Big Brands 🔜 Niche Audiences, U.S. Ad Spend Forecast 📈, & More

Before we get started, we’d like to quickly announce the midyear update to the Podscape is now live! Check it out here for a bird’s-eye view of the podcasting industry with companies organized into one infographic.

BIA: U.S. Local Ad Spend In 2025 To Hit $171 Billion

A new U.S. Local Advertising Forecast from BIA Advisory Services predicts ad revenue will reach $171 billion by 2025. In the short term, that means a 5.5% increase in non-political spending over 2024. Local political advertising is expected to reach $11.7 billion, an increase of $560 million from BIA’s previous forecast back in March and a 21.3% increase from the 2020 election season.

The True Crime Opportunity by Tom Webster

Sounds Profitable’s 2022 study Safe and Sound demonstrates the power of true crime content, with only 9% of respondents disagreeing with the phrase “I like it when a brand supports my favorite true crime podcast.” True crime enthusiasts actively seek out the content of true crime. Yet still, brands shy away from the genre for fear of running against discussions of murder, despite the average true crime podcast’s content more resembling TV police procedurals or detective stories.True crime podcasts represent a not-common blend of audience engagement, brand loyalty, and societal impact, and advertisers would do well to reconsider blanket bans on the genre.

New Adalytics report raises new questions about use of AI systems for brand safety by Marty Swant

The latest report from industry watchdog Adalytics reports hundreds of instances of brands appearing alongside unsafe content on sites largely built from user-generated content, such as Fandom wiki pages. A significant percentage of ads found in this manner had code for sizable brand safety tech vendors like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science attached. Advertisers interviewed by Digiday noted surprise at particularly egregious examples of AI-powered brand safety tools missing obvious signs content was brand-unsafe, such as racial slurs and sexual reference in headlines and page urls. Several interviewed academics propose a core issue might be the systems work, but can’t properly operate at scale during the nanoseconds a given ad spot is up for bid.

Mass Brands Without Mass Media by Brian Morrissey

As the Paris Olympics reach their final days, Morrissey reflects on how rare a mass media event like this is in the fragmented world of streaming. Even then, the Olympics themselves are less of a single event, as Peacock offers multiple streams for audiences to pick and choose which events to watch. As universal watercooler moments become rarities, huge brands will likely have to shift focus and begin targeting niche communities/audiences. And with that shift in focus, podcasting’s power to authentically communicate with niche audiences should be a clear choice for brands.

Is Spotify down? Users report issues with music streaming service by Saqib Shah

According to website disruption tracker DownDetector, which charts reports of issues with popular websites, Spotify experienced an outage starting at 6:15 a.m. EST this morning, At its peak the site received over 2,400 reports in a 20 minute period. The outage appears to have been largely resolved by 10:00 a.m. EST as DownDetector reports drop from 1,000 to 60 within that hour. Podcasting’s listenership continues to grow steadily and multiple studies find commutes are a major part of daily listening. As a result, podcast episodes tend to release early in the morning to be first in queue for commuters. With the timing of this outage, what could the financial impact be for publishers on one of the biggest platforms in podcasting?

…as for the rest of the news: