Sounds Profitable

Are programmatic ads bad for podcasting? Or are they a lifeline for creators? We ask the number one solo artist in U.S. history. Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEditing by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmSounds 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.

Bryan speaks with Marketing Brew’s Alyssa Meyers about reporting on podcasting and audio for an advertising-focused publication. Marketing Brew is part of Morning Brew’s network of newsletters. Adtech Applied cohost Arielle Nissenblatt joins to set up the chat and break it down with takeaways at the latter half of the show. Listen for: How Alyssa found this beatWhat Alyssa looks for in a storyHow to become a source for Alyssa and other marketing/advertising-focused publications that cover podcasting and audioInformation on the Sounds Profitable Summit at Podcast Movement DallasWhere to find our other podcasts, La Descarga, The Download, and Sounds Profitable: The Narrated Articles An update on our podcast slate at Sounds Profitable and a tease of what’s to come Here’s our favorite idea from this conversation: we need subject matter experts who are not just well-versed in their own product or company’s capabilities, but who also know how their product/company relates to and fits in with the larger audio landscape. Links: Bryan BarlettaArielle NissenblattAlyssa MeyersMarketing BrewSounds Profitable Summit at Podcast MovementThe DownloadSounds Profitable: Narrated ArticlesSquadCast Credits: Hosted by Bryan Barletta & Arielle NissenblattAudio engineering by Evo TerraExecutive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler MediaSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Download: Acast buys Podchaser, PodcastOne strikes out on their own, SiriusXM and Comscore expand their deal, Disney’s integrating with The Trade Desk , and Podnews caught 240 spam emails. This Monday Podnews started off the work week with a big announcement: Acast is acquiring Podchaserhttps://podnews.net/press-release/acast-podchaser “Podchaser, which will continue to operate as a separate brand and independent business, was founded in 2016 and is home to the leading global podcast database, covering more than 4.5 million podcasts and more than 1.7 billion data points — including hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, and the advertisers of the world’s top 5,000 podcasts. This unique, proprietary data — which will also remain open to all — spans and powers the entire open podcast ecosystem, and is used by listeners, podcasters, advertisers and industry professionals.” Podchaser has created strong integrations with hosting platforms to receive data, exported data to podcast apps and hosting platforms, and has a competitive intelligence tool built to enable publishers and buyers alike to improve their revenue streams.  General industry sentiment of Acast currently is a bit lukewarm unless you’re actively working with them as a publisher or a buyer. As previously reported, Acast has—or at least had— a marketing strategy involving unrelenting spam emails encouraging podcasters to switch to their services. With mass emails to RadioPublic users and their siloed relationships with partners like Patreon, it’s hard for some podcasters to give this deal the benefit of the doubt.  We’re very happy for our sponsor Podchaser, and the entire team there, and truly hope the independent nature is maintained. We still question the comfort of existing and new integrated partners providing data to a competitor. Last Friday LiveOne issued a press release announcing that their company PodcastOne, having just raised 8.1 million in funding, is looking to separate and https://ir.livexlive.com/news/news-details/2022/LiveOnes-Wholly-Owned-Subsidiary-PodcastOne-Closes-8.1-Million-Financing-at-a-Pre-Money-Valuation-of-60-Million-as-Part-of-Its-Intention-to-Spin-Out-PodcastOne-as-a-Separate-Public-Company-Before-Year-End/default.aspx  “PodcastOne is the leading advertiser-supported on-demand digital podcast company, offering a 360-degree solution for both content creators and advertisers, including content development, brand integration and distribution. Acquired by LiveOne in 2020, PodcastOne has had more than 2.1 billion downloads a year since its acquisition, across the more than 350 weekly episodes it distributes.” Their talent stable includes names like Jordan Harbinger, Adam Carolla, and T-Pain. In the press release PodcastOne president Kit Gray said:  “The podcasting business has exploded over the past five years and PodcastOne is one of the largest independent podcast companies in the world. The company is one of only two independent podcasting publishers in the top 10 of Podtrac's list of Top Publishers. We believe that by trading as a separate public company, PodcastOne will have the opportunity to access the public capital markets as well as be better positioned to both acquire podcast platforms and attract significant podcast talent.”  