Today in the Business of Podcasting
KQED snatches up Snap Judgment and Spooked by Amrita Khalid
Oakland-based NPR and PBS member station KQED has acquired Snap Judgement Studios. No layoffs will occur as a result of the acquisition and both the titular radio series Snap Judgement and its Luminary-exclusive spinoff podcast Spooked are publicly available. Formerly one of the top podcasts in Luminary’s walled garden, Spooked now enters the public podcasting sphere with the benefit of both brand recognition and years of backlog that can instantly generate long-tail advertising revenue.
Podcast networks report Q2 revenue growth, with positive signs for continued improvements in 2023 by Sara Guaglione
iHeartMedia, Spotify, and Acast all reported between 12% and 31% year-over-year growth in their podcast businesses during this round of Q2 earnings calls. The three are also confident for the near future, with iHeart projecting revenue increase from Digital Audio Group to be in the mid single digits by Q3. Spotify projects a gross margin increase of 26% for the next quarter. Acast says it’ll continue to focus on the US market and incorporate more automation tools for podcast ad buying.
CTV Buyers Are Still Struggling to Know Where Their Ads Ran by Catherine Perloff
Connected television buyers anticipate CTV will grow out of its teething troubles, but brand safety concerns still exist. Ads for alcohol and casinos have run on children’s content, ads have run on content spreading misinformation. With CTV tech and companies maturing, there is some light at the end of the tunnel with a handful of companies having established the infrastructure to provide show-level data to advertisers after their campaigns run. As we’ve said before, CTV’s teething troubles echoing past issues in podcast advertising continue to demonstrate that issues once blamed specifically on podcast advertising are not themselves unique to podcasting.
…as for the rest of the news: Arrow Media has been appointed Acast’s commercial partner for Queensland, Australia, and new eMarketer data suggests web publishers are ‘fighting over a pie that is barely growing.’
