Sounds Profitable

This week, Tom looks at the growth of podcasting--is it at the "break line?" ALSO--a mission statement for your podcast

This is The Download, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta.
And I'm Evo Terra. Today we're covering the entirety of the podcast acquisition and funding that happened in 2021. Let's get started.
Libsyn, the public podcast hosting platform founded in 2004 had an incredibly active year. They started by raising 25 million dollars and they definitely put it to work, buying podcast creation platform Auxbus, subscription and membership platform Glow for 1.2 million dollars, host and announcer read self-serve advertising marketplace Advertisecast for 30 million dollars, and longtail podcast advertising marketplace PODGO. With the leadership team from Advertisecast taking a more active role, and former board chairman and investor Brad Tirpak coming on as CEO, Libsyn has a chance to really upgrade their image if they can match the momentum of their competitors and integrate a non-trivial amount of companies into one of the oldest podcast platforms still active.
Audacy, started the year as Entercom, and after 53 years, rebranded. Kicking it of by acquiring longtail self-serve ad marketplace Podcorn for $22.5m. Podcorn gives Audacy micro-influencer reach contrasting with their higher-profile owned and repped shows. For $40m, they also bought “an exclusive, perpetual license of WideOrbit’s digital audio streaming and podcasting technology and related assets and operations. Audacy will continue to operate WO Streaming under the name AmperWave.” Today, Audacy builds and hosts their radio broadcast to podcasts solution with Triton Digital’s Omny Studio, owned by close competitor iHeartMedia, while hosting their Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Media shows on Spotify’s Megaphone. For a company reporting around $16m in revenue per quarter from podcasting alone, expect to see them fully migrate to AmperWave and bulk up the public offering for the platform.
While Global, the UK-based media & entertainment group and parent company of DAX Digital Ad Exchange does offer podcast hosting capabilities, their main appeal for publishers has been monetization opportunities. So acquiring podcast hosting, analytics, and monetization platform Captivate, which is IAB certified and has strong brand appeal for indie podcasts, shows Global's drive to be more accessible. Ad exchanges thrive on inventory, so the purchase of Remixd, which “automatically converts text articles into audio files” provides Global a quick path to more ad supply. With Captivate off the table, hosting platform Buzzsprout, that serves over 100k podcasts, becomes even more appealing for a longtail inventory play.
Earlier in the year, iHeartMedia acquired audio ad technology company Triton Digital for 230 million dollars from E.W. Scripps, which purchased Triton Digital for 150 million dollars in 2018 and Omny Studio, part of Triton Digital, in 2019. Like Audacy, iHeart currently uses Spotify’s Megaphone to host their podcasts. Getting all their assets to their own platform is clearly on the horizon for iHeart, especially with Triton Digital offering radio broadcast-to-podcast capabilities. Coupled with iHeart’s acquisition of Voxnest/Spreaker in 2020 and the announcement of their ad marketplace in both 2020 and 2021, the only offering iHeart currently lacks to compete with their direct competitors, is an attribution product. Will they build it internally like Adswizz or will they acquire a solution?
With over 70% of podcasts on Spotify serving from their hosting platform Anchor, Spotify continues their plans of going wide on audio by buying audiobook distributor Findaway and podcast hosting platform Whooshkaa, which specializes in creating podcasts from radio broadcasts. Whooshkaa will be integrated into hosting platform Megaphone, which Spotify purchased last November for 235 million dollars. While Spotify is unlikely to retain Audacy and iHeartMedia as clients, as both purchased their own radio broadcast-to-podcast technology this year, Spotify will continue to attract publishers looking for those features as part of a complete offering. With Whooshkaa acquired, RedCircle is the last independent hosting platform with dynamic ad insertion and programmatic offerings. And SGRecast from StreamGuys is the only independent company offering a broadcast-to-podcast technology. How long either will remain independent is a very good question.
Acast started the year by acquiring US podcast technology startup RadioPublic. Keeping inline with their creator-focused image, the main appeal was “RadioPublic’s Listener Relationship Management platform, which allows podcasters to foster even deeper relationships with fans”, which played nice with the beta launch of Acast+, their subscription offering. Over the summer, Acast went public, which is it’s own kind of acquisition.
And though it falls slightly outside of 2021, when Podnews editor James Cridland announced Amazon’s late December 2020 acquisition of Wondery for around 300 million dollars, he made the prediction that ART19 would be the logical next acquisition. After all, former CEO of Wondery, Hernan Lopez was an investor in the platform and all Wondery shows were hosted on ART19

• Hosted and Produced by Bryan Barletta and Evo Terra
• Audio Engineering by Ian Powell

