European podcast companies: revenues and costs both up

• Danish premium podcast company Podimo released a financial report for 2022. Revenue tripled from DKK 45mn (US$6.7mn) in 2021 to DKK 152mn (US$33.7mn) in 2022; but the company’s losses also tripled, to DKK 328mn (US$49mn). Talking about the deficit, CEO Morten Strunge is quoted as saying “When we enter a new market, we must have a minimum catalog of content from day one. After all, you can’t just launch a subscription service with one podcast."

• UK-based podcast company Audioboom released financials for H1/23. Q2 revenue at US$16.4mn is up 6.5% on Q1 revenue; but the company made a loss. One un-named “individual partner contract” - signed in Q1/22, and lasting until July 2025 - lost $1.8mn in H1/23 and will cost the company $8.9mn in total. Wonder who?

• Spanish-language podcast platform iVoox has released an annual report into the state of podcasting in Spanish. Podnews has an English translation; the Spanish version is on the iVoox website. A third of all Spanish podcasters started their show in the last year; over a quarter of shows include video; and almost 20% are earning revenue from their podcasts.

• After seeing the number of daily host-read ads increase almost 5x last year on their platform, RedCircle launches Teams for Advertisers today, a tool to help agencies and advertisers add team members to build and send campaigns and monitor their results.

• Congratulations to Lauren Passell, who celebrates four years of running Tink Media this week.

• What are the top 10 podcasts amongst women in the US? No, the #1 isn’t Joe Rogan, either. Edison Research looks at the last six months of Edison Podcast Metrics to show us.

• Aligning with the Canadian launch of podcasts in the YouTube Music app, CBC Podcasts has launched a channel on YouTube. CBC already has more than eight million subscribers on the platform.

• Amplifi Media and Coleman Research will release new research into podcasting on YouTube at Podcast Movement 2023 in Denver CO in August.

• Sounder and PodRoll have announced a strategic partnership to enhance podcast discovery and recommendations.

• Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast has signed a new exclusive ad partnership with podcast producer Big IP Media … iHeart has signed a strategic partnership with LinkedIn and the LinkedIn Podcast Network … meanwhile, in France, Audion has signed Engle and Slate France to use Audion360, the company’s podcast distribution and monetisation tool.

• In March 2022, Spotify announced an editorial podcast submission form to promote your show (for US podcasters only). The link has changed: it’s now here. We’ve updated our big list of podcast directories with that link.

• There is a new podcast app for Android users called Turtlecast: “a minimalist podcast player with a unique design”. It comes with a WearOS app, checks RSS feeds directly, and the marketing material seems to use lots of Podnews podcasts!

• June’s New Zealand Podcast Ranker was released by Triton Digital. Two radio shows are the most-listened podcasts.

• Today: The US Podcast Ranker for June is released at 9am Eastern today; Magellan AI releases its June podcast advertising spend update at 11.30am Eastern.

Tips and tricks

• Descript’s Ashley Hamer writes 3 Ways to Make Video Work for Your Podcast - without full episodes.

Podcast News - with the Radioinfo Asia Podcast Awards

The new FIFA Women’s World Cup is less than a week away; and popular UK women’s football podcast Upfront is making their show at the competition in Australia and New Zealand. Presented by former Tottenham and Crystal Palace goalkeeper Chloe Morgan and co-founder of GirlsontheBall, Rachel O’Sullivan, the podcast will be bringing listener reaction and analysis.

Here’s what else you need to know today - The Daily Football Briefing is new from The Athletic. Just ten minutes long, it’s “the first Athletic podcast designed specifically for a post-pandemic audience that commutes less and demands more”. The show is updated overnight UK time.

New from Wondery and AT WILL MEDIA today, Academy is a Young-Adult audio fiction drama telling the story of an elite boarding school with a powerful secret society - a playground for cutthroat competition, dangerous liaisons, and the zero-sum games of high school popularity and Ivy League admission letters. The star-studded podcast is available on Amazon Music and Wondery+.

If you miss Reply All’s PJ Vogt, then he’s back with a very familiar sound. Search Engine answers the kinds of questions you might ask the internet when you can’t sleep - the first, last week, was whether airline coffee is safe to drink; the second this week talks about how to find new music “when you’re old and irrelevant”.

Podcast promotion in the wild

Julie Shapiro spotted this “well-placed sparkly sticker” along her morning running route, for the nicely-SEO’d Bike Karma Bicycling and Cycling Stories Podcast. She told us where her morning running route was, but we figured it might be a bit weird if Podnews readers lay in wait for her - “JUST LISTEN TO MY PODCAST AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK I’M NOT WEIRD OR ANYTHING” - so we’ll keep that a secret; but it’s also a bikeway: hence the sticker. Anyway, she says: “Yay for bikes! Yay for podcasts! Am neutral on karma.”