Before we get started, we want to give a quick heads up for sports fans looking to attend On Air Fest next month: once again the ESPN 30 for 30 Lounge is taking pitches for new 30 for 30 podcast episodes! Last year’s pitches went over well, with an episode based on one of the pitches currently in production, and On Air Fest attendees can now register to bring their 30 for 30 pitch.
How Are Americans Using Their Cell Phones at Work?
RSS.com has published the results of a new survey into personal phone usage while at work, built from a survey of over 3,400 adults over two weeks in December 2024. According to the data, the average American clocks just over three hours of personal minutes on their phone during an average workday. 30 minutes of that time is spent consuming podcasts, with respondents in Texas over-indexing to an average of 59 minutes of podcast per day. Which reaffirms a long-held selling point of podcasting as both a medium and an advertising tool: podcasts are a companion medium, they’re in listener’s ears while they do the dishes, take out the trash, and even while they file their TPS reports.
Buyers Say CTV’s Transparency Problem Remains A Roadblock To Investment
A consistent critique of connected TV (CTV) over the years has been a lack of transparency for people buying CTV inventory. A problem that has gotten even murkier as TV bundles have become the hot trend, making it even more difficult for buyers to discern if they just bought ad space on a company’s ‘main’ streaming platform in time for a prestige TV release, or if it got shunted to their FAST (free ad-supported TV) subsidiary. Veterans of podcasting will recall when buyers’ biggest criticism of podcasting was a lack of ad transparency, something podcasting’s adtech has largely solved for since the industry’s infancy.
Marketers are rewriting the brand safety playbook for content creators in 2025 by Alexander Lee
A look at Any Means Possible, a creator collective known for star streamers that occasionally dabble in edgy/controversial content, and how brand safety concerns seem to not concern the brands that work with them. One big motivator for not sweating brand-unsafe content is a growing acknowledgement of how creator sponsorships work. As audiences become more media-savvy, they also become more aware of how ephemeral content creator sponsorships can be. A connection that’s stronger than ever in podcasting, as reports like The Medium Moves the Message and The True Crime Listener Landscape show podcast audiences understand brand deals make their favorite podcasts possible, and tend to reward brands that fund the content they like.
Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’ Video Episodes Move to YouTube From Spotify by Caitlin Huston
Alex Cooper’s SiriusXM era continues with the move of Unwell Network video podcasts leaving Spotify for YouTube exclusivity. Alan Abdine, Head of Ad Revenue at YMH Studios, notes the complexities of this decision, as exclusivity can be a double-edged sword for content. YouTube is a massive platform, but Alex Cooper was one of the vanguards of Spotify training audiences to watch video content in the Spotify app, so a good portion of her audience doesn’t intuitively know to find her podcasts in a different ecosystem. Abdine proposes the potential signal loss of not following a multi-platform strategy might suggest there’s a partnership with YouTube to give Unwell Network favorable economics in exchange for platform exclusivity.
FAST channels continue catching on—and fast by Jasmine Sheena
The appeal of FAST is reaching legacy organizations in broadcasting, including previously ad-free ones. At CES earlier this month, chief digital and marketing officer at PBS Ira Rubenstein shared the public broadcaster is building a streaming presence in part through a FAST channel on Amazon Prime Video. One big appeal of FAST is the growing trend of ‘shoppable’ ad content. Creatives containing clickable UI allowing smart TVs to buy products, or push viewers to a mobile ordering portal.
As for the rest of the news…
- Triton Digital has released their 2024 U.S. Podcast Report, with the leading genres of the year being, in order, News, True Crime, and Comedy.
- Peter Field of Westwood One dug into the IPA Effectiveness Databank in a new study examining marketing effectiveness.
- No Such Thing as a Fish has renewed its partnership with Audioboom for a multi-year distribution and monetization deal
- Brooke Minters has been recruited to lead the NYT Podcasts’ new Podcast Video team.
- The World’s First Podcast from the sister team behind the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, has joined Dear Media’s network.
- YouTube’s Senior Director of Growth and Discovery shares some details about how YouTube’s recommendation algorithm works.
