Reactions and Clarifications re: Spotify Plays [Multiple Sources]
Last week Spotify announced a new ‘play’ metric that will soon appear on podcast episodes, providing the first ‘view count’ style metric visible to audiences outside of video podcasts on YouTube. NBC News ran an article in the evening of May 8th, aggregating concerns from podcasters. Chief of which: a public view count runs the risk of crowding out smaller shows. On the 9th, Spotify took to Threads, saying they would address top questions this coming Friday. A page on Spotify’s support site has also been updated to explain the new metric: a ‘play’ on Spotify is a measurement of time a Spotify User actively watched or listened to a piece of content on the Spotify app. Plays are only counted once per user session, so unlike YouTube Shorts or TikTok videos a Spotify play does not count pausing and un-pausing a video. James Cridland posted an op-ed today discussing the importance of open statistics, the double standard of critiquing a proprietary metric from Spotify while a ‘view’ on YouTube has never been officially quantified, and the importance of respect and clear messaging.
Podcast Deals Heat Up Again in Wake of Trump’s Victory by Ashley Carman
After the drought of M&A that was late 2023, podcasting is carrying momentum from last year into 2025 as deals and prices continue to go up. According to Carman, PodX Group purchased Lemonada Media for around $30 million. The Chernin Group has recently invested $40 million in Audiochuck, with talks about potentially funding UK podcast producer Goalhanger. QCODE has also recently raised a fresh round of funding, though Carman’s sources could not share specifics and QCODE declined to comment. Point is: the podcasting market is warming back up, and at healthy prices.
EXCLUSIVE: Layoffs Hit WPP Media Agencies Days After Reports of GroupM Rebrand by Audrey Kemp
Shortly after WPP rebranded GroupM to WPP Media, a round of layoffs began last week. Multiple employees have spoken with Adweek, though GroupM has declined to comment. According to both former and current employees, the layoff round happened so quickly that some higher-ups at agencies within WPP Media were not aware of which employees they were losing, finding out via bounce-back messages when emails failed to send to now-locked accounts. I’d like to quickly remind readers that Sounds Profitable’s job board for positions in the business of podcasting is free to browse, and it is free to submit new open positions. We include five of the newest positions in each issue of The Download, but are always looking to publish more and help connect more people.
Winning the Long Game: Why Your Attribution Window Matters in Audio Advertising
A new piece from Audacy highlights podcasting’s ability to work well over long periods of time, with audio campaigns tending to work best as slow burns vs. big, quick flashes. They propose a 30-day attribution should be the minimum used for audio, allowing audio to show the ripple effect of the campaign. They give the example of retail attribution in an attribution study run by Claritas, during which a retail campaign would’ve missed out on 35% of total conversions in the three weeks following the traditional seven day window period. Short attribution windows are good at catching impulse, but Audacy’s argument is audio’s strength lies in capturing intention, which needs time. The more often a potential customer hears a brands’ message as they work through a podcast series, the more likely they’ll act favorably towards that brand when it comes time to make a purchase.
Acast’s official LinkedIn has posted a 19 page report built from Swedish data and over 2 million monthly listens on their own sports content to examine how, when, and why Swedish sports fans listen to podcasts. Key takeaways include 67% of sports podcasts fans find them more engaging than other podcast genres, they average 4 hours per week listening on average, and 66% have a most positive perception of brands that advertise in their favorite podcasts. Sports podcasting has been on the rise in recent years, and reports like Acast’s act as a reminder that doesn’t just apply to U.S. markets.
As for the rest of the news…
- Podcast Show co-founder Jason Carter sat down with Podcast Business Journal to discuss what’s new with this year’s event. Speaking of, I’ll just drop a quick reminder that Sounds Profitable is hosting a happy hour with NPR the afternoon before, May 20th. Space is limited, register here for consideration.
- Podscribe has published their Industry Rankings for May 2025, including big moves for Crime Junkie, Audioboom, and Uber Eats.
- Podnews reports four new hires/position moves at Libsyn: Nick Zier is now Senior Manager of Creator Partnerships, Cliff Clinton (formerly at Ossa and Ad Results Media) is Senior Manager of Strategy and Podcast Operations, Scott Herd (Sonnant, iHeartMedia) is now National Account Director, and Brittany Hall (Spotify, Triton Digital) is Director of Brand Partnerships.
- LiveRead.IO has partnered with Starglow Media
- Wondercraft co-founder Oskar Serrander has posted a Creator Story video featuring Matt Kirby, Creative Lead at AMA, walking through the company’s history and how they’re using Wondercraft to speed up their creative process.
- SiriusXM Media is bringing a flagship podcast to YouTube regularly, with Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend kicking off regularly uploading full episodes this evening at 6 p.m. PST, marking the first time CONAF has consistently uploaded full episodes outside of SiriusXM (according to Variety reporting, two full-ep experiments have been made.
- NumberEight and Odeoo have partnered up to enhance in-game audio advertising, allowing advanced audience targeting for brands.
