Sounds Profitable

Multitude Productions has an impressive array of podcasts, resources, events, and more going for them. In this episode, Bryan Barletta speaks with Multitude CEO Amanda McLoughlin about building the company, how they handle relationships with advertisers, scaling, and so much more. Listen to learn about: (5 bullet points) Why Amanda believes CPA ads are a win-winThe Multitude Podcasting ConferenceHow Amanda and team build engaged audiencesWhy Multitude can’t scale tenfold (but maybe that’s a good thing) Links: Bryan BarlettaArielle NissenblattAmanda McLoughlinMultitude ProductionsThe DownloadSounds Profitable: Narrated ArticlesSquadCast Credits: Hosted by Bryan Barletta, Arielle NissenblattSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronAdditional support from Gavin GaddisCompiled by: Spooler MediaEdited by: Reece Carman and Ron TendickHosted on: Omny StudiosSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Bryan comes at things from a different perspective, specifically that of the ways that the podcaster and audience interact. From how we convert a follow to a subscriber, to weighing and prioritizing each subscription solution from both the podcaster and listener perspective, and most importantly to exploring the upper limits of what we can accomplish under a subscription offering. Credits: Written by Bryan BarlettaEdited by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the Sounds Profitable Deep Dive, Bryan Barletta is joined by SoundStack CEO Jon Stephenson to embark on a three-part journey through what the audio-as-a-service company has to offer. Tune in to learn how the SoundStack platform makes podcast hosting/distribution, broadcast-to-podcast, and monetization really simple. Credits: Written by Bryan BarlettaEdited by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week: Apple Podcasts is using machine learning to tag episodes, IAB to require annual recertification, Edison Research shares Share of Ear Q3 statistic, and Headliner announces automated YouTube integration. Bumper Discovers Apple Podcasts Assigns Topics Automatically. Manuela: This Tuesday Bumper co-founder Dan Misener posted a new discovery that explains how Apple Podcasts can recommend individual podcast episodes based on topics discussed. The example Misener uses is an episode of Today, Explained which, if one opens the web page source on Apple Podcasts, is tagged with twenty topics ranging from broader concepts like ‘world politics’ to individual names of celebrities and politicians mentioned in the episode. The catch? Those keywords and topics do not appear anywhere in the episode description or RSS feed. The only way to assign them to that particular episode is a transcript. From the article:  “Here’s my best guess: Apple is using machine-generated transcriptions, then applying natural language processing techniques like topic modeling to generate lists of relevant topics on an episode-by-episode basis.” According to Misener’s reporting, the current top 250 podcasts on Apple Podcasts consists of 70,094 episodes. Approximately 63.5% of those episodes are currently tagged with topics generated by Apple.  “Here’s my best guess: Apple is using machine-generated transcriptions, then applying natural language processing techniques like topic modeling to generate lists of relevant topics on an episode-by-episode basis.”The topics are also ranked with a per-episode relevance score and appear to be integrated into the Apple Podcasts search function. Misener tested this by searching the phrase ‘war in Donbass,’ which he had seen as a tag on Today, Explained. Apple Podcasts returned an episode of The Inquiry that discusses the issue at length, but also does not specifically include those keywords in the title or description. This suggests the assigned topics influenced its search ranking. As Misener says in his breakdown of what this means for podcasters, the implications of this automated topic system are numerous and all signal better relevancy in podcast discovery. SEO now goes far beyond what they chose to include in RSS feeds. In response to the Bumper article, https://podnews.net/article/apple-topics. Visitors can type in the name of a podcast and choose one of the 20 most recent uploads to see what topics Apple has assigned. That is, if it has been assigned any at all. Unfortunately the Sounds Profitable feed has not been fed through their machine learning, so we don’t know what Apple thinks last week’s episode of The Download is about.  IAB to require annual recertification.  