Tuning in to On Air Fest
This Wednesday from Sounds Profitable: as part of the ongoing Sounds Profitable Insights thought leadership series, Bryan Barletta sat down with work x work creator Scott Newman and On Air Fest Executive Director Jeff Weiner for an interview about the creation and evolution of On Air Fest. A quote from Newman and Weiner:
“For creators and publishers, we seek to expand the world of possibilities rather than confine success by guardrails. The biggest innovations in media happened by risk-takers.”
The event got its start eight years ago as a livestream akin to a pirate radio station, dubbed WXWONAIR. At the invitation of the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, which would become the hub of modern On Air Fest, work x work started the event as a way to host radio producers, DJs, and artists for live performance. This then evolved into the current ‘festival’ setup with live podcast recordings and spoken word performances. The 2025 edition of the festival has more space to play with, having upgraded to also include a 15,000 square foot gallery space dubbed the Creator Hall.
On Air Fest passes are still available, including a discount for Sounds Profitable partners, get in touch to learn more. And Sounds Profitable will be in Brooklyn next week to cover several talks and panels.
Podcasting Grows at SXSW
Also this Wednesday from Bryan Barletta at Sounds Profitable: a look at podcasting’s footprint in this year’s upcoming SXSW. Sounds Profitable will be the lead sponsor of the Official Podcast Stage at SXSW 2025, the latest step in a three year journey bringing podcasting to one of the biggest networking events. What’s more, the stage will be located at the heart of SXSW in the Austin Convention Center proper. A quote from Barletta:
“Saturday, March 8th – typically SXSW’s highest-attendance day – will showcase nearly a dozen of our partners delivering accessible short form solo presentations about the podcast space. This new format has allowed us to bring even more industry voices to SXSW while supporting the full panel sessions our partners have submitted. And my partner, Tom, will also be delivering a new talk called The Influence of Audio on Sunday, March 9th. This is all on top of the incredible panels across all four days, heavily showcasing our amazing partners.”
One partner in particular, Nomono, will be the only SXSW-approved wireless audio solution, recording all the sessions on stage. In addition to recording audio and video of every session, Nomono will also be conducting interviews and giving live demonstrations of their Sound Capsule.
Big events like SXSW might be daunting, but so is the process of growing a medium like podcasting, and that growth requires ways to sing the praises of podcasting at locations other than podcasting events where everyone already knows what podcasting is, and what it can do. Companies that not only attend, but actively identify and invite clients/prospects to see how much of a footprint podcasting has grown to take up are more likely to thrive in spaces like SXSW.
To that note: are you attending SXSW? We’ve created an incredibly short form so we can know who’s coming along. We’d love to see you there.
Earnings Call Roundup – Acast and PodcastOne
Every quarter we get a flood of companies in the business of podcasting posting their earnings reports for the previous quarter, and today I’m bundling two together. An accidental couple for Valentine’s Day, Hallmark would be proud.
First up: Acast! Much like Spotify, Acast celebrates its first year in profit. Highlights include 17% net sales growth in Q4 and 19% overall for the year. EBITDA profit for the year works out to 24.3 million SEK, which according to Podnews works out to $2.2 million USD. Overall listens declined last year (13%) but is attributed to the iOS 17 change to Apple Podcasts that corrected for unintended auto-download behavior that’d inflated download statistics across the board.
Also with good news we have PodcastOne, who saw a 22% year-over-year revenue increase, reaching $12.7 million. They anticipate to reach revenue of at least $51 million by the end of the fiscal year in March. Their growth is attributed to expanding PodcastOne’s programming slate up to 196 shows, surpassing 3.9 billion network downloads thanks to expanding relationships with A&E and debuting a podcast adaptation of The History Channel’s series Ancient Aliens. They also anticipate increased operational efficiencies as PodcastOne moves forward on their announced pivot to hosting on Amazon’s Art19 instead of their long-maintained in-house content platform.
TV Now Dominates YouTube Device Usage
This Tuesday from Todd Spangler at Variety: The biggest video streaming platform celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and CEO Neal Mohan says they’ve reached the milestone of TV becoming the number one device for YouTube viewing, beating out desktop and mobile for the first time.
Mohan also highlighted how much the creator economy has matured, moving from consumer camcorder footage in the 2000s to Dude Perfect opening a $5 million headquarters, or spicy food interview series Hot Ones having its own hot sauce line. And viewers are actively spending money. According to Mohan, in 2024 over 50% of YouTube channels that earn at least $10,000 on YouTube generated revenue from sources other than advertising income, including shopping recommendations and premium channel memberships.
From a podcasting perspective, this is great news. The biggest platform for podcast discovery is largely used on TVs now, a big step forward. YouTube has already shared stats regarding how much video podcasting is treated like late night talk shows on TV, now we know the app in general is ‘television’ for a lot of people. Podcasts are benign incorporated more and more into daily routines.
Quick Hits
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:
- The Social Media Shift: Why Brands are Betting on Audio Thursday, February 20th, at 3pm EST SiriusXM Media will host a free live event featuring Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster.
- EarBuds Podcast Collective Celebrates Eight Years The podcast newsletter and recommendation engine celebrates eight years and over 400 contributors since its launch in 2017.
- Podnews Report Card Feedback on major podcast platforms is being collected for Podnews’ annual report card, submissions are accepted through EOD March 9th.
- Podcasts Are Omnichannel and Campaigns Should Be, Too by Sophie Anderson A SiriusXM sponsored AdWeek blog highlighting the maturation of podcast advertising as a multichannel tool.
- Mediavision: Podcast listening sets new record in Sweden A recurring survey of 3,000 respondents in Sweden finds podcasting has grown rapidly in recent years.
- Wondery Extends Relationship with Wow in the World to Continue Building the First 360° Franchise Based on a Podcast IP The franchise includes exclusive podcasts, merchandise, and touring live shows.
