The Impact Spotify’s Video Has on Publishers by Bryan Barletta
Bryan kicks off a look at Spotify’s Video and Streaming Audio with a strong statement: “In its current state, I urge the podcast industry not to take part in Spotify Video and Streaming Audio as it stands to have a massive and long-term negative revenue and reputational impact for those involved.” He goes on to detail how Spotify currently handles advertising on the platform and how it impacts podcasts. Uploading even one video episode to either Megaphone or Spotify for Creators converts a podcast entirely to a cached delivery of that podcast through Spotify. Every episode, eliminating the RSS feed entirely as the content is streamed to users on Spotify from Spotify. This eliminates publishers’ abilities to reconcile IAB certified downloads and ad delivery, use analytics and attribution prefix urls, and implement DAI directly as they now have to use Spotify Ad Insertion. Barletta calls for industry collaboration and discussion to come to a position that can be collectively bargained. Because, as things currently stand, he argues it is not in podcasting’s best interest to opt into Spotify Video and Audio Streaming. Shows that have been converted to this system can contact customer support at Spotify for Creators or Megaphone and request their podcast be rolled back to RSS support.
A new report from Wondery, Dentsu, and Edison Research looks into podcast fandom by both doing in-depth interviews with 20 U.S. podcast fans (classified as someone who spends 9.25 hours or more consuming podcasts per week) and conducting an online survey of 3,278 U.S. monthly podcast listeners aged 13+. Key findings include 42% of fans saying theft are more likely to pay attention to podcast ads that are relevant to the topics discussed in the episode. 68% of fans follow their favorite podcast on social media and 43% engage with podcast-originated IP through other forms of media (e.g. books and TV adaptations). And, as previous research has shown, podcast fans like when brands help make their favorite shows possible, with 65% of fans reporting they are grateful to brands that support their favorite podcasts. Also, 54% say they are more likely to trust that brand because of the podcasts they appeared on.
An overview of presentations and events featuring Libsyn Ads team members during Evolutions by Podcast Movement. Brooke Collins and Karen White stress the widespread adoption of third-party attribution, with around 90% of campaigns using it from the jump. Measurement is part of the process, not an add-on. ADOPTER Media’s Adam McNeil and Libsyn Ads’ Stephen Pickens spoke to the importance of transparency and sharing insights with new buyers looking into podcast advertising. The less gatekeeping there is, the easier it’ll be for podcast advertising to grow. An overall theme running through the various sessions also serves as a thesis statement for the industry: “Podcast advertising is no longer niche—it’s strategic, scalable, and ready to deliver.”
As for the rest of the news…
- DeepCast has announced a big expansion of their Deepcast Creator features for Podsites, opening up more customization options, custom pages, embedded media support, and a built-in contact form.
- Podcast One has announced a 218% year over year increase in video views on their content distributed across leading services like YouTube, Rumble, Substack, Spotify, TikTok, and Apple+
- Acast has teamed up with Supercast to allow podcasters on Acast to access Supercast’s suite of tools to create and grow premium podcast subscription programs.
- Australian broadcaster ARN Media has launched Integrate, a creative solutions team responsible for creating integrated ideas for brands and developing long-term partnerships.
- Wondery has a new investigative podcast dubbed Death County, PA, in which investigative journalist Joshua Vaughn looks into a series of mysterious inmate deaths in Dauphin County Prison.
- EMARKETER predicts US creator podcast revenues will approach $1 billion this year, according to their forecast.
- A new content “supergroup” has been created with the merging of Platform Media, Listen Entertainment, and Goldhawk Productions.
