Here’s what you need to know for this week in the business of podcasting:

Podcast Acquisitions & Investments – 2023 Industry Recap
SXM Media’s Digital Audio Research Recap
YouTube Launches RSS Feed Ingestion
Branded Music and Authenticity

Quick Hits:

5 Strategies For Podcast Expansion In A Zero-Sum Audio World by Steven Goldstein. Recent Edison Research data shows daily time spent listening to audio content has remained stable for a decade. Goldstein discusses strategies for podcasting to grow in a world where a listener’s time is largely already accounted for.
iOS 17 by Pete Birsinger. The Podscribe CEO has written an explainer on how iOS17 changed auto-downloading behavior and how it will likely impact campaign performance for podcasts. For more reading on the subject, we recommend Livewire Labs’ regularly-updated data on download performance since iOS 17’s release.
Content Mood Targeting from SXM Media. Publishers working with SXM can target music-listening audiences based on the mood assigned to millions of songs in a growing library of categorized music, as well as submit their own music to be assigned mood tags.
The Untapped Potential of Audio in Retail Media Networks by Joshua Yamuder. Triton Digital’s Director of Partnerships and Programmatic Marketplace promotes digital audio as a must-have inclusion for retail media networks looking to diversify their marketing mix.

Since the last issue of The Download there have been two podcasting bankruptcies of note: Audacy and Voxalyze