Sounds Profitable

This week on The Download: Edison Research says podcasting is more Succession than Yellowstone, Reddit launches new take on live podcasting, Google’s Adtech is dropping IP, new data says podcast ads are overfishing popular ponds, and we spotlight #PodcastingSeriously.   Last Friday the Edison Research blog posted “https://www.edisonresearch.com/podcastings-opportunity-in-wide-open-spaces/” In addition to reminding readers of The Chicks’ 1998 single from their fourth studio album, the post highlights a regional gulf in what counts as “popular” in podcasting.  The comparison used highlights how Succession and Yellowstone are comparably popular television series, but based on one’s physical location in the country it’s highly likely they won’t see much advertisement or social media chatter for one over the other. More rural TV viewers will more likely to hear about and actively watch Yellowstone while Succession finds more attention in metro centers.  “New data from Edison Research’s Infinite Dial study – sponsored by Wondery and Art19 – shows that as of today podcasting is more of a “Succession” story.” Consider this a tease from Edison Senior Director of Research (and, of course, my co-host on La Descarga) Gabriel Soto’s talk at Podcast Movement Dallas this August.  “We in the podcasting space regularly remark that with four million titles, there’s a podcast for everyone.  And while that’s surely right in theory, that doesn’t mean that enough of a match has yet happened to bring all the possible listeners to the space.  One might argue that indeed there are a lot more podcasts talking about Succession than Yellowstone, and that might be part of the issue.”   A lot of people got a three-day weekend in the US thanks to a national holiday, but this Monday Arielle Nissenblatt was on the podcasting streets https://twitter.com/arithisandthat/status/1544096389277294592?s=20&t=4_CSvYx2s9CHSyxS_60p2A. In a Twitter thread Nissenblatt detailed the launch of social media platform Reddit’s new Talk feature that shares some DNA with the social audio craze. The twist with Reddit Talk is those who use it get placement over any relevant subreddits that fit under a broad chosen topic.  “If you host a Talk from your Reddit profile and pick up to 3 topics, you’ll appear at the top of Reddit to millions of users. e.g., if you pick "Finance" topic, everyone who follows r/wallstreetbets, r/personalfinance, etc will see your Talk.”  Currently, Talk is only available to those chosen by Reddit via an application form. Niche content gets niche listeners, and Reddit is the king of niche. While we’ve been burned as an industry before on social platforms diving into podcasting, this measured approach seems like a promising one.  Google has updated Universal Analytics and things aren’t going so hot. On Tuesday Ad Exchanger’s James Hercher posted https://www.adexchanger.com/analytics/marketers-have-one-year-to-migrate-to-the-new-google-analytics-but-its-already-a-mess/ “When Google announced the expiration date on Universal Analytics earlier this year, it said it would also cease logging or storing IP address data – a crucial datapoint that qualifies as personally identifiable and thereby subjects Google Analytics to tough interpretations of GDPR. Removing IP addresses may not be enough for Google Analytics to stem the tide of GDPR suits. But privacy concerns do explain why Google will force a change across its customer base, rather than continue to offer multiple services.” While Google impression tracking pixels do work in podcasting, Google refuses to accept IP and any other client info forwarded to it, so attribution from Google was unlikely in podcasting. With IP going away on the website side, it’s safe to say there will be no Google solution for podcast attribution as we know it today. However, the move by big companies like Google and Apple away from IP addresses will always be concerning for podcasting. There’s evidence to suggest IP address tracking won’t be outright removed from the industry, but it still will decline to the point one should expect methods of attribution to undergo a metamorphosis within the next 12 to 18 months.  This Tuesday Pierre Bouvard of Westwood One published findings that might seem easy to predict, but are important to acknowledge regardless. https://westwoodone.com/blog/2022/07/05/three-solutions-to-the-podcast-ad-frequency-problem-remind-the-many-dont-lecture-the-few/ “The number of times podcast listeners hear an ad campaign is soaring. According to Podsights, the leading podcast attribution measurement firm, average podcast ad frequency has doubled in the past year, reducing podcast conversions. In Q1 2022, the average podcast campaign ad frequency measured by Podsights was 6.32, a twofold increase from Q1 2021 [when it was] (2.97).“ Bouvard reports the Podsights data indicates this uptick in ad frequency is leading to knock-on effects, such as site visits driven by podcast ads hitting a record low in Q1 of this year. Luckily, it’s not all bad news as he brings three solid strategies to encourage podcast reach growth. A consistent theme across all three is elegant in its simplicity: buy ads on podcasts beyond the same few dozen podcasts everyone is buying ad space on.  Frequency is no substitute for reach, and there are many podcasts waiting in the wings to run ads. Spreading those ads around instead of targeting the already-saturated big names in the market will quickly lead to results.  Now, if you’ll indulge us in a little promotion, we’d like to take a moment to highlight Podcasting, Seriously from LWC Studios, https://www.podcastingseriously.com/fund This week, https://podnews.net/press-release/podcasting-seriously-awards-training?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2022-07-06The company launched the Fund in early 2021 with partners AIR, Pacific Content, Acast, Triton Digital, and Sounds Profitable to “support independent BIPOC, Queer and Trans audio producers in submitting high-quality work to media and journalism awards.” More money going to diversifying podcasting is always a good thing, and Sounds Profitable is here for it. Our very own Bryan Barletta is on the Podcasting, Seriously advisory board and I’m on the fund team. You can learn more about the fund and apply, as with all stories covered on The Download, via the link provided in the description. In this penultimate segment I bring you a double-stuffed story. Two international editions of the Infinite Dial have been published by Edison Research: https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2022-canada/and https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2022-australia/.  There’s plenty to learn in both but here’s some standout observations from the Canada presentation:  “Forty-three percent of Canadians 18+ listen to podcasts monthly, up five percentage points from 2021, which means that Canadians now outpace Americans (38%) and Australians (40%) for monthly podcast listening.” In addition to that, 73% of Canadians listen to online audio. Spotify currently dominates that space with 40% of the audience, but YouTube is experiencing growth in the space and has caught up with 33% reporting listening to audio on YouTube in the past month. It seems Google’s moves on the market are working. Eagle-eared listeners will recall https://omny.fm/shows/the-download-from-sounds-profitable/ad-tech-firms-under-fire-for-data-scraping-5-more covering a story in which YouTube made a paid audio-friendly feature free for all Canadian users.  Meanwhile in Australia, monthly podcast listening for people 18 and up continues to trend up, increasing to 40% from 37% last year.  Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn’t make it into today’s episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading.  First: https://stratechery.com/2022/spotify-netflix-and-aggregation/.  Also: https://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/universal-music-makes-its-data-driven-ad-platform-play/?oly_enc_id=7865D1013734B0R. Finally: https://audioscape.info/register/Usually we only recommend articles but there’s not an abundance of IMDB-style podcast databases and it’s good to keep abreast of newcomers.  The Download is a production of http://soundsprofitable.com/. Today's episode was hosted by

This week on The Download: Sounds Profitable publishes the Creators report. Slate is running provocative billboards for Slow Burn, Spotify turns its radar on podcasts, rising YouTube CPMs make the platform even more attractive for podcasters, and news organizations struggle to keep young folks around. Firstly, if you’ll indulge us a bit of self-promotion, the first ever Sounds Profitable report has been delivered! On Tuesday Sounds Profitable hosted a first-of-its-kind presentation of https://soundsprofitable.com/article/the-creators-us-2022. Here's how we billed it: “Sounds Profitable, in partnership with Edison Research, has put together the first credible study of the profile of podcast creators in America. This is an incredibly important benchmark in the history of podcasting and the first of many regular reports Sounds Profitable will be publishing to chart the future of the audio business.”  The Creators operates off a data sample of 617 people who fit the profile of having produced a podcast, were over the age of eighteen, and listened to podcasts weekly. The data was collected from Q2 2021 through Q1 of this year.  Some results put into sharp focus many assumed truths of the industry, as well as challenging others. The gender makeup of those polled showed sixty-nine percent of creators were men, twenty percentage points higher than the population of the United States. On that same token, the ethnicity spectrum shows podcasting has more diversity, with more representation of Black and Hispanic/Latino podcasters than the census reports as a national average.  These juicy stats and more are available at https://soundsprofitable.com/article/the-creators-us-2022, from the presentation’s video to a spiffy 35-slide PDF of just the presentation, for you raw data nerds out there.  In an advertising campaign fitting of a flashy documentary, Slate is running a stealth billboard campaign for the current season of Slow Burn. https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/28/23186432/abortion-roe-scotus-howard-stern-my-favorite-murder-podcast “Slate is launching a provocative new campaign to promote its latest season of Slow Burn, which tells the story of Shirley Wheeler, the first woman convicted of manslaughter for getting an abortion. The outlet has placed billboards in states that now have some of the strictest abortion laws in the country urging passersby to “Defend Shirley Wheeler.” The billboards are up in seven states with deeply-entrenched anti-abortion sentiment that had trigger laws waiting for Roe v. Wade’s nullification.  The same issue of Hot Pod also spotlighted the efforts of Earbuds Podcast Collective founder Arielle Nissenblatt to organize a massive campaign of podcasts running pre-roll message to advocate for abortion rights. Messages like the one you’ll find at the beginning of this very episode. Hundreds of podcasters have signed on to the cause, including The Bechdel Cast, You Are Good, and legacy household name My Favorite Murder.  This https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-06-29/discover-even-more-emerging-creators-with-radar-podcasters/, originally created to spotlight up-and-coming artists on the music side of the app. RADAR Podcasters aims to get promising young podcasts in front of wider audiences with free exposure in-app. Each quarter Spotify’s content editors in participating regions will select three podcasts to spotlight with the RADAR program. Podcast Editorial Lead Brianne O’Brien goes more into the rhetoric used:  “We’ll focus on creators with shows that exhibit authenticity and inclusivity, give us a reason to keep listening, and educate and entertain.”  Currently the list of participating countries is fifteen, including thirteen countries in which English is not the default language. This is encouraging news for more big company recognition of podcasting’s strengths outside the North American and UK English-speaking bubble. O’Brien seems passionate about the cause, too.   “My team, and Spotifiers more broadly, are podcast enthusiasts. So first and foremost, we really want to underscore the hard work that’s being done by creators to take their podcast to the next level, but also to build those long-lasting relationships with their audience.” Little is given in the way of specific details outside of which countries will be involved and how many podcasts are being selected. For example: The paragraph dedicated to addressing how the program will measure success offers no concrete ways by which they’ll measure success. The main drive seems to be that the program exists and those involved are excited to execute its ambitious mission.  Currently RADAR Podcaster will only spotlight podcasts hosted on Anchor. Big Green sees the utility in embracing its creators, but for now only creators who are wholly locked into the Spotify system.  https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/06/23/report-youtube-influencer-marketing-cpms-are-on-the-rise?mid=4afb33bb7ffe284d840660fb3604ff60, and that could be excellent news for podcasts.  “According to a new report that influencer marketing agency The Outloud Group shared exclusively with Marketing Brew, influencer CPMs went up across major verticals on YouTube—from beauty and fashion to education—in 2021.” One example given is from the YouTube mainstay of gaming. The median CPM for influencers who focused on gaming content was $54.68 in 2021. Now in 2022 it has climbed to $66.48. And gaming influencers aren’t even in the top five fastest-growing genre CPMs in the Outloud chart. Bain quotes Outloud Group vice president Nycole Kelly on the topic of rising influencer rates in general, the group having come to the conclusion YouTube influencers are raising rates in general beyond CPMs.  Podcasting is trying to figure out the right way to blend YouTube impressions and podcast downloads. For some, podcast CPMs are a better bet, but MarketingBrew’s chart shows Youtube ads sold directly by influencers exceed podcasting average CPM by quite a bit. Yet another reason for the video-agnostic producers to consider a video strategy for their podcasts.  https://digiday.com/media/publishers-grapple-with-younger-audiences-avoiding-the-news/ in which prominent execs and editors in the news world addressed a big issue: Young people aren’t watching the news anymore.  “Roughly four out of 10 people under 35 years old – 42% – “sometimes or often actively avoid the news,” according to the 11th annual “Digital News Report” report conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Albeit, that aversion is only slightly more acute than among those 35 years old and older, 36% of whom sometimes or often steer clear of the news.” Reasons for the drop in attention are numerous. The panel proposed several, including the draining effect of repetitive long-term events like politics or the pandemic. The under-35 demo is also cited as the one with the lowest amount of trust in established news organizations, and the percentage who outright distrust the media is growing rapidly.  Legacy institutions are scrambling to solve for the growing problem. Guaglione points to places like the Los Angeles Times creating a team of people whose sole mission is to repackage LA Times content for Instagram.  We bring this story to The Download because a significant portion of podcasting is news. Just because we’re the cool new kids on the content block doesn’t mean the issues affecting the rest of the journalism industry haven’t taken root here as well, and the proposed solutions to fix the issue for online and print orgs likely contain useful strategies for podcasting.  Now it’s time for our semi-recurring segment spotlighting articles worth reading that didn’t quite make it into the episode. This week The Download has just one to recommend, but it makes an excellent companion piece to the story Manuela just told you about. 
- https://pressgazette.co.uk/us-newspaper-circulations-2022/
The Download is a production of http://soundsprofitable.com/. Today's episode was hosted by https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyaapurvsharma/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelabedoya/, and the script was written by https://twitter.com/GavGaddis. https://twitter.com/bryanbarletta and https://twitter.com/evoterra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, https://omnystudio.com/.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See

Brand suitability and brand safety are topics that we're never gonna get away from in any aspect of podcasting. Or advertising in general. And that's why I was so excited to have Claire Atkin, co-founder of Check My Ads on the show earlier this year.  Personally, as an individual, I support their movement and contribute to it every single month. I highly recommend listening to this episode, subscribing to their newsletter, and throwing a few bucks towards the only non-profit ad watchdog in existence. Credits:

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This week on The Download: a YouTube channel dives into podcasting on the video platform, the absence of podcasting’s middle class, and what do IAB’s measurement standards in video games mean for podcasting. Last Thursday, Creator Insider, a YouTube channel operated by a creator-focused wing of YouTube, uploaded a four minute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNrF7GTSco While the video doesn’t necessarily contain new groundbreaking information for someone who is deep in the podcasting industry, it’s a wonderful sign for the future of small-to-midsize podcasts unsure about perceiving YouTube as a viable podcast platform. Strategic Partner Manager Erica even backs up the size of YouTube’s reach with a citation of Edison Research data.  Having good, concise resources to facilitate an easier move towards the mentality that YouTube should be treated like any other podcast aggregator is a promising step. It’s also interesting to note how much importance is placed on properly arranging podcast episodes in playlists. The video takes great care to establish best practices for naming and arranging playlists. While “RSS” is never spoken aloud, it feels like YouTube’s approach is to use the existing functionality of easily saving video playlists to treat playlists like an RSS feed.  Who knows, in a few months we could be hearing about updates to the platform that bridge the gap between how YouTube is consumed and audio podcasts are consumed.  Speaking of YouTube… Last Monday an exclusive from Reuters reporter Foo Yun Chee shared details on Google’s https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-google-offers-let-ad-rivals-place-youtube-ads-eu-antitrust-probe-2022-06-13/. Luckily for podcasting, this could have beneficial knock-on effects.  Google parent Alphabet has proposed to open their digital doors for the first time to allow third-party programmatic partners to place ads on YouTube videos.  “The European Commission opened a probe last year to examine whether the world's largest provider of search and video was giving itself an unfair advantage in digital advertising by restricting rivals' and advertisers' access to user data.”  If Google does end up waiving the requirement to use Ad Manager to place YouTube ads, this could both please the European Commission and open up a considerable amount of valuable inventory to podcast ad buyers. Inventory through platforms they’re already familiar with and - since YouTube is pushing for more podcasts on their platform - that inventory will still be going to benefit the podcasting industry.  Last Friday, a prominent podcaster under the Spotify umbrella said the quiet part out loud. As detailed in lhttps://hotpodnews.com/bill-simmons-on-spotifys-war-chest-of-data/ sports analyst and host of The Ringer Bill Simmons revealed Spotify parts the metric curtain for creatives that sign with them. The following is in reference to a recent episode of Peter Kafka’s podcast Recode, in which Simmons appeared.  “One thing he mentioned in the podcast that stood out to me was how he uses data. Although he said that he does not pay too much attention to his own show’s performance metrics, he indicated that he takes advantage of Spotify’s other data resources to scope out the competition and better position his shows.”  The newsletter goes on to quote Simmons’ interview in Recode in which Simmons describes having the ability to see the metrics of competitor’s podcasts on Spotify as having access to “an incredible war chest of intelligence on the habits of people who listen to podcasts.” This is one of those rare moments where a known fact being stated out loud makes it sound like new information. It’s not particularly breaking news that a content aggregator would have excellent data. Everyone in the business can use access to the data of a podcaster’s competitors, it’s just not often talked about. The fear behind what Simmons says here is that Spotify owns more than just the aggregator. Big Green owns hosting platforms and one of the largest ad businesses in Megaphone.  There’s nothing new under the sun. Retail giants like Walmart and Amazon have done this for retail purchasing competition in the past, but now podcasting is growing up and one-stop-shops like Spotify are becoming more common. Last Thursday Eric Nuzum published an installment of his Substack The Audio Insurgent in which he floats the question “https://audioinsurgent.substack.com/p/does-podcasting-lack-a-middle-class” The piece begins with Nuzum speaking at a conference heavily attended by GMs and CEOs of public radio stations. During a talk Nuzum hosted he asked the group of over 200 public radio heads, a demographic famous for embracing podcasting, who had at least one podcast that made 50,000 downloads a month. Fewer than ten attendees met that metric.  “Why are those numbers important? The average CPM ad rate in podcasting is about $23.16 per thousand downloads. To qualify for buys at even that average rate, you generally need to have a podcast that’s downloaded 50,000 times per month. Public radio sees podcasting as a critical part of its future, yet today only eight stations in the country are capable of hitting that rate on their own.” Nuzum’s piece proposes the predominant narrative for smaller podcasters has created a class divide where the majority are told the only real strategy is to create content without fair compensation long enough that a magic larger company will buy the podcast for a massive windfall. Independent podcasters are expecting to either make it huge or fail out. There is no middle ground.   “Podcasting has been around for more than 18 years, and public radio has been considered leaders in its development and growth. Yet of the 200+ stations in the room, exactly one of them had figured out in all that time how to produce a show that was self-sustaining for a staff of one.”  The gulf between blockbusters and small indie projects is wide. There must be a place in the middle for creators and providers alike to make a good wage producing podcasts. There’s adequate amounts of gold in them there hills, if the industry will stake claim to it.  This one’s for the gamers in the audience, though as per usual we’re looping back around to podcasting by the end. Marketing Brew’s Ryan Barwick covered some interesting new updates from thehttps://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/06/17/iab-updates-advertising-measurement-standards-for-video-games?mid=4afb33bb7ffe284d840660fb3604ff60 The standards, which hadn’t been updated since 2009, used to consider an impression to have happened once a player had been exposed to an ad for at least ten seconds. Barwick says: "That’s been cut down drastically to one continuous second for in-game display ads and two continuous seconds for video ad units, so long as at least half of the advertisement’s pixels are in focus. Those are more or less the same guidelines for online display ads.” These are more or less the same metrics applied to online display ads, but with the added consideration of ads existing in 3D space. The IAB’s guidelines take into account viewing angle and pixel clarity in an acknowledgment that modern gaming is capable of placing ads inside game worlds. It’s about time, too. The Download script writer Gavin Gaddis remembers when the https://www.wired.com/2008/10/obama-campaign/ from open-world racing game Burnout Paradise in 2008. Fashion brand Diesel bravely bought ad space on the side of vans that drove around the city. Vans that could be destroyed by players ad nauseam.  Quoting Barwick again: “The IAB’s new standards should be finalized by the fall. To Francesco Petruzzelli, chief technology officer at the in-game advertising firm Bidstack, the standards feel a bit like a minimum. One second isn’t enough time for an impression, he argued, and that it could lead to an oversupply of inventory.” How does this relate to podcasting? In a world where seeing a Pepsi logo on a street sign while playing a multiplayer match of Halo: Infinite counts as an impression, there’s no room for arguments about the validity of considering podcast downloads “real” engagement.   This last full story is a https://twitter.com/VancityReynolds/status/1539232308456202241, of all things. On Tuesday the actor posted a video in which he professes his love of shooting ads, describing them as mini-movies with the same creative process and crew requirements. And, like movies, ads are shot in places other than Hollywood without many initiatives to ensure diversity and inclusivity in many of the necessary career paths.  “Almost two years ago we started the Group Effort Initiative to increase inclusion in the entertainment industry amongst BIPOC and underrepresented communities and it’s just been hugely rewarding. That’s why I’m proud to be co-founding the Creative Ladder.”  The new nonprofit will, like Group Effort Initiative, work to make careers in the advertising creative space accessible to everyone. We love to see more diversity in every corner of the industry.  Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles that didn’t make it into today’s episode, but are still worth working into your weekend reading. 