Shreya: Last Thursday Podnews reported the Interactive Advertising Bureau is now requiring annual re-certification from podcasting companies. The information came from a note Podnews editor James Cridland discovered on the IAB website. https://iabtechlab.com/standards/podcast-measurement-guidelines/“As podcast listenership increases and the technology to support that listenership improves, the podcast technical measurement capabilities are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. As such, and to be aligned with other industry auditing programs, IAB Tech Lab is updating its compliance program to require annual recertification. “ The post then cites the fact several complaint companies were certified on the 2.0 version of the standards but have not re-certified under 2.1. As of this podcast https://iabtechlab.com/compliance-programs/compliant-companies/#\ For context: version 1 of the Measurement Technical Guidelines was released in September of 2016. Version 2.0 released the following September. Version 2.1 released five years later, finalizing in February of 2022. The bulk of the updates in 2.1 involve guidelines blocking the Apple Watch user agent to prevent duplicate download stats. Members of the audio committee and the tech lab were not briefed on the upcoming changes prior to Cridland’s reporting on this story. Using numbers available on the IAB website, the original Podnews report cited the cost for annual recertification at $45,000, split between a $35k certification fee and $10,000 annual membership fee. The page has since been updated to reflect previously un-announced, cheaper certification prices. Now the cost of initial certification is $17,500 for non-members and $12,500 for members. Recertification will cost $8,750 and $6,250 for the same respective categories.  Reducing the price for certification is a step in the right direction, creating more competition and reinforcing standards that others are likely to flaunt when compared against those who decide to merely be IAB compliant instead of IAB certified.An issue remains the recertification itself, as the process has had a life cycle of six years between 2.0 and 2.1 with no commitment whatsoever to improvements in the certification process to drive interest into certification. Third party solutions like Podtrac have been shown to receive special accommodations that allow them to uphold questionable behaviors. The most recent example of such behavior being Podtrac’s honoring of downloads for iHeartRadio podcasts generated by auto-playing web players into video game ads, classifying them as legitimate.  Going forward, we hope the IAB standard is applied consistently, updated with more regularity, and accessible to as many companies in the space as possible. Podcast reach with people 13+ growing, Share of Ear shows.  Manuela: Last Thursday Edison Research published https://www.edisonresearch.com/weekly-insights-11-10-22-the-steady-climb-of-podcastings-reach-in-the-u-s/r that shows good news for the growth of podcasting. The issue of Weekly Insights opens with fond recollections of Cliffhanger, a popular price-guessing game segment on the game show The Price is Right. The game featured a model of a mountain climber making his way up a cartoon mountain based on correct or incorrect bids made by the contestant.  A mountain not unlike the positive trending growth represented in the graph  “In 2014, the first year of the Share of Ear survey, podcasts reached 5% of those in the U.S. age 13+. As of our most recent data, Q3 2022, podcasts now reach 18% of those age 13+ in the U.S. — a 20% increase in the past year (Q3 2021), and over three times the reach of 2014. The years in between show a steady growth in reach. There have been some fluctuations in podcast reach from quarter to quarter as we saw the beginning and end of quarantine restrictions, but this graph that shows the climb of podcast reach should be encouraging for the podcast community.”  Headliner Releases YouTube Auto-Upload Shreya: This Monday the Headliner blog posted a video and short article https://www.headliner.app/blog/2022/11/14/upload-your-entire-podcast-to-youtube/ “YouTube has become one of the hot ticket items in podcasting, and for good reason. Each month over 2.6 Billion people go to the site and watch videos. YouTube is a great place to get your podcast in front of new audience and increase your listenership. If you want to get your podcast on YouTube, but have a bunch of older episodes that you’d like to upload, this feature will save you tons of time.”  In addition to Headliner’s normal offerings that allow podcasters to generate animated video clips for social media from their podcast audio, Headliner subscribers at the Pro and Enterprise level can now create a template that will then automatically generate a full-episode video and upload it to the podcast’s YouTube channel. This automation comes at the perfect time as YouTube pushes its interest in podcasting and podcasters, small and large, comes to terms with sizable backlogs of audio-only content.  Fundraiser Roundup Manuela: Occasionally when there have been a few stories involving fundraising in podcasting and podcasting-adjacent companies, we graduate them from Quick Hits into their own small segment. Today we have two success stories to round out our coverage of news from the past week: Last Wednesday Swedish audiobook and ebook subscription service https://podnews.net/press-release/audion-funding,  equivalent to 37 million US dollars.  Then, on this Tuesday, French digital audio and podcast monetization startup https://news.cision.com/storytel/r/storytel-has-completed-a-directed-share-issue-to-existing-and-new-investors-and-thereby-raises-gross,c3664632 Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  https://twitter.com/BenMullin/status/1590775278023970887A tweet from New York Times reporter Ben Mullin last Tuesday announced the Gimlet Media and Startup star has left Spotify, where he has worked on Gimlet since its $230 million dollar acquisition in 2019.

