Don’t forget, registration is live for The 2024 True Crime Podcast Listener Landscape Report from Libsyn and Sounds Profitable. Join us Wednesday, December 11th, at 2:00 p.m. EST for a live research presentation hosted by Tom Webster.
True Crime Podcasts Can Win Advertisers – As Long As The Discourse Stays Civil by Anythony Vargas
An interview with Emily Rasekh, SVP of global business development and operations at Sony Music Entertainment, shows that despite True Crime’s proven track record, buyers are still skittish. Even with strong numbers in a popular category, advertisers choose less-effective genres for targeting demographics True Crime is perfect for in an effort to stay away from “unsafe” content. To combat such presumptions, Oxford Road and Seekr have collaborated to create a “civility score” that ranks how civil a podcast is when discussing stronger topics. A method that found political podcasts tend to rank far lower than true crime, as there’s a higher propensity for hosts to make disparaging comments about opposing viewpoints.
This Trillion Dollar Year and 2025 Predictions [Multiple Sources]
‘Tis the season for articles looking back at 2024 and looking forward to the future. Digiday’s latest collects predictions for 2025, including a GroupM forecast that total advertising industry revenue (excluding political ad spend) will reach $1.1 trillion, a slower but still noteworthy upward growth. Australian outlet AdNews covered a WARC report that interviewed 1,000 marketers worldwide, which found only 34% anticipate increased marketing budgets next year (down 7% from last year’s study). Keeping in the country, IPG’s MAGNA predicts Australian ad spend will increase 6.5%. GroupM’s analysis predicts 3.7%, bolstered by an upcoming federal election.
Last month Meta told advertisers and agencies that they would roll out additional restrictions to certain categories of websites using Meta’s business tools as of January. A specific outcome of this is certain brands in the health and wellness category are no longer going to be able to use lower-funnel tracking data for conversions. Buyers tell Digiday this is effectively bringing Meta more in line with their existing policies about limiting sensitive data, as certain sites could inadvertently share sensitive data related to a customer’s health. Health and wellness brands are concerned about the short-term effects of these policy enforcements, while BranchLab CEO John Walsh says the long term effect will be a net positive, as they benefit consumers and innovation.
Report: Omnicom and IPG in Advanced Merger Talks by Alison Weissbrot
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Omnicom is in advanced talks to acquire Interpublic Group (IPG), which would create the largest advertising and marketing services firm in the world. The formal transaction could be announced as early as this week. Exact terms have not been disclosed but an all-stock merger value for IPG would value between $13 billion and $14 billion (not accounting for IPG’s debt). The sizable merger likely will garner governmental attention, given the amount of the advertising industry that’d be encompassed within a joint Omnicom and IPG.
Vox Media Announces Layoffs, Reorganizes Its Lifestyle Properties by Mark Stenberg
According to an internal memo, the restructuring of lifestyle properties will mainly impact Thrillist, PS (formerly PopSugar) and Eater. AdWeek also notes this will impact the media production and technology team. Vox Media has declined to provide specifics regarding how many positions will be impacted by layoffs.
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As for the rest of the news…
- The Podcast Hall of Fame has announced eleven honorees to be inducted in 2025, including our very own Tom Webster. The induction ceremony will take place January 17th in Orlando, FL at the Podfest Expo.
- Neil Mody, co-founder of Headliner, was recently interviewed by Podcast Business Journal.
- CoHost has launched an enhanced B2B podcast analytics feature to improve listener identification and ROI measurement.
- SiriusXM has launched the Women’s Empowerment Network with two new podcasts and more slated to debut in the coming months.
- PodcastOne debuts PodcastOne Pro, a full service offering for upgrading podcast production quality for brands and professionals.
- Acast has acquired creative studio Wonder Media Network.
- Headliner has published their “Wrapped” for 2024, sharing user statistic milestones and recapping highlights from the year.
