Ad revenue 'surging back' to podcasts

• Podcast advertising is “surging back”, according to new research from Magellan AI and Westwood One. Comparing June to January 2020, the number of US podcast advertisers has increased +18%. Looking at the top 400 podcasts, advertising represents only 5% of content, the research says (on average, commercial broadcast radio would be about 20%).

• Advertising within Pocket Casts is sold out until November, the company says. Pocket Casts also no longer takes podcast listings automatically from Apple’s directory: “Call it a hunch, but I doubt that directory is going to remain open,” says CPO Russell Ivanovic. (We link to their submission page, and everyone else’s for that matter).

• In quarantine, we’re listening to podcasts for an extra half-hour a week. That’s the findings of Edison Research, which unveiled data from its studies in a short, 13-minute presentation.

• Germany now has a podcast ranker. Called Pod Ratings, it claims that the most popular platform for podcast listening in the country is Spotify, and that the most popular podcast is Gemischtes Hack, which became a Spotify exclusive a year ago.

• Entries are now open for the Australian Podcast Awards. The awards are open to every podcast in Australia, “whether you’re on your own in the kitchen, or work with a large team in a fancy studio complex”. You’ve got until September 25th to pick your categories and create 15 minute best-of MP3s. (Podnews is a supporter; our Editor is an organiser).

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• RADIO·COM is to be in the dashboard in nearly seven million General Motors cars in the US, the company announced. (We list how you can add your podcast to RADIO·COM).

• New UK company Crowd Network “aims to become Europe’s largest podcast network” after attracting £500,000 (US$670,000) seed funding. The company is staffed by ex-BBC employees, and is based in Manchester; they’ve partnered with Acast for hosting, distribution and promotion.

• Cuban podcast platform CubaPod has launched Podcáster, a management system for podcast creators. The not for profit platform also offers a Telegram bot, which allows you to subscribe to podcasts and download audio in different bitrates.

  
  Aug 27 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• If you pitched a potential show to TheNextGreatPodcast, a competition run by Tongal and iHeartRadio, be aware that, according to the rules, Tongal now owns the rights for your idea until at least 18 May 2021. Good luck.

• A transcription app, Transcryber, is in beta for iOS devices. It works in real time and has “no per-minute costs”, which suggests it’ll be a paid app once it leaves beta.

• Random feedback corner: no, our podcast isn’t recorded by the narrator of Peppa Pig.

Tips and tricks - with Spotify for Podcasters

• A good way to promote your podcast, says Blubrry, is an Elevator Speech Sandwich, one of their Guerilla Podcast Marketing ideas.

• How to tell if your podcast is a success from your download numbers (Rachel Corbett)

Podcast News

Podcast Me Anything's guest today is Bryan Barletta, the Editor of the new adtech weekly newsletter from Podnews, Sounds Profitable.
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