- A must-read issue of Stratechery:

When we started using Veritone One to expand sounds profitable into Spanish the whole goal was to show people how accessible it was even with a small team, which sounds profitable is. The success of that attempt led to The Download—our weekly news recap podcast, which you absolutely should check out—to be localized by our hosts, Manuel Gabe, in their own words and in their own voice. This is a must-listen-to episode with Sean King of Veritone One where we talk about why expanding into Spanish is critical for your success in podcasting. Credits:

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This week on The Download: Spotify’s building a new brand safety tool, Google Podcast removed an episode under suspicious conditions, and Apple tells us how their podcast search works. It’s been a rollercoaster of a week for Acast news. Let’s start with the positive. This Monday Acast announced a global Audio Pride Parade, celebrating Pride month for the LGBTQIA+ community via a series of podcast live shows in major cities across the world. Senior Partner Manager Alexandria Fuller said: “It’s also one day where you feel safe to be yourself. With hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people on the rise, we’re always wondering when it’s safe to hold hands. But there’s safety in numbers at Pride, and it’s really freeing.” Fuller’s heartfelt blog about the importance of celebrating queerness was undercut the next morning. Tuesday Acast announced a partnership with Spring to provide on-demand merch options for producers hosting on Acast, including Spring’s so-called Mint on Demand NFT service.  According to Hot Pod, most of the 11 podcasts in the pilot program have elected to not use Mint on Demand. Also on Tuesday, multiple tweets were posted providing evidence Acast is data mining email addresses tucked in the RSS feeds of podcasts to send an advertisement email suggesting the podcaster would be better off switching to Acast. So far podcasters on Podbean, Captivate, Blubrry, and Transistor have reported being targeted by this aggressive marketing push.  Transistor co-founder Justin Jackson has reported Acast to their email service provider, who Jackson reports have said this cold-calling approach is against their terms of service. Jackson - who previously worked for an email company - considers the Acast emails to be illegal under Canadian law and has filed a formal complaint under the government arm created to enforce Canada’s Anti Spam Law (also know as CASL).  A spokesperson for Acast told Podnews the emails targeting podcast of competitor hosting services are “... part of our continuing marketing strategy, which we don’t currently plan to change.” At Sounds Profitable, our goals are to lift up and improve the entire industry. Based on the actions and response from Acast, we do not feel like they share those goals. Until Acast discontinues these practices, we will no longer be covering Acast in Sounds Profitable or The Download. --- This Wednesday Integral Ad Sciences announced a joint project with Spotify to develop a new third-party brand safety tool for podcast advertisers, with UM Worldwide signed on to be the first company in line to stress-test the project. From the press release: “The companies will embark on a rigorous analysis to help the industry understand the tools and resources necessary to effectively deliver brand safety in podcasting and digital audio writ large.” Given IAS already has these tools for both the web and apps, we can infer this announcement refers to a net-new production. An overwhelming majority of podcasting operates on RSS outside of Spotify’s control, so this product is exclusively a brand safety play for content Spotify sells ads to on their own platform.  From the beginning of the press release:  “Ultimately, the firms intend to create the industry's first third-party brand safety and suitability reporting tool to bring more transparency and confidence to podcast advertising.” And then, later on:  “In the future, the results will be used to create a first-of-its-kind brand safety and suitability tool to aid in campaign planning, management, and reporting.” Spotify is no stranger to courting controversy when flirting with that safety, be it the actions of acerbic talent or the upcoming return of political ads. Brand safety is hot right now, but so is Spotify announcing things that don’t go live. Should we hold our breath? In keeping with Pride month-adjacent stories: Google has provided a cautionary tale in the unexpected consequences of using automated systems to filter inappropriate content. On Tuesday the tabletop roleplaying game actual play podcast RPG: Realms of Peril and Glory posted a screenshot of their newest episode showing an error on Google Podcasts indicating the content is unavailable for people under the age of 18.  As Podnews covered in October of last year, this is not necessarily new. Google Podcasts, in an effort to remain in compliance with some laws in Europe and the UK addressing children accessing age-inappropriate content, began restricting certain podcasts from being visible to users with underaged accounts or users who weren’t logged into a Google account while attempting to access.  This particular interest is noteworthy as the episode isn’t just blocked from users who aren’t logged in to Google Podcasts. As of Wednesday it was inaccessible to anyone on Google Podcasts. From the original tweet from RPG: “There is nothing adult in this episode. The only difference from our other episodes is the word Lesbian in the title.” RPG’s missing episode was the first of a Pride month-themed campaign titled Spooky Sword Lesbians. The description also mentions the indie tabletop roleplaying game Thirsty Sword Lesbians used to make the show. The game’s official description describes it as “a roleplaying game for telling queer stories with friends.” Evil Hat Productions, the game’s distributor, lists it as being appropriate for ages 13 and up. This unfortunate incident sparks memories of similar issues on YouTube, on which Google restricts videos from trending or getting traction in the recommendation algorithm if they’re deemed 18+. In recent years LGBTQIA+ content creators have widely reported basic words such as ‘trans’ or ‘gay’ are automatically flagged as adult, regardless of the video’s content.  