Today in the Business of Podcasting
CBS is ‘virtually sold out’ of ad slots for Super Bowl 58 by Alyssa Meyers
Last year NBC Universal said they sold their last bit of Super Bowl ad space just ten days before the match. CBS says they had a similar timeframe for 2021. Now, months before Super Bowl 58, CBS says they’re nearly fresh out. Next year’s game will be the first Super Bowl to have an altcast (alternate broadcast) on a network other than the one that owns the rights, as Paramount’s Nickelodeon will be hosting kid-oriented coverage. Advertisers who bought into CBS Super Bowl ad space get access to both feeds. While CBS might be running out of space , it’s worth noting sports-adjacent podcast content around the Super Bowl, both before and after, has consistently performed well. [Source]
Adaptive Podcasting – open source release from BBC Research & Development
The BBC’s R&D department has published a white paper with the results of a year’s worth of exploration into the concept of contextually-individualized audio, including podcasts. In addition to the project’s findings, they have published an open source version of their Adaptive Podcasting player for Android. At its core, Adaptive Podcasting takes concepts pioneered in advertising, such as contextually deciding what ads to dynamically insert, and applies it directly to the content. If implemented, tools like this one could innovate how the core of a podcast is constructed, allowing for episodes tailored to a given listener’s data, such as geotargeting or listening habits. Ad tech that could increase listenership, which then has the knock-on effect of audiences hearing more ads as they listen to more episodes. [Source]
LeVar Burton Wants to Be Heard by Laurel Graeber
After six years of hosting the hit adult-focused series LeVar Burton Reads, former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton is making his return to kid-friendly content. The new SXM Media series Sound Detectives stars Burton as a fictionalized version of himself solving sound-based mysteries that take kids from Yellowstone Park to NASA’s JPL facility. While LeVar Burton is interesting enough in his own right, the true focus here is that podcasting has grown to the point a new children’s podcast is anticipated enough to get coverage in The New York Times. [Source]
…as for the rest of the news: Attention vendors are trying to bring measurement tools currently available in other fields (like podcasting) to YouTube, and continuing the theme of major news sources covering podcasts: a recent Washington Post article on Julia Louis-Dreyfus heavily sources her Lemonada podcast Wiser Than Me.
Data Snapshot
Source: The Podcast Landscape from Sounds Profitable
What it says: For podcast listeners who haven’t listened in over a month, the top reasons are mainly due to perceptions of being “time-starved”
What it means: Podcasting actually buys back time by enabling people to catch up on news, information, and interests while doing something else
Why it’s cool: The top two reasons for letting podcasts fall by the wayside are two fantastic marketing messages: podcasting lets you buy back time, and listen to podcasts with friends/family!