This is The Download, the most important business news from the world of podcasting, I'm Bryan Barletta.
And I'm Evo Terra. Today we're covering the entirety of the podcast acquisition and funding that happened in 2021. Let's get started.
Libsyn, the public podcast hosting platform founded in 2004 had an incredibly active year. They started by raising 25 million dollars and they definitely put it to work, buying podcast creation platform Auxbus, subscription and membership platform Glow for 1.2 million dollars, host and announcer read self-serve advertising marketplace Advertisecast for 30 million dollars, and longtail podcast advertising marketplace PODGO. With the leadership team from Advertisecast taking a more active role, and former board chairman and investor Brad Tirpak coming on as CEO, Libsyn has a chance to really upgrade their image if they can match the momentum of their competitors and integrate a non-trivial amount of companies into one of the oldest podcast platforms still active.
Audacy, started the year as Entercom, and after 53 years, rebranded. Kicking it of by acquiring longtail self-serve ad marketplace Podcorn for $22.5m. Podcorn gives Audacy micro-influencer reach contrasting with their higher-profile owned and repped shows. For $40m, they also bought “an exclusive, perpetual license of WideOrbit’s digital audio streaming and podcasting technology and related assets and operations. Audacy will continue to operate WO Streaming under the name AmperWave.” Today, Audacy builds and hosts their radio broadcast to podcasts solution with Triton Digital’s Omny Studio, owned by close competitor iHeartMedia, while hosting their Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Media shows on Spotify’s Megaphone. For a company reporting around $16m in revenue per quarter from podcasting alone, expect to see them fully migrate to AmperWave and bulk up the public offering for the platform.
While Global, the UK-based media & entertainment group and parent company of DAX Digital Ad Exchange does offer podcast hosting capabilities, their main appeal for publishers has been monetization opportunities. So acquiring podcast hosting, analytics, and monetization platform Captivate, which is IAB certified and has strong brand appeal for indie podcasts, shows Global's drive to be more accessible. Ad exchanges thrive on inventory, so the purchase of Remixd, which “automatically converts text articles into audio files” provides Global a quick path to more ad supply. With Captivate off the table, hosting platform Buzzsprout, that serves over 100k podcasts, becomes even more appealing for a longtail inventory play.
Earlier in the year, iHeartMedia acquired audio ad technology company Triton Digital for 230 million dollars from E.W. Scripps, which purchased Triton Digital for 150 million dollars in 2018 and Omny Studio, part of Triton Digital, in 2019. Like Audacy, iHeart currently uses Spotify’s Megaphone to host their podcasts. Getting all their assets to their own platform is clearly on the horizon for iHeart, especially with Triton Digital offering radio broadcast-to-podcast capabilities. Coupled with iHeart’s acquisition of Voxnest/Spreaker in 2020 and the announcement of their ad marketplace in both 2020 and 2021, the only offering iHeart currently lacks to compete with their direct competitors, is an attribution product. Will they build it internally like Adswizz or will they acquire a solution?
With over 70% of podcasts on Spotify serving from their hosting platform Anchor, Spotify continues their plans of going wide on audio by buying audiobook distributor Findaway and podcast hosting platform Whooshkaa, which specializes in creating podcasts from radio broadcasts. Whooshkaa will be integrated into hosting platform Megaphone, which Spotify purchased last November for 235 million dollars. While Spotify is unlikely to retain Audacy and iHeartMedia as clients, as both purchased their own radio broadcast-to-podcast technology this year, Spotify will continue to attract publishers looking for those features as part of a complete offering. With Whooshkaa acquired, RedCircle is the last independent hosting platform with dynamic ad insertion and programmatic offerings. And SGRecast from StreamGuys is the only independent company offering a broadcast-to-podcast technology. How long either will remain independent is a very good question.
Acast started the year by acquiring US podcast technology startup RadioPublic. Keeping inline with their creator-focused image, the main appeal was “RadioPublic’s Listener Relationship Management platform, which allows podcasters to foster even deeper relationships with fans”, which played nice with the beta launch of Acast+, their subscription offering. Over the summer, Acast went public, which is it’s own kind of acquisition.
And though it falls slightly outside of 2021, when Podnews editor James Cridland announced Amazon’s late December 2020 acquisition of Wondery for around 300 million dollars, he made the prediction that ART19 would be the logical next acquisition. After all, former CEO of Wondery, Hernan Lopez was an investor in the platform and all Wondery shows were hosted on ART19. In June of this year, the deal for Amazon to acquire ART19 was officially announced. Nice crystal ball, James.
And if that wasn't enough, here's a quick rundown of some of the other deals from 2021: In the podcast player space, the Breaker podcast app team joined Twitter while Maple Media acquired the app itself, Daily Mail and General Trust or DMGT acquired discovery focused podcast app Entale, and Automattic, owner of Tumblr and WordPress.com acquired the podcast app Pocket Casts. In the hosting platform space Castos acquires another hosting platform, Podiant and Sounder acquired audio discovery and analytics company Podnods. In the technology space attribution company Podsights acquired linksharing company pod.link and podcast database Podchaser acquired chart and ranking tool Podcharts and listener review tool Podrover. And in the content production space Amaze Media Labs acquired podcast production company Jam Street Media.
Finally, a lighting round of the funding deals that happened, to give you some insight into the money moving into the podcasting space.
Production

1. Copenhagen-based Podimo raised $15.3m in February and $78m in November.
2. Audio Up Media raised $12m.
3. WaitWhat raised $12m.
4. Sounder raised $2.15m in March and $9.5m in December.
5. Casted raised $7m.
6. French-based Paradiso Media raised $5.9m.
7. Quake Media raised $3.5m.
8. Equity Mates Media raised $900k.
9. UK-based Auddy raised $610k.