Regardless of Google’s inevitable response to this issue, it stands as a cautionary tale to all podcasting companies: automation technology is a wonderful tool but it is also prone to developing unintended biases based on its creators and training. Unintended consequences such as removing the first episode of a podcast about gay characters halfway through the month dedicated to commemorating the birth of the gay rights movement in the United States.   Spotify’s gone shopping again. According to Tech Crunch’s Ingrid Lunden on Monday, Spotify is purchasing Sonantic, the company behind the AI speech synthesizing tech used to voice Val Kilmer’s character in Top Gun: Maverick.  While AI voices are the new hotness in entertainment, including Disney’s partnership with Respeech to synthesize younger versions of Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones for The Mandalorian and Obi Wan, Spotify hints at more grounded visions for Sonantic’s tech. The blog post cited by Lunden hints at it being used across Spotify, not in one specific application of a synthetic voice.

“One example that Spotify gives of how it might use the tech is to use AI voices to bring more audio-based recommendations and descriptions to users who are not looking at their screens — for example, for those driving cars or listening while doing other activities and not able to look at a screen.”  It seems Spotify might be aiming at constructing their own version of Siri or Alexa moreso than dipping their toes into synthetic podcasters. At least, not yet.  Once again, we bring you useful news directly from Apple. On Wednesday Apple posted a guide on the Apple Podcasts for Creators website simply titled “Search on Apple Podcasts.”  While the information contained therein is more directly useful for podcast creators more so than the wider industry, it’s important to understand the nuts and bolts of how such basic things work. Especially when large companies like Apple voluntarily step up to the plate to be more transparent about systems usually kept locked in secrecy for fear of bad actors exploiting the transparency for gain.  “The more listeners engage with your new shows and episodes, the higher they will rank for relevant search terms, so make sure to promote your shows and episodes on Apple Podcasts when they launch. Make sure your channel name, show titles, and episode titles are specific and unique so they may appear in relevant searches. Be distinctive and avoid using names that are too generic or too similar to existing shows. Avoid using emojis and repeated episode titles.”  While aspects of these two paragraphs have been known from public statements by Apple employees - Apple’s frustrations with people putting repetitive things like episode numbers in titles has been a long-runnin

This week on The Download: Spotify’s earnings call happened, Apple improves podcast statistics, and podcast pros weigh in on how many ads is too many ads. Podcast statistics are about to get better, thanks to a recent update from Apple that’ll help take a bite out of AppleCoreMedia’s presence on podcast statistics. Anyone who just opened the linked source and doesn’t have a background in coding: we promise that page makes sense. User Agents are how we truly understand what specific app is being used to play a podcast. AppleCoreMedia is the default displayed by iOS apps if they haven’t built their own player from scratch. Few do. This leads to a snowball effect of either over or under-counting Apple’s presence in the market. As James Cridland explained in Tuesday’s Podnews:  “Buzzsprout’s global stats don’t include AppleCoreMedia, under-estimating downloads from Apple Podcasts. On the other hand, Libsyn’s stats wrongly attribute all traffic to AppleCoreMedia as Apple Podcasts.” This new update from Apple solves for that. For a more detailed breakdown on AppleCoreMedia, we recommend the Podnews article from April “Mythbusting: are downloads from 'AppleCoreMedia' mostly from Apple Podcasts?” Edison Research’s 2022 edition of the Smart Audio Report is slated for June 16th.  In 2017, for the original Smart Audio Report, NPR and Edison surveyed smart speaker owners to learn how the technology was being integrated into their lives.  “The 2022 installment of the Smart Audio Report will not only offer an update on some of those original families, but also fresh data from a recent national study that measures attitudes around voice tech among those who use it and those who don’t.” For those listening in time to register, one can do so for free at the link provided in our show notes.   This Wednesday Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman live-tweeted the Spotify earnings call. The music powerhouse had a fair bit to say about their podcasting efforts, including some numbers that come as a bit of a surprise after such heavy investment over the past few years. As reported by Carman:  “A number! Spotify had 200 million euros in podcast revenue in 2021. They expect it to be a $20 billion opportunity.”  If that number feels low, that’s because it is. In a reply on Carman’s thread Podnews editor James Cridland pointed out that $220 million USD of profit amounts to only fifteen percent of the total podcast ad revenue for just the United States in 2021.  In addition to the revenue number, Spotify teased some details of their upcoming audiobook offerings that’ll put them in a market mostly dominated by Amazon’s Audible wing. In a bit of mixed messaging, much hay was made about Spotify branching out into three new businesses but they also claim they’re a music-first company.  