Sounds Profitable

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

Podcast Consumers Engage With Social Media And Listen To Episodes Within A Day Of Release by Lauren Vetrano
Most publishers grew their ad offerings last year, with a focus on branded content
Authentic Multicultural Narratives Create True Diversity in Audio Advertising by Antonio Francisco Lewis
Subscriptions, Not an Endangered Species
SiriusXM to Lay Off 160 Employees, About 3% of Workforce

Research Database Snapshot

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

Acast expects short-term impact on listens from Apple update by Ella Sagar
This Year’s Super Bowl Is All About Reaching Gen Z by Alyssa Boyle
Slate reports best year by Max Tani
Perfection Thwarting Progress: Response to IAB Tech Lab's Missive on Google's Privacy Sandbox By Catherine Perloff

Here's what you need to know for this week in the business of podcasting:

The following stories feature reporting specifically by The Download:

How Much Podcasting Does a 30 Second Super Bowl Spot Buy?
Accreditation for Black-Owned Publishers in Podcasting
The Trade Desk to Lowball SSP Price Floors
Brand Marketing Grows, Performance Shrinks in WARC Data

And also from The Ankler: YouTube’s Place in Streaming

Quick Hits:

Reintroducing Podcasting by Tom Webster. The upcoming Sound Summit at SXSW, an official day for podcasting, will act as a way for podcasting to re-introduce itself to brands and agencies that might’ve only last encountered podcasting in its adtech infancy.
Spotify Reports Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings. Paid subscribers are up, raising one million over guidance numbers. The company expects their podcasting arm to turn a profit by the end of the year.
Podcast benchmarking: How did your downloads compare in 2023? By Sharon Taylor. The benchmarks present what count as ‘good’ download numbers for ap podcast, divided into percentiles.
The Art of Podcasting with Joe Rogan and His New Multiyear Spotify Partnership. The Joe Rogan Experience has renewed its contract with Spotify for hosting and distribution, but the former exclusive has now returned to open RSS distribution.

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

The Trade Desk Plans To Lowball SSP Floor Prices
Podcast benchmarking: How did your downloads compare in 2023? By Sharon Taylor
The New York Times expects ad revenue to continue to decline in 2024 by Sara Guaglione
Warner Music to Cut 600 Positions or 10% of Staff by Ashely Carman

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

More than a third of marketers will increase their brand marketing investments this year by Meaghan Yuen
Meet Podcast X-Ray by Dan Misener
Toyota Signs Eli Manning and Brock Purdy as National Partners and Announces Plans for Super Bowl LVIII as The “Official Automotive Partner of the NFL”
AI-powered podcast ad producer AudioStack raises £2.5m

If someone peeked into podcasting in the late 2010s, they would’ve seen an industry in ad tech infancy in comparison to podcasting’s capabilities now. The official Podcasting Sound Summit at SXSW will help re-introduce the industry and show off its new capabilities.

Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

Netflix's Threat Isn't in Hollywood. It's YouTube by Entertainment Strategy Guy
Here’s what a $7M, 30-second Super Bowl ad can purchase in digital media in 2024 by Kimeko McCoy
What People Are Doing When They Aren’t Listening To Your Podcast by Steven Goldstein
Spotify Reports Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:


Spotify’s Multiplatform Strategy, Rogan Going Public
WTF is accreditation for Black-owned publications? By Sara Guaglione
AdvertiseCast Marketplace Podcast Advertising Rates

…as for the rest of the news: Andrew Goldsmith has been promoted to CEO of Adelicious, BBC Sounds has publisher their Q4 report, and the Hollywood Reporter has published the full list of nominees for the 2024 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards, the winners of which will be announced live at a particularly podcast-heavy SXSW.

Here's what you need to know for this week in the business of podcasting:

Apple Podcasts Debuts Automatic Transcript Generation
Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’ Podcast Ends Spotify Exclusivity
Lessons From The Brand Podcast Summit
Triton Digital’s U.S. Podcast Report, 2023
New Direct-to-Consumer Podcast Advertising Report

Quick Hits:
Knowing Half the Battle in Podcasting by Tom Webster. Half the battle of podcasting is keeping up with changes to the audience, and this week Tom looks at the “neglected half” of the work.
Wondery Announces Original Podcast Black History, For Real. The new podcast, produced by DCP Entertainment, is a weekly series breaking down the lesser-known events and individuals that have shaped Black culture.
ESPN Podcasts to Air Weekday Afternoons on ESPN2. Five video podcasts produced by ESPN will be aired on their second channel as part of a seasonal content initiative, filling the 2-3PM EST time slot Monday-Friday.
The Free and Open Ad-Supported Internet. A new IAB study that looks into the feelings of internet users when it comes to advertising’s place online and how it keeps certain sites and services free to use.

Here's what you need to know for today in the business of podcasting:

Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’ Podcast Is No Longer Exclusive to Spotify by Caitlin Huston
98% of Global Marketers for Direct-to-Consumer Brands Say Podcasts are Effective in Reaching Consumers, Acast Study Finds
RAJAR Data Release, Q4 2023
Still Waiting For That Cookie To Crumble? We’re In The ‘In-Between Years,’ Says IAB CEO David Cohen by Sarah Sluis

…as for the rest of the news: As for the rest of the news… Audacy is set to lay off 25% of employees from Pineapple Street, Digiday shares thoughts from attendees of IAB ALM, and the spring thaw comes early as AdAge covers which agencies might be buying (or bought) after a slow 2023 for M&A.