This Week in the Business of Podcasting
Hello, podcasting! It’s that time of year: the time I take a week off to hide in a cave while I turn another year older. To keep y’all informed in my absence, the wonderful Newton Schottelkotte will be taking over both the Recap and the daily version of The Download next week. Before I retreat to a cabin in the woods and figure out how to get 34 candles on a cake without it looking weird, let’s get into the news.
Transparency. Performance. Automation.
Spotify For Podcasters Debuts as App, Adds Comments
This Tuesday from the Spotify Newsroom: the ability for audiences to leave comments on podcasts has been rolled out, enabling another level of engagement. The move comes a year after the introduction of polls and Q&A sessions within the Spotify ecosystem.
A quote from Spotify:
“With the introduction of Comments, we’re also excited to give all creators—regardless of where their episodes are hosted—better ways to manage their entire show, including listener feedback.”
In addition, the service has announced the Spotify for Podcasters dashboard both from the usual desktop computer interface and from a new SfP mobile app, facilitating notifications and direct access to user engagement whenever new comments are posted.
Two-thirds of advertisers bought ads on misinformation sites, researchers find by Ryan Barwick
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, recently published in the science journal Nature, have found a significant portion of top advertisers unknowingly ran ads on misinformation sites between 2019 and 2021. More than 75% of websites flagged by NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index had ads run on them. 55% of the top 100 most active advertisers appeared on misinformation sites during the studied timeframe.
Programmatic advertising has long carried the risk of brand-unsafe placements, due to ads being served based on user data and not the host itself. A report last year from the Association of National Advertisers projects about $10 billion was spent on ad placements made on clickbait sites between September 2022 and January 2023. However, part of the researchers’ findings revealed that just 41% of surveyed CEOs and CMOs believed “consumers react against companies whose advertisements appear on misinformation websites.”
While there is no perfect system, podcasting’s track record of transparency with its programmatic inventory and brand safety tools go a long way to reducing the possibility of similar accidental buys in our industry.
Podcast Cancellation, Hiatus Highlights Cyclical Nature of Sports
Sports podcasting continues its upward climb as one of the most popular genres for advertisers, and for good reason. Legions of passionate fans are tuning in regularly to hear more about their favorite pastime. That said, the cyclical nature of sports can make podcasts hosted by athletes a tricky proposition during off-seasons.
Last Thursday Kirsty Hatcher at People covered the announcement that hot on the heels of Taylor Swift and Super Bowl-prompted growth, New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce will now cease uploading for at least two months. According to Jason Kelce, the hiatus is to accommodate for Travis’ NFL training season. Meanwhile, on the same day, Lakers Nation writer Corey Hansford covered the announcement that former basketball player J.J. Redick will be mothballing his own podcast to focus on his new position as head coach of the Lakers.
On Sunday Yahoo News writer Kristian Dyer covered the quiet cancellation of popular long-running series Around the NFL. While previous articles noted the oddity of the podcast not having uploaded since May, a X post from Gregg Rosenthal confirms that while the show was intended to end on May 23rd, the NFL has decided not to continue the podcast.
While sports podcasts with celebrity/athlete hosts are impressive, it’s worth remembering there is a wider, diverse ecosystem around each major sport. Fan-hosted podcasts tend to be consistent, reliable, and can produce content even during training seasons or gaps between games.
The Best Bet In Sports Content Right Now? Nielsen Says It May Be Women’s Sports
From the 2024 Women’s NCAA tournament reaching a peak of 24 million viewers at the final game, to the UK’s national Women’s Soccer League receiving a 17% boost in interest between 2023 and 2024 according to Nielsen, fandom for women’s sports is on the rise. The global women’s sports industry saw a 300% rise in revenue since 2021 and has begun to beat out viewership records for the men’s league.
Last month at Cannes Lion, iHeartMedia and Deep Blue launched their Women’s Sports Audio Network, a joint investment set to target the rapidly growing audience. The new Network and its accompanying Women’s Sports Podcast Network hope to increase accessibility for fans, one of the biggest hurdles to the space’s growth. According to data from Nielsen, WNBA fans are more likely to engage with brands online, share through word-of-mouth advertising, and follow-through on purchases. The WSAN is launching in partnership with brands such as e.l.f. Cosmetics and Capital One, hoping to put the aforementioned data to good use in capturing this underserved audience. Projected to reach about 75 million listeners a day, the Network’s flagship show is the daily news podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain.
How to prepare for Gen Alpha: Invest in YouTube, gaming and learning by Antoinette Siu
Youtube, influencers, and gaming are the main targets as ad agencies prepare their marketing strategies for Gen Alpha. Interactive agency Razorfish recently published a survey of 3,474 Gen Alpha respondents and their parents spread across nine markets around the world, while video ad platform Precise TV published similar findings from surveying families consisting of 3,000 children aged 2 to 12. 69% of Gen Alpha have gaming consoles, and 60% play games on phones or tablets (parents will not be surprised to hear Roblox is far and away the most popular platform).
According to Dani Mariano, president of Razorfish, learning styles have changed significantly from Gen Z: “They prefer interactive, gamified experiences, and rely on hacks, how-to videos and DIYs over conventional learning,”. Gen Alpha also tends to prefer YouTube, Tiktok, and other video content platforms over traditional TV and streaming, with watch hours often translating to big spending. 22% of study participants reported making a purchase after watching YouTube Shorts. Ad recall and ad preference are also higher on YouTube Shorts than TikTok. In regards to brands, Gen Alpha tends to prefer tangible things, including in-person experiences and events, as well as brands marketing themselves as “creative” and “inspirational”.
Podscribe Ad Read Index: May 2024
Top DR Genres
What genres have the greatest percentage of Direct Response advertisers? In May, we saw “Government” take the lead despite it going down by 2%. “History” bumped “Science” to the number 3 spot, and Leisure made it back to the charts after being removed in April following 4 consecutive months.
Quick Hits
While they may not be top story material, the articles below from this week are definitely worth your time:
- What Border Collies Can Teach Us About Podcasting by Tom Webster. Tom reflects on how, like the energetic border collie, podcast hosts need a clearly-defined job or they’ll wreak havoc.
- Ad industry acquisitions are beginning to heat up by Ryan Barwick. Several advertising M&A events happened in short succession in June, signaling maturation and condensation in the SSP world.
- This American Life is going back to NPM for ads by Ashley Carman. The storied radio series and podcast is returning to National Public Media for advertising on its podcasts after the end of their contract with The New York Times.
- Cannes Lions bet on creators this year. Did it pay off? by Katie Hicks. A new creator-focused track at Cannes Lions enabled content creators and influencers to get more face-time with brands.
- tonies launches podcast designed to keep children off screens. Toy-based audio brand tonies is bringing some of its audio out from behind a figurine-based paywall to a public RSS feed.
