Acast highlights news podcasts in new campaign for UK voters
The UK general election is set for July 4th, which means June is the region’s pre-election period. While the government abstains from buying any advertising space on politically-adjacent content during this period to remain neutral, Acast is harnessing the increase in political content. According to Acast and Podchaser data, UK politics-focused podcasts have seen a 53% increase in unique listens. The company is currently focusing on recommending politically-themed podcasts in the Acast ecosystem as well as running out-of-home ads in major UK railway stations to target commuters.
We interrupt this podcast… by Alan Martin
As Sounds Profitable’s recent study Ad Nauseam found, podcast listeners may not be tuning in specifically to hear ads, but the expected number of ads in a given podcast episode is still higher than zero. As Tom Webster notes in the debut webinar, audiences don’t hate ads, necessarily. They had bad, irrelevant ads. A key to successful podcast advertising is investing in good creative and keeping both audience and delivery method in mind when creating it. For more on Ad Nauseam, see Webster’s latest article.
Time Dropped Its Paywall One Year Ago. Here’s What’s Happened Since by Mark Stenberg
It’s been a year since TIME dropped its paywall in favor of pushing ad revenue over premium subscriptions. While subscription rates have dropped, data shared by TIME and Comscore shows ad revenue has increased 14% year-over-year while traffic remains relatively flat. For publications focusing ad revenue and exposure over building premium subscribers, podcasts could easily be leveraged for expanding said publication’s reach and bring in new audiences as well as generate their own revenue stream.
Advertising and the Summer Olympics
Advertising is gearing up for the Olympics, hosted in Paris this year, and that means lots of coverage. Sam Bradley focuses on the programmatic side of the industry and how this year’s games is a prime case study for affordable Olympics inventory. Meanwhile, Krystal Scanlon covers NBCUniversal’s broadcasting strategy as the company with sole rights to sell official Olympics sponsorships and media in the U.S.
Publishers pitch women’s sports as advertiser interest grows by Kayleigh Barber
Women’s sports is facing a new wave of interest from buyers and publishers are looking to beef up their data to grow that interest further. After the high of March Madness, marketers expressed renewed interest in women’s sports, but were worried there wasn’t enough inventory available to meet ROI goals. One tactic to help alleviate those concerns is bundling women’s sports coverage in distinct packages from mens’ sports. And the wide world of podcasting offers abundant inventory on sports content, women and men’s games alike.
…as for the rest of the news:
- Hark announces “The Conversation,” a curated collection of 3-5 minute clips of conversations had on a variety of podcasts.
- Billy Hartman joins Frequency
- CRA appoints Lizzie Young as new CEO
