The Podcast Show Is Starting Soon [Multiple Sources]
As I type this, Bryan and Tom are jetting off to London for The Podcast Show. For those also in attendance, I’ve grabbed a few sources about the conference to help plan out the 21st and 22nd.Before the conference kicks off, don’t forget the Sounds Profitable Networking Drinks in association with NPR is Tuesday the 20th from 4 to 8 p.m. at The Skinny Kitchen (space is limited, register here for consideration). For a one-stop shop during the conference proper, The Podcast Show has published a full program of events and the speaker lineup. The Podcast Academy is also debuting two new awards at this year’s Podcast Show, specifically the International Impact Award and the International Governor’s Award, which will be given to James Cridland and Steven Bartlett respectively. Finally, while I was grabbing links for this story, I stumbled across Ellie Andrews announcing she is now Head of Operations for The Roost podcast network. I’d like to offer simultaneous congratulations for the new position, and condolences for the jet lag.
Putting Podcasts in Times Square – An Interview with Emi Norris by Bryan Barletta
Since early last year, Amazon Music has been running digital billboards in Times Square, putting their podcasts up amongst musicals, fast food, and fashion in the country’s most popular out-of-home advertising destination. Amazon Music’s Head of Spoken Word Operations Emi Norris spoke to Bryan about the origins of the campaign, how it puts podcasts in a context we’re used to seeing movies and TV advertised in, and how any podcast network or indie podcast can get their show up on a veritable digital billboard by submitting to have their featured in Amazon Music.
Spotify Changes Unreleased Play Counter After Feedback
Last week quite a few articles and social media posts were shared regarding Spotify’s announcement of an upcoming publicly-viewable ‘play’ counter, similar to how YouTube displays views on videos. According to coverage by The Verge, the company announced on Friday they have rolled back the feature somewhat. Instead of being a live counter showing exactly how many plays a podcast episode has, on release it will function as a badge will be displayed whenever the episode reaches milestones (specifically 50,000 plays, 100k, and 1 million).
Sports remain a big focus for TV networks and streamers this year, as they have for many years. But this year Digiday is seeing it take more focus than usual, with one agency exec saying their budgets are down and they’re shifting what upfront cash they have towards tried-and-true live sports entertainment. Sports deliver, and sports podcasting continues to grow at increasing rates. A heavier focus on sports by advertisers could be podcasting’s opportunity to court even more attention towards shows that have massive engaged audiences ready to support the brands that make their favorite entertainment possible.
As for the rest of the news…
- The Podglomerate’s Jeff Umbro has recently published a new free resource called Should You Launch a Podcast in 2025?, which lays out the viable paths to success in modern podcasting and establishes reasonable expectations for time, resource investment, and learning the industry.
- The Podcast Business Journal has interviewed Acast VP of Adtech Solutions Michael Bayston about their new Talent-Voiced Ads initiative.
- Headliner has launched the new TL;DL (too long; didn’t listen) tool into beta, using a generative AI “host” to summarize a podcast episode with clips and comments from the gen-AI host.
- Adelicious has strengthened their sales team with the addition of Liam Robinson and Antonia Digby as Agency Sales Directors.
- Audiogram creation platform Wavve has been acquired by Disctopia, with the audiogram tech soon to be integrated into Disctopia’s podcast hosting and streaming platform.
- Podnews has updated their list of IAB certified podcast hosts to reflect hosts that have newly certified for v2.2, as well as re-certifications (e.g. AdsWizz, PRX, and Simplecast)
- German media company ProSiebenSat.1 has expanded their German-language podcast interest with the recent acquisition of majority stake in podcast publisher Studio Bummens
