AI Ethics for Ads, Podcasting’s Olympic Potential, & More

New Ethics Guidelines for Generative AI in Advertising

Late last week Adopter Media announced a new standard for authentic podcast advertising and YouTube sponsorships, establishing usage of generative AI to make “personal endorsement” style ads as disingenuous and unethical. Similarly, the Association of National Advertisers has published a new ethics framework that includes best practices requiring any use of generative AI tools to be disclosed with a clear or easily-accessible notice. While AI tools can innovate post-production processes or fixing small issues, proper ethics guidelines serve to future-proof podcasting’s power of authenticity and trustworthiness.

Sports Audio Plays an Integral Role in the Female Sports Fandom

The new Sports Audio Report: Female Fans from Edison Research, GroupM, and SiriusXM Media looks at the unique listening habits of women sports fanatics and how they interact with their favorite sports beyond the games themselves. 57% of female sports fans ‘frequently’ or ‘occasionally’ listened to sports audio content in the last year. 37% of those listeners had consumed 5+ hours of sports audio in the last week. And there’s room to grow women-focused sports audio, as 35% of female audio listeners agree there aren’t enough sports audio programs that give different perspectives or follow the sports they enjoy.

Here’s What NBCU Is Charging for the First Programmatic Olympics by Bill Bradley and Catherine Perloff

According to sources monitoring the Trade Desk, Olympics offerings, including live events and replays on Peacock or the NBC Sports app, are selling for $60 CPM (cost per thousand impressions), with $40 rates on news coverage/highlights and now-past $35 rates on trials coverage. For savvy brands wanting to get in front of leaned-in Olympics audiences, podcasting content focused on the games should be on their radar.

Netflix’s advertising-supported tier surges but ‘meaningful’ profit is still in the future by Chris Pash

Netflix’s Q2 report shows steady progress for the ad-supported subscription tier with 35% growth quarter-over-quarter. Since the tier’s launch 18 months ago (which included a rocky start where bought impressions had to be refunded in Australia in Feb ‘23), the ads tier now makes up over 45% of new Netflix signups. The company does not expect ad revenue to become their primary source of income this year or in 2025. Meanwhile Peter Naylor, VP of ad sales at Netflix, has announced his departure from the company. His position is reported to be replaced by a strictly U.S. and Canada-focused ad sales position instead of Naylor’s global focus.

After a Rough Year, Podcasts Begin to Grow Again by Ashley Carman

Despite a 2023 that was rough for the advertising industry in general, podcasting managed a 5% overall industry ad revenue increase. And growth continues into this year, with iHeartMedia posting 18% year over year growth in Q1, and Acast seeing 25% y-o-y growth in the same quarter. After filing for bankruptcy in January, Audacy’s podcast business is back to turning a profit. While the era of massive net-new podcast acquisitions is over, big names like Dax Shepard, Alex Cooper, and Joe Rogan are either moving platforms or broadening their distribution capabilities with sizable new deals.

…as for the rest of the news: