Crooked Media partners with Acast to unlock international advertising and sponsorships across its podcasts

Crooked Media has partnered with Acast to monetize its podcasts internationally, enabling buyers in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand to advertise across its programming and reach audiences in these regions for the first time.

Advertisers in the markets will be able to purchase inventory across Crooked shows including Pod Save America, Lovett or Leave It, and Pod Save The World to start. The partnership stems from the international popularity that Crooked has amassed as listeners around the world have looked to shows like Pod Save America for its deep insight, analysis, and humor.

“We’ve been able to build great relationships with advertisers through our honest and sometimes ridiculous host read spots, with many of those sponsors with us since we founded the company.” said Joel Fowler, VP of Commercial Marketing and Creative Strategy at Crooked Media. “We’re thrilled to be working with Acast, who have such a great foothold on the audio space around the world, to bring Crooked to more partners.”

Crooked joins a growing number of publishers, networks, and media companies using Acast to monetize podcast programming outside of its country of origin, including Vice, BBC, PBS NewsHour, CBC, A+E Networks, The Guardian, and others. Acast’s global sales footprint in 12 countries uniquely offers publishers the ability to monetize their entire global podcast audiences across markets easily.

The opportunity in podcasts for advertisers worldwide is massive and growing. Research this year from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that around the world, high proportions of the population are listening to podcasts each month, including 41% of respondents in Ireland, 33% in Canada, 31% in Australia, and 22% in Great Britain.

“Crooked’s renowned programming has built a name for itself amongst listeners from around the world,” said Susie Warhurst, senior vice president of content at Acast. “There’s tremendous, untapped potential for US publishers and indie shows to monetize their global podcast inventory, and it comes down to choosing the right podcasting partner. At Acast we see a huge demand and opportunity for international buyers to harness premium, valuable US podcast content with cross-market audiences — driving clear returns for local and global brands alike.”

Buyers in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can purchase across Crooked’s inventory immediately by reaching the Acast sales team at globalsales@acast.com.

About Crooked Media

Crooked believes that we need a better conversation about politics, culture, and the world around us — one that doesn’t just focus on what’s broken, but what we can do to fix it. At a time when it’s increasingly easy to feel cynical or hopeless, former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor have created a place where people can have honest conversations and tell stories that inform, entertain, and inspire action. In 2017 they started Crooked with Pod Save America — a no-bullshit conversation about politics. Since then, we’ve continued to add new shows, voices, and opportunities for activism through our Vote Save America platform, because it’s up to each of us to do our part to engage in our democracy and build a better world.

About Acast

Acast was founded in 2014 and is one of the most eminent podcast platforms, and a pioneer in the open podcast ecosystem, connecting all podcasting stakeholders to one common software infrastructure. Through its infrastructure, Acast allows advertisers to efficiently target an engaged audience of listeners through dynamic ad insertion, while podcasters are given access to a range of monetization opportunities and the necessary tools to expand their listener base.

The company has a global footprint across 12 countries and, during 2020, had approximately three billion listens on Acast-connected podcasts. Today, Acast hosts more than 28,000 shows. Acast’s headquarters are located in Stockholm, Sweden and the Company has nine local subsidiaries including UK, US, Australia, Norway, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico and Canada. In recent years, Acast has undergone an expansion with continued strong growth, with net sales increasing from $21 million USD in 2018 to $66 million USD in 2020. As a result of Acast’s recent growth initiatives, the number of listens grew from approximately one billion (2018) to three billion (2020). In the first quarter of 2021, Acast had 827 million listens and an organic net sales growth of 86%.