Podcasts: as big as TV

• For 18-34 year-olds, podcasts are almost as popular as TV, says Pierre Bouvard of Cumulus Media and Westwood One, analysing Edison Research’s Infinite Dial data. 48% of 18-34s listen to podcasts each week - nearly as large as TV at 50%. Bouvard also shares “the one podcast slide every marketer should have”.

• Alitu has added video calling in its remote recording app. You can see your guest while recording, before sending it through to the Alitu audio cleanup and editor for production. (It’ll record the video soon, too).

• Libsyn Ads published its podcast ad rates for March. Average CPM was $21.95, down slightly from February’s $21.98 and March 2023’s $22.10.

• Downloads from Apple Podcasts are down 39% year-on-year for Buzzsprout podcasters, according to new Buzzsprout data released for March 2024. Spotify is also down by 11%. While the number of active podcasts on Buzzsprout is only down 1%, Buzzsprout customers published 12% fewer episodes, and data we shared last week from Podtrac showed an overall drop for larger shows of around 15%.

• A significant jump for Spreaker is seen in the share of new podcast episodes in March, according to Livewire. Spreaker’s use of Podping, a simple mechanism to advertise new published episodes, may be the reason why. Podbean overtook Spotify’s Megaphone to claim #6.

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• Ted Cruz says he makes no money from his podcast, Verdict; but - in a move questioned by ethics experts - it’s emerged that his publisher iHeartMedia has paid $630,850 to a “super PAC” supporting his re-election, claims the Houston Chronicle. Cruz is standing again as US Senator from Texas; iHeartMedia is headquartered in San Antonio TX.

• Pocket Casts is readying support for Podcasting 2.0’s JSON chapters - which let you edit chapters independently of the audio file. The Android app’s latest release candidate has the new feature enabled.

• A way to recommend other shows you might like, “podrolls” can enhance podcast discovery even if many podcasts don’t use it yet, according to our Editor, who has coded more support for it within Podnews’s website.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• How to produce a podcast like a pro (Maribel Quezada Smith)

• How to deal with podcast background noise (Niall Mackay)

Podcast News - with New Podcast Trailers - the podcast

Humor In The C-Suite is new today from comic and keynote speaker Kate Davis - talking with the most prominent business leaders on how they use humor to create an extraordinary work culture (and, how not to go too far with it). It’s produced by the Sound Off Media Company.

A recent highlight on Buzzsprout’s Buzzcast podcast was when everyone spent some time on customer support. Happy to Help - A Customer Support Podcast is new from Priscilla Brooke, the company’s Head of Podcaster Success, helping you improve your customer support experiences whatever industry you’re in.