Join Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster for the first look at The Advertising Landscape 2025, our newest flagship study of the ad-supported media landscape. This is the largest cross-media study of advertising in podcasting in America, and provides the most comprehensive picture to date of podcasting’s strengths and weaknesses as an advertising vehicle. The webinar is NEXT WEDNESDAY, April 16th, at 2:00 p.m. EST. Register now!
Spotify, Video, and Podcasting.
This Thursday from Bryan Barletta at Sounds Profitable: The Impact Spotify’s Video Has on Publishers. 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. A quote from the article:
“Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) isn’t perfect, but nearly 10 years of use has allowed optimization for success. It uses Ad Delivery as its core metric, counting when the portion of the episode containing the ad has been downloaded. SAI is a live call from the app when the user passes an ad marker—which would make it an Ad Impression, albeit without third-party auditing or disclosed standards. This was a major selling point for Spotify Ad Network (SPAN), which often doubled prices for SAI inventory when compared to DAI. However, SPAN’s performance and lack of transparency didn’t justify the added cost, leading SPAN to announce last year they’d remove publishers’ ability to set price floors and a decline in SPAN revenue for most publishers.”
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.
Podscape Biannual Update is Coming, Submissions are Open
The Podscape is a joint project between Magellan AI and Sounds Profitable to provide a bird’s-eye view of the business side of podcasting in one giant infographic. In essence it functions as a city map, charting out various neighborhoods in which logos of podcasting companies belong based on what services they provide.
Every six months Magellan AI and Sounds Profitable regroup to process net-new submissions, and update existing ones who submit for changes (such as a new logo, or a change of direction that puts them in a new category). This keeps the Podscape a living document that provides as up-to-date a snapshot as we can of the podcast industry at that moment.
In anticipation of the Summer update, the new Podscape submission form is live now and will be taking new submissions until end-of-day, Friday, June 20th.
Why Podcasts Should Think Like a Network.
This Monday from Steve Pratt for The Creativity Business: Podcasting is Asking the Wrong Question About Video.
A common mindset throughout the podcasting industry is publishers thinking “how do I turn my audio podcast into video?” Pratt challenges that as the wrong approach, as it ignores the context through which the podcast existed in the first place. Audio content is built for the contexts where someone cannot use a screen (e.g. driving, cleaning the house, cooking) while it cannot be as engaging in other situations (e.g. living room TV, ‘second screen’ content while reading the newspaper). A quote from the article:
“Taking audio-first content designed for contexts where people can’t look at a screen and putting it on a screen… isn’t a great screen experience. And yet that is what happens when you define yourself by platform and try to use your audio product in a place it isn’t designed for.”
A different framework, that still allows for diversifying audio and video content, is network strategy thinking: “how do I best serve my audience on each platform?” Pratt uses ESPN as an example, as they exist across multiple platforms and modes of content with unique strategies for each, but are all identifiably ESPN. In a sentence, the piece challenges podcasting to think like a network.
Nickelodeon x Starglow
This Tuesday from Saleah Blancaflor for AdWeek: Nickelodeon Partners With Starglow to Make Family-Friendly Podcasts for Children. Nickelodeon is no stranger to podcast spinoffs and companion shows to their IP, but with this new partnership production house Starglow will be producing more directly Kids & Family-oriented shows. The slate of podcasts focuses on Nick Jr. properties, including Dora the Explorer and Paw Patrol. Starglow is set to produce the podcasts while Nickelodeon will handle the advertising. Advertising that leans into the power of Kids & Family podcasts, as 2023 research from SiriusXM shows. According to the study, parents listening to podcasts are quite leaned-in, with a 2.4x higher likelihood of paying attention to ads on podcasts than they are on social media, and 3.3x more likely to pay attention to podcast ads vs. AM/FM radio ads. Kids and Family podcasts continue to be an enormous opportunity for brands, especially as parents continue to seek out more screen-free entertainment options for their kids.
Join Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster for the first look at The Advertising Landscape 2025, our newest flagship study of the ad-supported media landscape. This is the largest cross-media study of advertising in podcasting in America, and provides the most comprehensive picture to date of podcasting’s strengths and weaknesses as an advertising vehicle. The webinar is NEXT WEDNESDAY, April 16th, at 2:00 p.m. EST. Register now!
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:
- Why The Rise Of Video Podcasting Is Not Killing Audio. Jay Nachlis of Coleman Insights teases new data from Coleman and Amplifi Media on video podcasting, and reassures us that our ears are still relevant. Nachlis and Steve Goldstein also have a live webinar scheduled for Thursday, April 17th at 2PM ET.
- Quill Podcast Awards Nominations are Open The fourth annual edition of the Quill Podcast Awards is now taking nominations for consideration until April 21st.
- Audioboom Posts Q1 2025 Finances Audioboom’s Q1 results show their EBITDA profit is up ten times year-over-year.
- amplifi Media founder Steven Goldstein writes about the Evolutions by Podcast Movement panel A View from the Top, in which he moderated a discussion about the evolving state of podcasting with Pete Birsinger (CEO, Podscribe), Stephanie Chan (Strategic Lead, YouTube Podcasts), Neil Mody (CEO, Headliner), and Will Pearson (President, iHeartPodcasts)
- Podscribe has launched two new features powered by TransUnion’s verified household-level data, including an audience reporting tool that demonstrates how campaigns performed across over 560 household-level audience segments, and the ability to reverse-search podcasts by verified audience traits.
- What’s Working in Podcast Advertising Right Now: Insights from Libsyn Ads at Podcast Movement Evolutions. An overview of presentations and events featuring Libsyn Ads team members during Evolutions by Podcast Movement.
