iHeartMedia, Inc. Reports Results for 2025 First Quarter
Overall, iHeartMedia’s Q1 revenue is up 1% year over year (1.8% if Q1 2024 is adjusted to not include political ad spend). Podcast revenue in particular is up to $116 million, a 28% year over year increase. Chairman Bob Pittman specifically notes “tremendous growth” and the opportunity for further growth in iHeart’s podcasting business.
IAB and MRC Release Attention Measurement Guidelines for Public Comment
The proposed guidelines have been developed by the IAB Attention Task Force, built of over 200 members from advertising, media, and measurement industries. Four primary methodologies are laid out by the guidelines: Data signals, visual tracking, physiological/neurological observations, and panel or survey-based input. Across all four the new guidelines aim to create shared requirements that are platform-agnostic, so they equally apply to digital video as much as they do audio podcasts. IAB VP Angelica Eng tells Inside Audio Marketing this is to reduce reliance on inconsistent or proprietary methodologies by establishing a common baseline. Public comment on the methodologies is open through July 12th.
Audible to Partner With Publishers to Create AI-Voiced Audiobooks by Ashley Carman
Under the new system, publishers can choose from a stable of over 100 digital voices that can be generated in English, Spanish, French, and Italian, including several accent and dialect options. AI-generated audiobooks made using Audible’s tools are available either exclusively on Audible (with a better royalty rate as incentive) or for wider distribution. That said, Audible still does not allow publishers to upload their own digitally-voiced audiobooks made using third-party tools, keeping AI content on the platform strictly to that generated in-house. According to Carman’s reporting, there are now over 60,000 titles tagged as AI-narrated on Audible, an increase of 20,000 since around this time last year.
Spotify plays are one more nail in the download’s coffin by Jonas Woost
The biggest issue Bumper has with the download as a metric, Woost explains, is it doesn’t represent actual podcast consumption. They represent a file transfer, not the file actually being consumed. As Bumper has tracked, downloads are decreasing despite audience sizes increasing as various corners of podcasting that don’t count as a download grow in popularity (e.g. video episodes on YouTube and Spotify). Bumper calls for podcasting to consider the upcoming addition of the ‘play’ metric to Spotify a wake-up call for the fact podcasting’s defacto currency of podcast monetization (the download) might need exchanging. Woost and Dan Misener are planning to host an invite-only discussion on the death of the download and future of podcast measurement at Podcast Show London next week. Interested parties can express that interest via Bumpers’ Contact page.
As for the rest of the news…
- A.J. Feliciano, General Manager at The Roost podcast network, announced today he is leaving the company. His next venture is anticipated to be announced at the end of this summer.
- Impressions.fm has partnered with Flightpath to power predictive analytics across their podcast portfolio.
- Tech industry veteran Andy Wright, late of Robots & Pencils, has been hired as Libsyn’s new VP of Technology.
- The 29th annual Webby Awards happened last night, featuring awards going to celebrities, politicians, and podcasters, with The MeidasTouch Podcast taking home Podcast of the Year.