PodcastOne offers its own self-built platform and operates as an ad sales network for its publishers. It’s weathered a lot of storms in podcasting and investment like this during a recession shows confidence in the ability for them to stand on their own. It will be interesting to see how their products and services come to market faster, and who they cater toward. Much like the acquisition last story, this announcement shows podcasting deals aren’t going stale. Last Thursday SiriusXM and Comscore announced the expansion of their collaborative agreement to bring predictive audience targeting to podcasts. This new expanded agreement https://podnews.net/press-release/siriusxm-comscore-predictive. General Manager of Comscore activation services Rachel Grant said:  “With podcast consumption skyrocketing and the regulatory environment still very fluid, it’s critical to give advertisers the ability to develop privacy-forward and future-proof audience targeting on podcasts”  Prior to this AdsWizz was already working with Comscore for their contextual targeting based off of keywords for the Podscribe tool (not to be confused with the company Podscribe). The new deal expands into a targetable dataset for those buying through Adswizz programmatic offerings, either as a buyer using their demand side platform to buy anywhere in podcast programmatic, or buying directly into their open marketplace Podwave.  The continued highlighting of it being privacy-first is a bit misleading. AdsWizz is still providing the IP address to match off of, which we at Sounds Profitable do not find to be an issue. That Comscore has built a new dataset not built on cookies is a step towards the aforementioned future-proofing. The dataset looks to come from Comscore opted-in panels, which is different from universal ID solutions looking to match first party data. While podcasting is always probabilistic matching - as it's based on IP address - this is also probabilistic targeting.  It’s neat to see Comscore focusing a bit more on podcasting while many other major data partners are snoozing on it. In a rare twist we only have one article posted on a Tuesday for you this week. Last Tuesday AdExchanger’s James Hercher published https://www.adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/disney-integrates-with-the-trade-desk-and-uid2-in-pursuit-of-better-addressability/?oly_enc_id=7865D1013734B0R “This new integration with The Trade Desk, which was born from recent meetings in Cannes, will accelerate Disney’s ambition to automate and target more of its overall pool of data, Barnes said. Advertisers will be able to more effectively find their audiences across Disney inventory and the added precision should help improve ROI and post-campaign results.” Disney is a major player in podcasting, both directly and through partnerships. So much of what Disney does today uses programmatic for efficiency’s sake. A company of that size can’t easily do manual IO’s for every cookie-cutter campaign. As Disney continues to invest and grow their podcast offerings creates synergy with the majority of podcast SSPs being configured to purchase from The Trade Desk. There’s  real potential for further increase in podcasting programmatic as the industry takes care of the small discrepancies and differences that stand in the way of podcasting as a main advertising channel.  While the article is worth engaging with on its own merits, script writer Gavin Gaddis wishes to spotlight the piece’s cartoon of Toy Story stars Buzz and Woody selling ads with the caption ‘to automation and beyond.’ Three months ago Podnews editor James Cridland laid a trap to learn more about the methods and companies using shady tactics to cold-call podcasters via email. On Wednesday he published the results in “https://podnews.net/article/podcast-industry-biggest-spammer.”  “In May 2022, we amended Podnews’s podcast RSS feed to produce a near infinite amount of trackable email addresses as a kind of spamtrap. We wanted to discover who was scraping our RSS feed for emails; what user agent they were using, when they scraped it, what tag they scraped it from, and whether the messages were legal under the FCC’s rules (the so-called CAN-SPAM Act).”  Cridland’s honeypot strategy attracted 240 emails over the three month period. Some fall within the boundaries of CAN-SPAM, some seem pointed in their lack of transparency.  The specific companies involved are not necessarily important to the overall story. Podcasting needs good governance as growth continues and the industry constantly redefines what constitutes ‘normal’ business practices. It’s on those within the industry to make podcasting better through what’s considered an acceptable marketing strategy. It’s perfectly legal to scrape email addresses from RSS feed tags and send them unsolicited emails as long as they follow loose FCC and other governmental regulatory rules. In an industry growing as fast and consistently as podcasting one has to question if it has a place for an antiquated cold-calling strategy perfected in the late 90s.  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’s two Quick Hits are  https://blog.pacific-content.com/the-most-important-things-weve-learned-about-successful-branded-podcasts-c9e52f643c8fMisener, formerly Director of Audience Development at Pacific Content, provides a great list of learnings on his way out the door. One of the greatest minds at Pacific, Misener has been skilled at breaking down complex data and making it accessible to the masses. His heart has always been focused on growing all of podcasting and Sounds Profitable fully supports him in whatever he’s doing next. We know it’ll have an impact.  And secondly: a press release from Pushkin media:

