Podcast Ads Drive Action, Local Radio Reporting Returning, & More

The Advertising Landscape Part 3: Driving to Action

Sounds Profitable’s latest segment of data from The Advertising Landscape, built from the largest public study of podcast and advertising in the country with 5,005 American respondents aged 18+, is now live. As the title suggests, Driving to Action focuses on how different ad-supported mediums drive actions for podcast Primes (those who consume podcasts near-daily). Podcast Primes were asked to choose which forms of media they had taken various actions with re: ads in the past six months. “Wrote down a promotional code” puts podcasts with ads in the top spot with 33% of respondents, YouTube with ads in second with 10%, and Instagram with 9%. 27% researched the brand after hearing ad-supported podcasts (followed by Instagram in second place with 13%). The report demonstrates those who are actively engaging with podcasts are being driven to multiple forms of action, from information-gathering to instantly purchasing a product.

Andreessen Horowitz is looking to pay $400K+ for a leader to build out a podcast network by Lucia Moses

VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is taking another step in an ongoing strategy to build their own content instead of relying on mainstream press. A recent LinkedIn posts says they’re looking to work with a podcast network that will handle the strategy, ops, and growth of a group of externally-produced “but strategically aligned” podcasts. All with an anticipated yearly price tag of $424,000. Podcasting is a valuable tool for business, and more are recognizing the power of investing in it (figuratively and, in AH’s case, literally).

Why Speed is Reshaping Sports Media Economics by Majed Alhajry

Younger sports fans increasingly want more clips and behind-the-scenes moments from their preferred teams immediately. A 2024 Deloitte Global Sports Industry Outlook report found 53% of Gen Z sports fans prefer highlight clips to streaming full live matches, with TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube serving as primary discovery channels for sports content. Now legacy media is doing what they can to make instant delivery more of a possibility. For example, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation found a bottleneck with the amount of files they needed to transfer during live broadcasts and rebuilt their workflow to use a cloud-based pipeline that beams video where it needs to go. Places including to their internal teams who can process out clips without waiting for stadium wi-fi networks to play ball or manual links to be emailed. Given the growing popularity of sports podcasting, live productions the day of matches/well-timed episode drops could do wonders to fill the gaps between big moments happening in games and polished clips making it to official TikTok pages.

Michigan Station Gives Neighborhood Reporting a Try by Kevin Eck

Grand Rapids, MI Fox affiliate WXMI is getting specific with their news coverage. Instead of studio-based reporting on stories for the entire city, WXMI has announced their team of reporters have been divided up with each being assigned to a specific neighborhood. The hyper-local model is something about a dozen Scripps-run TV stations have piloted over the past couple years. By returning to older methods of embedding reporters with specific beats/regions instead of generalized catch-all reporting, stations can focus more on niche local developments and community-based journalism vs “live for the sake of being live” broadcasts. Given podcasting’s in-built support of hyper-niche content, there likely is a path for neighborhood-based reporters to also leverage hyper-local news podcasts as ways to strengthen ties with their communities even further.

As for the rest of the news…