Creator Tools

1. Verbit raised $157m.
2. Descript raised $30m.
3. Podcastle raised $7m.
4. Zencastr raised $4.6m.
5. Podchaser raised $4m.
6. Riverside raised $2.5m.

Hosting & Monetization

1. Instreamatic raised $6.1m.
2. RedCircle raised $6m.
3. Podsights raised $4m.
4. Backtracks raised $1.6m.
5. Castos raised $756k.
6. Podmetrics and Podcast Network Asia raised $750k.

You'll find links to everything we just covered in the episode details, and subscribe to The Download in your inbox so you never miss an episode.
I'm Bryan Barletta
And I'm Evo Terra

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arielle and Bryan interview Sounds Profitable artist Jake Crowe, and talk about his inspirations, his process for designing the art of SP, and how everybody can draw.

Credits:

and Arielle Nissenblatt

Audio engineering by Ian Powell

Executive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler Media

Special thanks to James Cridland of Podnews

Podcast hosting and dynamic insertion wizardry by Whooshkaa

Sounds Profitable Theme written by Tim Cameron

Send us messages with Yappa!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arielle and Bryan interview Sounds Profitable artist Jake Crowe, and talk about his inspirations, his process for designing the art of SP, and how everybody can draw.

• Jake Crowe
• Article: https://soundsprofitable.com/update/podscape-podcast
• Join Jakes Newsletter!: https://crowebot.ck.page/7b26e3390b

Credits:

• Hosted by Bryan Barletta of Sounds Profitable - [email protected]
• and Arielle Nissenblatt
• Audio engineering by Ian Powell
• Executive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler Media
• Special thanks to James Cridland of Podnews
• Podcast hosting and dynamic insertion wizardry by Whooshkaa
• Sounds Profitable Theme written by Tim Cameron

Send us messages with Yappa!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What are the benefits of having in-app subscription services for your podcast? What are the downfalls? Is it worth the experiment to give them a try? Hosts Bryan Barletta and Arielle Nissenblatt speak with guest Lindsay Graham about his experience with subscription services, and talk about ideas for the future of the technology.

Lindsay Graham of Airship

Credits:

Send us messages with Yappa!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What are the benefits of having in-app subscription services for your podcast? What are the downfalls? Is it worth the experiment to give them a try? Hosts Bryan Barletta and Arielle Nissenblatt speak with guest Lindsay Graham about his experience with subscription services, and talk about ideas for the future of the technology.

• Lindsay Graham of Airship
• Article: https://soundsprofitable.com/update/paid-subscriptions-hidden-costs
• Link discussed in Episode:https://soundsprofitable.com/update/apple-podcast-subscriptions

Credits:

• Hosted by Bryan Barletta of Sounds Profitable - [email protected]
• and Arielle Nissenblatt
• Audio engineering by Ian Powell
• Executive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler Media
• Special thanks to James Cridland of Podnews
• Podcast hosting and dynamic insertion wizardry by Whooshkaa
• Sounds Profitable Theme written by Tim Cameron

Send us messages with Yappa!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks for listening! A few links from this week:Spotify's announcement: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/27/spotify-says-u-s-podcast-listeners-now-use-its-service-more-than-apple-podcasts/A Vice article about the "battle" between Pandora and Spotify: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8q8a/how-pandora-won-its-royalty-battle-but-lost-the-war-to-spotifyPacific Content's 2022 Predictions article: https://blog.pacific-content.com/in-the-year-2022-320f4c175f6fInfinite Dial Live at Podcast Movement Evolutions: https://podcastmovement.com/podmov/pm-evolutions-to-host-infinite-2022-los-angeles/You can support the show, if you'd like, at Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TomwebsterSubscribe to the I Hear Things newsletter at http://ihearthin.gsThanks for listening!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Tom examines why people who otherwise use audio-first apps might also use YouTube for podcasts, and how podcasters can adapt to that information. PLUS: the latest Share of Ear data, and some exciting Infinite Dial news!

This week, Bryan and Arielle chat about podcasts they love, why third party research matters, and why you should care about studies. Guest Gabriel Soto from Edison research speaks with Bryan on the Latino Podcast Segment, studies done by Edison, and how much Bryan loves data.

Gabriel Soto of Edison Research

Credits:

Send us messages with Yappa!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.