Today in the Business of Podcasting
Joint Statement on the Continued Integrity of the Download Metric by Bryan Barletta
A collaborative effort by the podcast industry has led to Apple Podcasts taking recommendations and updating the behavior of automatic downloads. As of September 18th with the release of iOS 17, podcast publishers may begin to see variations in statistics from Apple Podcasts, especially for older back-catalog episodes. Factors like the show’s catalog size, listener habits, listenership in Apple Podcasts, and iOS 17’s adoption rate will influence the rate and extent of the changes. As the industry and advertisers collaborate to adapt to these changes, we continue working towards ensuring the ongoing integrity of the download as a metric. [Source]
Keep Calm and Detect Outliers
Spreaker explains their process in detecting outliers from the beginning, from explaining what a statistical outlier is to the particular seasonal trend algorithm they chose for detecting outliers. Currently the algorithm works to detect outliers across four main metrics of listens, ad impressions, ad requests, and ad revenues. All of which is overseen by daily human check-ins on the algorithm’s dashboard to validate its work and deal with edge cases. [Source]
The bots have come for podcasts by Max Tani
Earlier this year former Reply All co-host PJ Vogt was approached by a company called iBoostReach offering paid services to boost the downloads of Vogt’s new podcast. The piece then briefly covers headlines involving paid download boosting over the past year, including the Bloomberg article covering podcast ads in mobile video games from last year. It’s worth keeping in mind there is a massive difference between legitimate ad fraud and incentivized content. A distinction that can be more clearly made with measurement signals that partners abide by. The upcoming IAB 3.0 specification needs to prioritize identification and platforms using said identification. The tech to make this a non-issue is currently available, the podcast industry simply isn’t ingesting it yet. [Source]
Ad-free viewing is getting more expensive by Kelsey Sutton
The Disney+ price increase starts today, increasing the price of ad-free viewing from $10.99 to $13.99. Ad-supported viewing remains $7.99 per month. Similar ad-free tier price changes have come to Hulu, Discovery+, Max, and Peacock. All part of a wider video streamer trend to encourage members to continue subscribing, but for a lower ad-supported rate. Podcasting as a medium is built on the idea of free ad-supported content, with ad-free premium content available. As the main sources of side-content for popular IP becomes more expensive there could be a bump in audiences coming over to fiction podcasting companies like Realm or QCODE for continuations of their favorite licensed characters. [Source]
As for the rest of the news… the IAB has released a podcasting buyer-seller checklist, Marketing Architects CEO Angela Voss breaks down why CTV isn’t working for performance marketers, and to round this out we have a double-dose of verification: both Podchaser and Magellan AI have implemented the radio measurement staple of airchecks into podcasting, highlighting the increased demand for verification in the industry.