This week on The Download: Blubrry brings a new spin to media kits, Twitter’s building a podcast player, TargetSpot expands into Latin American audiences, Overcast’s creator has beef with how podcasters use DAI, and Anchor’s co-founder finds RSS standards restrictive to innovation.  While a significant portion of the United States was recovering from an excessive amount of explosive devices used over the holiday weekend, Blubrry announced a new way for podcasters to present themselves to potential sponsors and partners.  “Blubrry is introducing a podcasting industry first by providing all Blubrry paid customers a podcast media kit that updates daily with information you choose to include. The kit includes data you provide, podcast statistics and audience survey results.” Data points that can be included in the kit range from simple unchanging data points like website or show start date to granular things like social media follower counts, average monthly downloads per episode, and Blubrry audience survey results.  While not technically a media kit, this is a great step forward in helping arm podcasters with useful information they can give advertisers interested in evaluating their show. While lacking in the usual collection of logos and information ephemera a true media kit designed to be attractive to press, this sort of media kit 2.0 cuts down on a fair amount of repeat labor. To The Download’s knowledge this is the first time a hosting company has automated this process and included actual download statistics in the package. Usually the process is a tedious manual one that requires regular updates by either the show runner or their representation to pull each data point.  Kudos to Blubrry for being the first to market with this dreamed-of feature.  Once again we bring news of a social media platform showing interest in podcast integration, but this time it feels more legitimate. Frontend engineer and code researcher Jane Manchun Wong did some digging. In her to-the-point tweet she announced:  “Twitter is working on in-app Podcast player.”  Attached to the tweet is a screen recording of the new player in action, showing Wong clicking on show art for Office Ladies, which prompts a new podcast player overlay.  For the younger folk in the room, it’s worth noting that Twitter didn’t spring forth fully formed into the world. In its primordial form the service was originally Odeo, a 2005 attempt at what we’d call a podcast social media network today. Podcasting is literally in Twitter’s DNA.  This Monday Podnews shared an announcement from TargetSpot concerning a promising step towards diversifying podcasting further. The adtech company is opening a Latin American-focused office in Miami, Florida under the leadership of Angelica Potes. Chief Revenue Officer Alexandre Ouhadi said: “We are glad to finally be physically present in the Latin American Market. We have created amazing partnerships with big name publishers. This is the right moment to officially go live. Audio is growing rapidly, so it’s a great opportunity for advertisers to leverage their digital media budget through this engaging medium.”  Diversity in language, ethnicity, and geographical location is how the podcast industry expands. Hispanic/Latino creators are incredibly well represented in podcasting in comparison to the overall US population. Providing revenue opportunities for those audiences provides the ability for new businesses to be built to capture that revenue. This is good growth for the industry. On Tuesday Marco Arment, creator of podcatcher Overcast, took to Twitter to address a trend in negative reviews for his app. In four screenshots provided four different anonymous users cite an abundance of jarring advertisements. Some complain about the amount and quantity of ads, one claims the ads were so poorly-optimized the volume shift was enough to burst their eardrum.  While the last review’s threat of legal action might be hyperbolic, Arment is still concerned.  “Cheap, sloppy dynamic ad insertion (DAI) in podcasts continues to degrade the experience for listeners. They blame the app, and that’s my problem to deal with.”  He goes on to ask podcasters who poorly implement DAI “what are you doing” in all capital letters.  Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta took issue with this in a quote-tweet of Arment, citing issues like frequency capping, comp separation, and other features related to poor-quality ad placement:  “...are not tech issues, they’re business decisions. Your host doesn’t offer it? Switch hosts. And don’t buy inventory that doesn’t support your needs.”  Sloppy implementation of DAI is a recipe for disaster, and there’s plenty of evidence of podcasters falling for that trap. Too often that sloppiness is built in under the guise of 'automation', which often leads to odd ad breaks added by the hosting company filled with even odder ads. So what's the solution? Bad ads—ads that don't fit the context of the episode, ads that are recorded at wildly different volumes than the rest of the episode, or an overabundance of ads in an episode—are predominant in dynamically inserted programmatic ads as well as baked-in host-read ads. And solid DAI implementation can power highly relevant host-read ads that sound like they belong in the episode. In the end, it comes to having an ad strategy as well as tactics that are acceptable to the podcaster, the advertiser, and the audience as well. And it'll make it less likely for listeners to blame their listening app for something that's not their problem. We got you, Marco. On Tuesday Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano posted a Medium blog titled “The Standards Innovation Paradox.” In it, he proposes the theory that standards like RSS were useful in helping podcasting grow in the beginning, but have become restrictive over time as services all adapt the same standards and any new additions come with all previous updates as well.  “If you’ve ever searched the App Store or the Google Play store for a podcast app, you’ve likely come across a tidal wave of search results. In some ways, this fragmentation is great for users, because it means they have a ton of choice and flexibility in what product to use for their podcast listening. But at the same time, this fragmentation is bad for innovation, and makes it nearly impossible to innovate on experiences that are based on RSS, meaning the podcast listening experience has remained stale and largely unchanged for almost the entirety of podcasting.” On Wednesday James Cridland published a rebuttal in the form of “The Standards Innovation Paradox: is it real?” The piece takes Mignano’s to task and seeks to add outside context to his thought process, namely the fact Mignano worked at Spotify after they bought out Anchor. During that tenure the company threw itself into reinventing podcasting without RSS, instead using the proprietary method that follows Mignano’s proposal that proprietary tech is required due to the difficulty of forcing a standard to evolve.  “Yet, Spotify absolutely could evolve the standard: because by April 2022, they were big enough, with at least 30% market share, to have set the standard themselves. They could have said “here’s how to signal the video asset in your RSS feed, and if you do this, you’ll get video podcasts in Spotify too.” They could have looked at the currently existing solution to this, the podcast namespace’s alternateEnclosure tag, and adopted that (and, possibly, molded it to their needs). But, they didn’t.” Cridland goes on to point out decisions to stick with black box proprietary tech conveniently also mean any user who wishes to take advantage of that new tech is permanently locked into using Anchor as a hosting service.  The risk of an open ecosystem is the ability for aggregators to control and separate the industry. For all the dour news about a lack of profits, Spotify is currently succeeding at this to some degree. RSS is capable of doing everything Mignano’s piece takes issue with; issues he has historically complained about even prior to the buyout.  Innovation is stifled not by standards, but by people and businesses with the necessary power to adopt new standards instead choosing to whine about having to share space and leverage that to release new impenetrable black boxes.  Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re tentatively 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’s Quick Hits are  Spotify acquires music trivia game Heardle by Ariel Shapiro. Podcasting: True or False? By Fred Jacobs.  As usual, links to everything mentioned can be found in the episode notes.  The

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: Original full episode available at: https://soundsprofitable.com/episode/2/13Audio engineering by Evo TerraExecutive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler MediaSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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: Original full episode available at https://soundsprofitable.com/episode/2/6Audio engineering by Evo TerraExecutive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler MediaSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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