers, writers, editors, marketers, and sales professionals with a passion for creating and representing the best in audio listening and viewing.