CEO Daniel Ek said: “That’s the thing you just have to get about Spotify. We’ll put out these big, audacious targets.” The irony of this being the official position of a company with a history of announcing big, audacious projects only to blow past the intended release window by months, if not cancel them, is not lost on The Download.  The earnings call also featured a section criticizing the limitations of RSS distribution, including calling it outdated tech. This is a curious change in tack given a substantial amount of ad service on Spotify is handled through RSS by Megaphone. It remains unclear as to why Megaphone is being left out in the cold while doing a not-insignificant portion of the business that got them to their percentage of 2021 global ad revenue.  Every podcast with ad breaks has struggled with an eternal, unanswerable question: how many ads is too many? On Monday MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers published “What’s the perfect number of ads in a podcast episode?”  Spoiler alert: Meyers’ quest involving interviews with 14 marketers doesn’t turn up a magic formula that’ll change the industry. Some questions can never be concretely answered, but there is wisdom to be found in a big-picture view of the current podcast advertising landscape.  In general, Meyers found short-form podcasts with episodes shorter than thirty minutes featured four ad slots populated with three to six ads. Long-form podcasts had the same potential slots for ad breaks but increased the maximum threshold up to eight potential ads per episode.  “As of the first quarter of 2022, about 5.5% of a podcast episode was made up of ads, according to podcast media planning platform Magellan AI’s quarterly benchmark report.” Big takeaways from those interviewed include acknowledging the power of host-read over pre-recorded, fewer quality ads beat out quantity, and inevitably the best ad is the one the host knows will work with the audience they’ve cultivated.  Finally, a quick-hits rundown of two articles we think are well worth your time that came out this week:  Crooked Media adds speech-to-text podcast captions with Adobe partnership, by Brad Hill. And, in our continuing mission to bring news of global podcasting:  Podcasts more popular than ever as ‘a reliable source of information,’ study shows by The Brussels Times. The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, Omny Studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arielle Nissenblatt and Bryan Barletta discuss some big Sounds Profitable news – Tom Webster has officially joined the team, we announced a big Summit, taking place at Podcast Movement in Dallas later this year, and we’ve got some research presentations coming soon. Bryan and Arielle also recap Bryan’s last few weeks – his whirlwind adventures in Europe, attending both Radio Days Europe in Malmo, Sweden, and Podcast Show London in…London. Listen for:

  Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: if you’re looking to find a niche in the podcast space, learn all about the podcast and audio market outside of the U.S. According to Bryan, through his experience in Europe, there’s tons of opportunity here, especially in the advertising space. Links:

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This week on The Download: Podcast profits on the rise in the UK, white noise podcasts prove profitable, and the first Sounds Profitable Business Leader's Summit is headed to Podcast Movement. As is true of many episodes of The Download, we start with an article published on Tuesday. Bron Maher of the Press Gazette published “https://pressgazette.co.uk/economist-podcasts-paywall/”  The lede is somewhat buried, as the interesting information lies not in the framework of The Economist’s future plans to paywall podcasts, but in just how much traffic those free podcasts bring in. Prior to the launch of the publication’s flagship podcast The Intelligence, The Economist had seven full-time employees dedicated to podcasting. As of 2022 that number has ballooned to thirty of the paper’s nearly 320 staff. Quoting the article:  “The Intelligence gets approximately 350,000 downloads an episode. In a month, Prideaux said the podcast can now reach as many as two million listeners. During peak coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, the figure hit two and a half million. Across its entire podcast stable, The Economist is now being listened to by more than three million people a month. That compares against 1.2 million print subscribers – while its digital circulation in the second half of 2021 was 995,228, according to its ABC report.” John Prideaux, director of podcasts for The Economist, notes that the podcasting wing’s success brings an unexpected level of familiarity with one’s audience. The Economist’s longstanding policy on not publishing bylines does not extend to their shows, allowing parasocial relationships to blossom where they wouldn’t in articles of identical information without an author attached. Maher quotes Prideaux: “I mean, it’s a bit of a surprise – some of our people, who are on the podcast, they suddenly get not exactly recognised, but internet famous in a way that is new for a place with no bylines. And some of them find that a bit alarming.” Regardless of whether the publication paywalls previously free content, nearly two decades of embracing podcasting has lead The Economist to a point where a fraction of its staff bring in more impressions via podcast audience than the actual published paper.  