29% of US Households Cancel Video Streamers, New Nickelodeon Audio Drama, & More

Today in the Business of Podcasting

As streaming wars heat up, nearly three in 10 US internet households are canceling services to save money by Jeremy Goldman

A new Parks Associates study finds 29% of US internet households are canceling video streaming service subscriptions to save money. The study also found 47% annualized subscriber churn rate on streamers. Podcasting, on the other hand, started as a free medium. While podcasts are starting to offer paid subscriptions, entirely paywalled podcasts are few and far between. Now that video streaming has started to rival the cable packages in cost and podcasts have begun to embrace higher quality video content, podcasting could be in a position to convert jaded video streaming customers.

Audible partners with Nickelodeon to launch Are You Afraid of the Dark? companion podcast by Reem Makari

Hot on the heels of Disney announcing a Frozen audio drama, another branded fiction podcast has been announced. Breaking from Nickelodeon’s traditional TV rewatch podcast format, Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Official Podcast will be an Audible-exclusive scripted fiction series. It’s worth noting that while the series is reported as a ‘companion’ podcast, it is the only new content for the IP this year. Instead of being the value add to a concurrent TV series, this fiction podcast both generates new content for the IP and rekindles interest in October rewatches of a 31 year-old television series.

The Floor Plan

Starting next month, The Trade Desk will start undercutting SSP price floors in its bids. TTD’s reasoning is SSPs can artificially inflate minimum asking prices to be not reflective of the real value of ad impressions. Adtech expert Ari Paparo, posting on X, pointed out publishers can still choose to ignore these lower bids.

A Jolly Holiday For Retailers Previously Anticipating Q4 Recession by Corinne Casagrande

Retail sales for July are up 2% year-over-year, in part due to Prime Day. eMarketer data predicts sales this holiday season will be 4.5% higher than last year. 49% of consumers say they intend to start shopping prior to Thanksgiving, with respondents telling Optimove their intention is to save money and avoid risk of items being out of stock. After the doom-and-gloom of Q4 last year, there’s a ray of cautious economic optimism pointing to the end of 2023.

…as for the rest of the news:ARN’s CEO speaks to the network’s digital audio success and importance of regional content, Digiday takes a look at what Q4 will look like for video ad inventory that didn’t sell during this year’s upfronts, eMarketer says attention metrics are the ‘next frontier’ for digital ad measurement, and publisher CROs tell Digiday auto, travel, and luxury advertisers are at the forefront of an ad revenue rebound this year.