Acast expects short-term impact on listens from Apple update by Ella Sagar
The interim end-of-year financial report for Acast shows the company experienced an organic growth of 7% last quarter. According to their official release, gross margin for the quarter was 24%, but this number is due in part to the iOS17 update that changed auto-download behavior in Apple Podcasts. In response, they have made a revaluation of podcast contracts valued at -$7.2 million. While the update has a small negative impact in the short term, CEO Ross Adams said in a previous earnings call that the update’s long-term impact will bolster the health of the download as a metric, benefitting podcasting as a whole. [Source]
This Year’s Super Bowl Is All About Reaching Gen Z by Alyssa Boyle
The classic Super Bowl demographic of people “only watching for the ads” might be hitting a generational divide. A report from Adtaxi found a higher percentage of respondents were anticipating watching the actual game, with ad-interested respondents only making up 25%, in contrast to 34% last year. It is worth noting this year’s game had several extra incentives for game interest over ads, including Taylor Swift and Paramount’s Nickelodeon simulcast (featuring live-animated Spongebob characters as commentators). The biggest uphill battle for Super Bowl ads, however, is Gen Z’s lack of interest in traditional advertising. For a podcast perspective, we went to Gen Z Media’s CEO and co-founder Ben Strouse, who had this to say: “What we’ve seen is that Gen Z-ers respond to advertising that in some fashion speaks to them directly.” Strouse says podcast advertising is especially effective with Gen Z due to the medium’s emphasis on intimacy and authenticity, qualities Gen Z actively seeks. [Source]
Slate reports best year by Max Tani
According to Slate spokesperson Katie Rayford, 2023 was the most profitable year in the company’s 27 year history, with revenue growing 28% year over year. A good portion of this success is attributed to Slate focusing on their podcast offerings and website. Political Gabfest, a political chat podcast started in 2005, remains Slate’s most-downloaded show and biggest driver of their Slate Plus premium subscription service. Podcasting now makes up 50% of the company’s advertising revenue. [Source]
Perfection Thwarting Progress: Response to IAB Tech Lab’s Missive on Google’s Privacy Sandbox By Catherine Perloff
A new 106 page analysis from the IAB Tech Lab suggests Google’s replacement for cookies needs more time in the oven. The report, six months in the making, has caused friction with some corners of advertising as being too focused on finding problems with Privacy Sandbox, though the discovered issues themselves are largely agreed to be problems in need of solutions. Issues including Google’s Attribution Reporting API that will require more data than pre-Sandbox campaigns to achieve precise reporting. The analysis is open for public comment until March 22nd. A Google spokesperson has said the Tech Lab report contains dozens of errors and instances of incomplete information. [Source]
