Spotify buys Podsights and Chartable

• Spotify has acquired Podsights and Chartable. Spotify describes Podsights as “a leading podcast advertising measurement service that helps advertisers better measure and scale their podcast advertising”, and Chartable as “a podcast analytics platform that enables publishers to know and grow their podcast audiences through promotional attribution and audience insight tools”. No terms were given.
  • Spotify has published an interview with Sean Creeley from Podsights. Creeley has also written to his customers (1, 2). Podsights, which has 40 staff, will continue to operate as before; an FAQ sent to customers is explicit that Podsights will not share individual publisher data with Spotify’s publishing business.
  • Chartable’s “audience insights and cutting-edge promotional tools, SmartLinks and SmartPromos” will be folded into Megaphone, and as we understand it, will not be available to non-Megaphone customers in future. Chartable, which has 11 staff, has published a blog post.

Third-party analytics and attribution are critical to a growing advertising ecosystem. In podcasting, Chartable and Podsights were two of the three core providers that helped drive that point home. Spotify has bought great technology and acquired an all-star technical and sales talent, but these companies are no longer third party solutions due to Spotify’s role as a publisher, hosting platform, and ad seller. Just like with Adswizz’s attribution pixel and the Triton ranker, these solutions can still add value, but with this acquisition, they now lack the ability to be seen as truly neutral. - Bryan Barletta, Sounds Profitable

Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Blubrry has released a new podcast statistics interface. The company was the first independent podcast host to be IAB Certified, in Dec 2018.

• Apple has just published a guide to getting promotion for your podcast from Apple Podcasts. It includes tips to get promoted by the platform, timing advice, and more.

• The Ambies announced their nominees. There are 175 shows up for awards; the ceremony is on Mar 22 in Los Angeles CA, USA (and will stream online).

  
  Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Breakit, a Swedish news website, has published an article (translated) which alleges that downloads are being bought on Spotify. The journalists tried to buy 130,000 listens to their podcast: but, both Spotify and Acast spotted the bots and invalidated the traffic. However, they succeeded in paying for 50,000 plays from 8,000 listeners for a fake music track.

• Acast has signed Ash London’s podcast. Ash is a former radio personality with SCA, but has joined LiSTNR’s rival for her second season.

• iHeartRadio in the US has signed with Sounder to offer advertisers brand safety tools. The company is a seed investor in Sounder’s latest Series A Funding round.

• Triton Digital released the New Zealand Podcast Ranker for January. Audioboom’s Casefile makes it to #1 for montly listeners; in publishers, NZME’s iHeartRadio is #1 for podcasts.

Thank you to Gumball for becoming our newest silver supporter. Host-read podcast ads connect listeners to brands - Gumball connects advertisers with podcast hosts to make it happen in a few clicks. You should be like Gumball.

And, thank you to Lindsay Graham for becoming our newest personal supporter. He’s the host of History Daily, which has just hit 3m downloads since its launch on Nov 1. You should be like Lindsay.

Moves and hires

• Angelo Mandato has resigned as CIO of Blubrry Podcasting and RawVoice. He was the first paid employee.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023
• Tim Batt has been appointed as Acast’s Creator Network Development Director for New Zealand. His podcasts include The Worst Idea Of All Time.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023

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