Surveying the Podcast Advertising Landscape
This Wednesday Sounds Profitable published the first part of The Advertising Landscape, the largest study of podcast advertising effectiveness yet in the U.S., built from a Signal Hill Insights survey of 5,000 Americans aged 18+.
Along with the report, on Thursday Sounds Profitable partner Tom Webster published a companion article titled Podcasting: The Most Versatile Medium which focuses on one particular slide from the report.
The slide in particular shows responses to the question “in the past month, how have you consumed New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce?” Overall, the responses are fairly balanced: 33% listen primarily to audio (12% exclusively to audio), 38% primarily watch via video (13% exclusively), and 29% consume equally across both formats. A quote from the article:
“For advertisers, this isn’t just interesting data—it’s a revelation about audience behavior that creates unique opportunities. Your brand message can seamlessly follow consumers as they transition between listening and watching, creating multiple touchpoints without having to buy separate campaigns across different media. It’s like having your cake and eating it too, except in this metaphor, the cake is your ad budget and eating it means not blowing it all on separate campaigns that don’t talk to each other.”
And those campaigns, when effective, can be such an intrinsic part of a podcast that audiences don’t think about it as advertising. A key finding in this Reach study was that 31% of Americans 18+ are monthly consumers of ad-supported podcasting. The true finding remains in the negative: 31% say they’re consuming ad-supported podcasting, which means a substantive portion of the monthly podcast audience does not perceive that their podcasts have ads.
Podcasters Caught in Copyright Crossfire.
Last Thursday from Ashley Carman’s Soundbite newsletter at Bloomberg: The National Music Publishers’ Association is ticked off at Spotify, and is taking it out on podcasters with a wave of copyright claims filed on podcasts.
70mm host Matt Kolowski reports particularly popular episodes of the show have been removed entirely for using clips to discuss the film, such as his review of Barbie (2023). And it’s not just popular shows getting notices. Austin Danger Podcast, a podcast in which several friends record a Discord voice call discussing the Austin Powers trilogy, averages 150 downloads per episode. Still, the creator tells Carman she got over 40 copyright notices in the past few weeks due to music appearing in clips.
According to an email Spotify sent Kolowski, this is due to the National Music Publishers’ Association filing punitive podcast takedown requests in retaliation for the dismissal of a lawsuit.
As Tom Webster said in his presentation to CRS last year, it’s past time for music labels and podcast platforms to sit down and figure out how to crack the question of music in podcasting. Looking to YouTube, one can see a thriving scene of music discussion, review, and creation. And what little music-based content there is in the world of podcasting finds huge audiences. There is an underserved niche when it comes to music and music-adjacent content, but podcasting is in a tricky position when it comes to ‘broadcast’ copyright issues. The same clips that would fly under Fair Use doctrine on a YouTube channel are enough to nuke an episode entirely on Spotify.
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The IAB Podcast Upfront Up and Moved
This Monday from Inside Audio Marketing: 2025 is the year the Podcast Upfront is going back to its roots. Since 2021 the Podcast Upfront has taken place in May next to IAB NewFronts. This year it’s been scheduled for September 30th, moving the event back into the Fall like the first six years the Podcast Upfront existed. A representative tells Inside Audio Marketing the decision helps meet the scheduling needs and preferences of podcast producers and ad buyers. The Upfront has also been the venue through which an annual IAB Podcast Advertising report is debuted, though a 2025 edition has not been announced. It also is not clear who is participating in the September version of the Upfront.
“Live” is thriving in television.
This Tuesday Nielsen published their latest edition of The Gauge, which tracks TV usage in the past month. The March edition shows the annual NCAA March Madness basketball tournament was a significant contributor to cable TV taking up 24% of total view-time. Streaming remains the biggest slice of the pie with 43.8%. Of the big streamers, Max saw the greatest month-over-month increase in viewership thanks to the third season of The White Lotus climbing to fourth place of top streaming programs overall.
What the business of podcasting can take away from these cable and streaming stats is the power of “live” content: be it actual live content in the form of sports, or week-to-week releases keeping IP relevant over time. Consider the steady ramp-up of marketing and social media attention medical drama The Pitt saw over the final weeks of its 15 episode season. While there was existing hype for a new Noah Wyle-fronted medical drama, a true fandom blossomed in the back half of the show. Take it from someone who liked a couple of actor interviews and now my TikTok feed is saturated with Dr. Robby thirst trap edits.
Finally, it’s time for our Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
- With just five weeks to go until their London event, The Podcast Show has published their full lineup of 150 speakers, including presentations from newly-announced partner companies YouTube and Goalhanger.
- While in Chicago for Evolutions by Podcast Movement, I sat down with Mike Wright and Jason Moore, 2/3rds of The Fantasy Footballers to discuss their decade of podcasting and how things have changed with their new SiriusXM partnership.
- Magellan AI has announced a strategic partnership with Canadian national broadcaster CBC to track cross-show listener behavior and measure promotional campaign performance with Magellan AI’s pod-to-pod attribution tech.
- Edison Research and SiriusXM Media have released early info from an upcoming Women’s Audio Report, which debuts Tuesday April 29th at 2 p.m. EST.
- Acast is expanding their sports offering with a new exclusive podcast deal signed with The New York Times’ sports company The Athletic.