Podcasts and Audiobooks are crossing the streams of spoken word content - what else is possible? This week, Tom Webster looks at ideas for hybrid non-fiction content that could open up whole new sources of revenue. Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEdited by Tom WebsterProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Why sports podcasts are a slam dunk for podcast advertisers, our quarterly earnings roundup, how the buy-side of advertising defines ‘premium’ content, how podcast advertisers are embracing Latino podcasting, and Netflix launches their ad-supported tier. Why sports podcasts could be a slam dunk for advertisers who know how to navigate the in-demand space Shreya: There’s no denying the synergy of sports and advertisers during regular game seasons, but a new article from MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers highlights how podcasts can easily fill that gap the rest of the year.  “The sports podcast genre is among the top five most popular in the US, according to Edison Research, and the percentage share of ad revenue for that category more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.”  Several of Meyers’ sources stress that sports is one of the most in-demand podcast genres for ad buyers. Steven Abraham, president of the Oxford Road, said the agency’s biggest clients are interested in the space due to its reach with an active and engaged audience. “A good sports-podcast media plan includes both, according to Abraham. Major shows that cover entire leagues or sports news in general can provide the benefit of reach, but fan-led shows that focus on specific teams tend to be more targeted and affordable, he said.” Regardless of a show’s popularity, the CPM of a sports podcast has the benefit of flexibility even in the off season. Locked On Podcast Network CEO David Locke reports listenership spikes more during off-season times like trade deadlines than during important games during the normal season.  Traditional media has spent decades refining their infrastructure around courting sports fans when players are on the court. Podcasting has the flexibility and staying power to capitalize on sports fandom’s dedication for their favorite pastime and make sporting content a perennial avenue for advertisers.  Podcasting Companies Post Q3 Earnings Manuela: It’s time for what’s becoming a quarterly event here on The Download: quarterly earnings reports are here!  Most of what we’re reporting on today has been released in the past week, but in the interest of gathering everyone together, we’ll open with Spotify. As we covered back in October, Spotify shares dipped after their earnings call, in which CEO David Ek announced price increases coming in 2023.  In good news for Big Green: they report 456 million monthly active users, up 20% year over year, 195 million of which are paying subscribers, representing a 13% year over year jump.  iHeartMedia is up 7% year over year on revenue, with a Q3 total of $989 million. Their Digital Audio Group revenue hit a 23% year over year increase, with podcast revenue hitting $91 million dollars.  On Wednesday Veritone posted their Q3 financial report. $37.2 million in revenue with 64% year over year growth.  Audacy’s financial report shows total revenue down 3.8% year on year. Their Digital revenue, including podcasting, made $62 million in the quarter. As Podnews James Cridland reports, this is up 2% year on year but 10% down quarter on quarter. Cridland also said: “The company is threatened with stock market delisting; stock hit a record low of $0.27 yesterday.”  Acast’s Q3 has been positive with revenue up 21%, amounting to $29.8 million USD when converted from Krona. In their significant events recap they list the Podchaser acquisition, the partnership with Wondery to translate and record successful podcasts in Italian, and their agreement with rep The New York Times and sell UK ad space on NYT podcasts.  They also note Amazon functionally purchasing all ad space on Acast podcasts through the deal struck just after the reporting period so Amazon can run Acast shows ad-free for Amazon Music subscribers. How the buy-side of the ad industry is now defining ‘premium’ content  Shreya: On Wednesday Ronan Shields, writing for Digiday, published a piece covering how the buyer side of the market is defining premium ad content and the general mood of the industry in regards to the looming threat of recession. The piece quotes panels from multiple relevant conferences in New York City last week.  “Just about everyone in the industry is bracing themselves for a recession with swinging cuts to advertisers’ budgets expected, fellow panelists Jesse Fisher from Horizon Media and GroupM’s Esra Bacher offered insights into how marketers would make budgeting decisions. They both pointed out how priorities will delineate depending on whether they are an emerging or mature brand.”  Fischer predicts smaller brands will focus more on awareness campaigns instead of focusing on ROI. “But if you look at a more mature brand, you know that’s really well positioned… they might shift spend into more measurable channels and types of activations because they really want to make sure that if they’re spending a million dollars, they’re able to see $1.1 million in ROI.” Programmatic Investment Lead at GroupM Esra Bacher suggests marketers and media agencies have evolved enough to withstand the brunt of an anticipated economic downturn better than the 2008 recession that lead to sweeping cuts. While DSPs and premium publishers are using tools like The Trade Desk’s OpenPath to form direct relationships, media agencies are similarly getting together with supply-side platforms. An anonymous source at Brand Safety Week told Digiday:  “It’s not possible for us to talk to 10,000 publishers, but it is possible for us to talk to 50 SSPs. So, we might look to see how much we’re spending with, say, 10-15 publishers via DSPs, and then look to see which SSPs have unique supply, unique data… and transparency on things like show-level data…” Podcast listening by US Latinos is on the rise. Are ad dollars following suit? Manuela: Back in August the third annual Latino Podcast Listener Report from Edison Research was published, as dedicated listeners might remember from our coverage. The report delivered promising news, including the statistic that 59% of US Latino adults have listened to a podcast at least once.  This past Wednesday Alyssa Meyers, writing for MarketingBrew, covered both the highlights of the report and how the podcasting industry is adjusting to the rise in Latino audiences.  Latina Podcasters Network and Latino Pods CEO Rita Bautista says their stable of 40+ podcasts  broke six figures in ad revenue so far in 2022, working with brands like Ulta Beauty, Pfizer, and Gold Peak. The network does not run prerecorded ads, preferring host-read copy to ensure authenticity.  “There’s absolutely a lot of interest in the Hispanic opportunity by many advertisers,” said Jesus Lara, president of Univision Radio, including its Uforia Audio Network. “There’s other advertisers that will need a little more education.” Lara stressed that authenticity has to be paramount when building ad creative. Ad Results Media VP of media operations and analytics Lisa Jacobs says she advises brands to only write copy in another language if they have someone fluent around to work on the translation. Jacobs told MarketingBrew this might seem self-explanatory, but there have been situations in the past where someone used Google Translate to try and convert copy to another language.  Bautista says she’s seeing brands follow the advice of people like Jacobs, though there is room to grow.  “The needle is moving. It’s not moving as quickly as it needs to be, but…I do commend these companies that we've been working with for trying their best, and making sure that they are working on these efforts, and asking for feedback, and looking towards the right types of networks to advertise with in order to get this right.” Brands advertising on Netflix include Louis Vuitton, Subway, and Duracell Shreya: Previously we’ve covered Netflix’s moves into making its cheapest tier an ad-supported one. Last week the platform officially launched the tier, charging $6.99 for ‘Basic with Ads’ in the US, as well as eight other countries. MarketingBrew’s Kelsey Sutton reports the ad loads are capped at four to five minutes of advertising per hour and the formats are pre-roll and mid-roll.  Sutton and others from MarketingBre

