The Sounds Profitable Educational Series continues with a look at the News Podcast audience, in a live webinar featuring Tom Webster and Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing at NPR’s sponsorship subsidiary National Public Media. This free event will be held on Wednesday, February 26th, at 2PM Eastern – register here today!
YouTube Plans Lower-Priced, Ad-Free Version of Paid Video Tier by Ashley Carman
YouTube has announced an incoming new premium tier known as “Premium Lite.” The new tier will offer ad-free video content (save for music videos) at a lower price point than the current YouTube Premium cost of $13.99, which gets rid of all ads on the platform. A tier which could appeal to consumers who consume a lot of longform content (which is to say, video podcasts). Carman theorizes this premium lite strategy, a revival of a retired similar offering only available in Europe according to The Information, could be a strategy to entice audiences to stay in the YouTube ecosystem instead of going to Spotify for ad-free video podcasts.
Do Marketers Still Care About Brand Safety on YouTube and CTV? By Kathryn Lundstrom
A new study from Pixability surveyed U.S. media professionals who buy ads on video platforms, asking them to rank over a dozen different objectives for campaigns in importance. Since 2022 the top concern ranked was brand safety, but in the survey conducted in November of last year respondents dropped brand safety down to sixth place. That said, Pixability CMO Matt Duffy notes the close margin between the top results of the survey make the change not as dramatic as “dropping six spots” might sound. Ad performance, measurement and reporting, audience targeting, efficiency, and business outcomes now all score higher, potentially the result of better set-it-and-forget-it ad tech and a course-correction from the industry hyper-focusing on brand safety in recent years.
Why BBC Podcasts Are Moving to Its Website and App Outside the U.K. By Georg Szalai
BBC podcasts are becoming more globally accessible thanks to a new audio section launched on BBC.com and the BBC app, which hosts audio content curated specifically for international audiences. This announcement marks a big step forward for bringing BBC Studios content to the wider world, given historically BBC digital content was often tightly region-locked (as any U.S.-based fan of 00s BBC IP like Doctor Who or Sherlock can attest).
Growth in Australian Podcasting [Multiple Sources]
As the last few Q4 reports for 2024 come out, Australia continues to demonstrate a healthy podcast space. A recent article from B&T covers ARN’s iHeart and Magellan AI quarterly report on the top 15 Australian podcast advertisers, which features names like Shopify, Toyota, Woolworths, McDonald’s, and at the very top: Airbnb. Speaking of advertising, IAB Australia has published their Q4 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which finds audio advertising grew 17.8% in the country last year and reached $313 million AUD.
As for the rest of the news…
- This Wednesday at 2pm EST Podscribe will be launching their Q4 2025 Podcast Advertising Performance Benchmarks a week early for attendees of their free webinar.
- Last Friday Podcast Business Journal interviewed Rockie Thomas, Chief Strategy Officer at SoundStack.
- The Chernin Group has made a $40 million minority investment in Audiochuck
- amplifi Media founder Steve Goldstein interviewed Cumulus Media Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard about what podcasting needs to do to become a $5 billion industry.
- B&T covers ARN’s iHeart and Magellan AI quarterly report on the top 15 Australian podcast advertisers, with Airbnb leading the pack.
- Airship CEO Lindsay Graham has announced an expanded partnership with Rhapsody and Evergreen Podcasts, which includes shared IP of the hit podcast American Criminal.
- The IAB Australia has published their Q4 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which finds audio advertising grew 17.8% in the country last year and reached $313 million AUD.