Jacob Kastrenakes, writing for Hot Pod Insider, https://newsletters.feedbinusercontent.com/d1c/d1cd50d1a231ab6a200d0d2d0802ce2b4cf7b3b4.html. The main takeaway of the talk? iHeart believes there’s a finite window in which one can determine if a podcast can be made successful purely through promotion. “First off, a show has to be good, according to Bob Pittman, iHeart’s CEO and chairman. ‘We can’t make something that’s not a hit a hit,’ he said. From there, it comes down to marketing. ‘What we can generally find is probably in two or three weeks, we can see if we've got a hit or not with heavy promotion.’” Though, unlike radio, a lack of success during launch window doesn’t spell death for the product. Kastrenakes quotes Pittman as saying podcasts have “unlimited shelf space.” Without a limited amount of bandwidth on which to program, iHeart is able to take risks on relatively cheaper production costs and - even if it doesn’t take off in the 2 to 3 week launch period - allow the product to exist on its own in hopes outside forces lead to a free resurgence in popularity.  Once again we circle back to the global story of podcasting doing well everywhere, not just in the North American markets. Quite well, in fact, according to https://pressgazette.co.uk/publisher-audio-revenue/?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2022-05-31 “Among the sample of 12 publishers included in the report, which was produced by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) and Deloitte, audio revenue hit £4.2m in the first quarter of this year. This was six times what they made in the first quarter of 2021.” Deloitte’s Dan Ison claims daily podcast listening has caught up to online radio in the UK, growing to the point one in ten adults under 25 pay for at least one form of premium podcast subscription.  AOP managing director Richard Reeves, as quoted by Majid, said:  “We’ve seen revenue for digital audio grow steadily over the last few quarters, driven in part by what’s being deemed the ‘golden age of podcasts’. The 500% revenue growth reported for this channel in Q1 2022 demonstrates that publishers are now successfully monetising this type of content.” This next bit of news is home-grown as it comes direct from Sounds Profitable founder—and former host of The Download—Bryan Barletta. In partnership with Podcast Movement, https://soundsprofitable.com/update/business-leaders-summit.  “On its own, a one-day business-focused event would be a hard sell to just about anyone, even in NYC or LA. But as an industry, we absolutely need one. A day dedicated to the real tough conversations that the industry needs to have in order for us to drive the progress that leads to a $4bn US podcast advertising industry and then some. So, for an event like this to thrive, it would need to be attached to the undisputed leading podcast industry event in America.”  The summit is slated to kick off with the Sounds Profitable quarterly research report.  “Measurement, video, and programmatic are words we hear in conversation every single day. Sometimes positively, occasionally from a negative perspective, and most often from a place of curiosity. So we’ve gathered the best and brightest to make sure we’re all on the same page, as each of these three topics continue to grow in popularity and importance.” While the quarterly report will be available publicly, the rest of the Summit - keeping in line with a key goal of fostering candid conversations on where to take the future of podcasting - will only be accessible to members of companies that sponsor Sounds Profitable.  For our last full story of the week we turn to Ashley Carman’s Bloomberg piece from Wednesday: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-01/how-to-make-money-on-spotify-a-white-noise-podcast-could-bring-you-big-bucks.  Carman’s brief journey into the world of white noise podcasting reveals a surprisingly healthy field of competing products all fundamentally designed to serve up calming soundscapes to put audiences to sleep, all while running occasional ads to their slumbering subscribers. Quoting Carman: “Those who did respond to interview requests say they are making good money, winning over fans and marveling at the power of podcast distribution. Collectively, the shows represent a burgeoning and lucrative podcast genre.” Take, for instance, the story of Brandon Reed: a man whose podcasting career started by using Anchor more as a file hosting platform for white noise to soothe his own son rather than intending on distributing the files globally. Three years later things are extremely different. Quoting Carman again: “His inadvertent hit has also made the charts on Apple Inc.’s Podcasts app and has reached over 26.6 million total listens, he said. Reed now offers a $2.99 monthly subscription, which gives paying customers access to additional sounds and the ability to request new ones. When a chiropractor needed railroad clacking for an anxious patient, Reed went out and captured it. So far, he’s made over $10,000 through subscriptions.” At the risk of reigniting years-old social media arguments as to what it means for a piece of media to qualify as a podcast, these snippets from the world of calming noise serve as a reminder that restrictive views of podcasts both in format and content can leave niches unserved.  And finally, befitting of a short episode we only have one article for our semi-recurring segment spotlighting articles worth reading that didn’t quite make it into the episode. This week The Download recommends https://moncarnet.blog/2022/06/01/baladoauquebec/?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2022-06-02 Fair warning, the post is in French, but it contains statistics relevant to The Download’s ongoing coverage of podcasting’s growth in global markets. Time to dust off that vocab textbook from college.  The Download is a production of http://soundsprofitable.com/. Today's episode was hosted by https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyaapurvsharma/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelabedoya/, and the script was written by https://twitter.com/GavGaddis. https://twitter.com/bryanbarletta and https://twitter.com/evoterra are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra edited today's episode. Special thanks to our media host, https://omnystudio.com/