What’s the episode about: If you’re a long time podcast listener, you’re probably familiar with promo codes. In this episode, we discuss how impactful they really are. And, is it possible that they could have even more impact for listeners, publishers, and advertisers? Tom Webster proposes an upgrade. Arielle Nissenblatt and Bryan Barletta are here to discuss with it with him. Listen to learn about:  A promo code that’s been living rent free in Arielle’s head for 5+ yearsWhy promo codes work for publishersA possible upgrade to the promo code system we know and loveWhether or not this potential upgrade would be as impactful for advertisers as it would be for publishers and listenersHow this discussion ties into our recent research studies, After These Messages and We’ll Be Right Back Links: Bryan BarlettaArielle NissenblattTom WebsterArticle discussedThe DownloadSounds Profitable: Narrated ArticlesSquadCastPodsights Credits: Hosted by Bryan Barletta, Tom Webster, Arielle NissenblattSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronProduced by: Reece Carman and Ron TendickAssembled by: Spooler MediaHosted by: Omny StudioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Tom continues his thoughts from last week about what Podcasting can learn from Radio’s worst mistakes. Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEdited by Tom WebsterProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Amazon Prime users get ad-free podcasts and music, Buzzsprout combats email spam, new ad placements at Apple cause brand safety issue, and a roundup of the three new podcast research studies. Amazon Music adds entire music catalog, ad-free podcasts.  Manuela: On Tuesday David Pierce, writing for The Verge, covered the changes coming to Amazon Prime subscribers.  Previously, Amazon Prime members had access to a limited batch of 2 million songs from Amazon Music’s extensive library. Now they have access to all 100 million songs in a limited shuffle-only capacity, similar to how a Spotify free account currently works.  The big change makes the Amazon Prime music offerings comparable to a free Spotify account. However, Amazon Prime members also get ad-free access to a fair few major podcasts. This includes podcasts produced by Amazon-owned companies like Wondery, as well as podcasts produced in partnership with outside companies, including NPR, ESPN, and the New York Times. “Amazon is also working on podcast discovery. It’s rolling out a new feature called Podcast Previews, which seems to be something like trailers for podcast episodes. You’ll be able to listen to “a short, digestible soundbite” before deciding to dive into an episode, which Amazon thinks could help discovery.” Pierce says the feature is billed as being “swipeable” and summarizes it as ‘Tinder for podcasts.’ Sounds Profitable asked several large publishers and hosting platforms for their percentage of downloads from Amazon Music. All were below 1% of monthly volume. Giving Amazon’s over 250 million Prime subscribers ad-free access to podcasts might bring that percentage up soon.  In addition to the Prime members, those who pay the $9 monthly subscription fee for Amazon Music Unlimited but do not have Prime get access to the ad-free podcast listening and Podcast Previews tool.  Buzzsprout ‘fighting back against email spam.’ Shreya: This Monday, Buzzsprout posted a short update announcing a significant update to how they’re distributing RSS feeds.  “Email spam has increasingly become an issue for podcasters. Spammers and bots routinely scrape RSS feeds to collect podcasters' email addresses and send them junk emails.”  The inclusion of a producer’s email in the RSS feed has been a mixed bag in recent years. As Buzzsprout says, making it easily available leaves the door open for companies scraping data to create massive databases of email addresses specifically to cold-call in hopes of selling something relevant to podcasters.  On the other hand, anyone who has produced a podcast knows the RSS email is an integral part of the process, with many platforms sending an email to that address with a verification link to prove the person claiming they own the RSS feed is legitimate.  Buzzsprout’s solution to that issue is simple: a new button has been added to the dashboard that puts the account owner’s email back into the RSS feed for 24 hours, enough time to verify the podcast  Barring any teething troubles with the 24 hour temporary email addition process, it seems like Buzzsprout has found an elegant solution to an inelegant problem.  Apple’s new ad placements immediately caused a brand safety crisis Manuela: As covered in past episodes of The Download, Apple has been interested in expanding advertising offerings on its platforms. This Monday Insider Intelligence’s Daniel Konstantinovic posted coverage of a brand safety speedbump Apple encountered when rolling out new ad locations on the App Store.   