Acast achieves profitability target

Acast has posted its first year in profit, according to the company’s financial year-end report. The full report claims a 19% net sales growth for 2024, and an EBITDA profit of $2.2mn. Total listens were down 13% in 2024, which the company attributes to Apple’s changes in iOS 17.

In Q4/2024, net sales grew by 17% overall, with sales in North America growing by 33%. However, the number of listens was down by 8% in the quarter: Acast say this is because the BBC left Acast’s network for Triton Digital. The BBC left in late November, so expect a further decrease of listens in Q1. The UK itself is a “challenging market” according to CEO Ross Adams (though Acast didn’t represent the BBC there).

Netflix wants to get into video podcasts, according to Business Insider. It reportedly tried to hire Alex Cooper last year.

Meta has launched a demo tool called Audiobox - “create an audio story with AI voices and sounds.” It’s quite a fun thing to play with, though it seems to like whispering very much. Of interest: “This research demo is not open to residents of, or those accessing the demo from, the States of Illinois or Texas.”