One of the new ad spots is in the “you might also like” section recommending similar apps, allowing advertisers to promote their own app. On the 25th when the ads went live, users began to notice inappropriate advertisements appearing on the platform. The chief example of this provided in the article is an ad for the game Jackpot World - Slot Machines on the page for RecoverMe, a gambling addiction management app.  “The influx of gambling ads led to an outcry from developers, who didn’t want their apps associated with such services, and prompted Apple to indefinitely pause ads in the gambling category.” Podcasting is no stranger to this kind of hiccup. Back in May, Spotify experienced an issue with their implementation of ads on podcast pages, leading to one Wild Turkey whiskey ad getting served to every podcast on the platform, including those about substance abuse and alcoholism, causing a small social media firestorm.  Growing pains happen with large platforms rolling out changes like this. In-depth rules and hands-on verification helps reduce issues when rolling out a new moving part, like ads on  every app listing. Apple is looking into expanding similar ads into Apple Podcasts.  It’s best to keep aware of how these changes happen and be comfortable reporting on them as they happen. Apple certainly doesn’t want their own version of Spotify’s whiskey snafu, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out when ad changes debut on any platform.  Podcasting Research Roundup Shreya: Over the past week three new studies relevant to podcasting have been released, so before we close out with Quick Hits here’s a brief rundown of what has just hit the airwaves.  The IAB New Zealand has published The Evolution of Audio 2022, built with data collected from 95 survey respondents in late August and early September.  “Respondents are decision makers or influencers in the allocation of marketing spend across audio advertising including media buyers and publishers and sales Teams.”  The survey came back with promising data, including several metrics reflecting New Zealand ad buyers have used ads in broadcast streaming and podcasting more than their Australian counterparts.  Then there’s The Spoken Word 2022, from NPR and Edison Research. This edition comes with a special focus on younger demographics and how they interact with spoken word content. The study found a 214% increase in spoken word consumption in the 13 to 24 year old demographic compared to data from 2014.  According to The Spoken Word, an estimated 131 million people in the US over the age of 13 listen to spoken word content on a daily basis, an increase of 26 million over eight years. And finally, the Q3 version of Magellan AI’s Podcast advertising benchmark report is here. The report examined over 78,000 episodes of popular podcasts to get a snapshot of the state of podcast advertising.  Notable findings include 1,878 new brands or products advertised with podcasts for the first time this quarter, a 2.6% increase quarter over quarter in podcast ad ok spending, and 36% of ads were thirty seconds in length.  Quick Hits Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  Audiences say advertisers shouldn’t avoid hard news, like war or COVID by Ryan Barwick for Marketing Brew. The results of a survey published by the Trustworthy Accountability Group and the Brand Safety Institute suggest audiences are of the opinion ads should be served on all high-quality journalism, regardless of story content.  TikTok developer ByteDance is hiring someone for Podcast Business Development. Two weeks ago we covered the breadcrumb trail of evidence showing TikTok is taking steps to get into podcasting in the near future. Recently, a job posting has appeared on the ByteDance website aiming to hire someone with at least five years of podcast licensing or podcast digital business development experience.  Market Enginuity Podcast Group becomes Soundrise, offering a “revenue-focused partner for values-aligned podcast partners.”  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 Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we kick off a two part series on the lessons that podcasting can take from radio's struggles.  Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEdited by Tom WebsterProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.