PodNews

Acquisitions, consolidation, and subscriptions in the podcast marketplace

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MONEY

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Monetization models in podcasting, why a $40M investment was made in a subscription service, why public radio stations banded together to buy an open platform, an interview with Hilda Labrada Gore of the Wise Traditions podcast on how she crossed the 1 Million download milestone, and headlines from top news on podcasting and on-demand from Podnews…

  • Consolidation in the podcast marketplace
  • How Pocket Casts and Luminary Media are heading in opposite directions
  • Luminary Media’s walled garden subscription approach
  • Can a paywall protected podcast player succeed?
  • How paywalls might be working in kids and comedy podcasts, going for rich and deep experience play
  • Why advertising may not be the future of monetization for podcasts
  • Advertisers counted on evergreen presence, but with programmatic advertising that ends up being taken away
  • Mixcloud receives $11.5M, and what that means
  • Accuracy in subscription-based platforms, splitting revenue stream up proportionally, how these are complex issues
  • Major players skewing revenue results for smaller artists improperly diluted
  • A lot of new money in the space, people seeing money on the wall, people throwing money at things that seem familiar
  • Gimlet becoming more of a media company
  • “Alex Inc.” TV show cancelled, how it is a commentary on actors vs. concept, seeing meta conversations about podcasting so not necessary play with wider audience, why the space may not be mature enough to have self reverential content
  • Can anyone make a subscription model work for a $40M investment?
  • How the cost of acquisition will climb

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In this episode:

Why podcasts will prosper by building communities, not just audiences

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Why data matters big-time for podcasters serious about competing in fast-moving environment, why quality and engagement will be crucial, and why the fact that podcasting is having a big moment — and new big players with deep pockets are on scene  — both require podcasters to pay attention to the network effect of having a tribe. Plus an interview with William Hung (of “American Idol” fame) on his new podcast “From Fear to Courage”, and headlines from podcasting and on-demand from Podnews…

  • The shift where rich content in podcasting is having a moment, and audience size is swelling, with attention driving toward long form audio
  • Brands, influencers, and journalists are taking notice
  • Podcasting is now similar to the wave of early blogging which became simply a part of business
  • How fragmentation is dangerous with content
  • The quality of product is foremost important, and producers can no longer get away with subpar content if serious about competing
  • The way content quality expectations are changing
  • Why data does indeed crucially matter for podcasting to prosper
  • Live events and other interactions allow a profiling of audiences insights into who is paying attention and what they care about
  • Quality and engagement will rule and resonate
  • How community can grow podcasting independent of digital presence
  • The network effect of having a tribe
  • How helping people motivates them to be there for you and support and engage with a podcast
  • People who care about you and want you to succeed because you wanted them to succeed first, they will always be there for you
  • The seed of community is wanting to help someone be better
  • The value of not charging ticket prices for events, but instead inviting people who will want to participate
  • New players with big pockets and high quality content requires us to up the game

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In this episode:

The New Google Podcast Player: Inspiring a Listener Renaissance?

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Google podcast player

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Will the updated Google Podcast Player  — and easier access to podcasts — lead to a boom and expansion in the podcast world? What does this mean for advertising models, new revenue streams, the potential of device-to-device podcast hand-offs, and the need for podcast producers to stop and listen more closely to their content? Plus an interview with Elle Martinez of the podcast “Couple Money”, and headlines from podcasting and on-demand from Podnews…

  • Despite considerable use of Android phones, podcasts are listened to 80% on Apple, 11% on Android phones
  • It’s now easier to access podcasts, see boom and expansion in podcast world
  • The integration of search with podcasts, how the web app can save podcasts you’ve subscribed to, and why though a basic feature, it has importance
  • Casual listeners can now test podcasting without downloading an app
  • How there seems to be no integration of advertising, yet podcasts shown in Google results
  • Looking at some new functionality that could generate revenue streams for some podcasters
  • The potential for donations to be solicited by podcasters
  • Will the advertising model shift at all?
  • Why the new player changes how producers promote podcasts and rely on people finding them
  • Will this become the “Land of the Giants”
  • Is there a different kind of content that Google is looking for?
  • Why didn’t Google engage as meaningfully in podcasts prior to now?
  • How there are now opportunities to play with new ways of distributing content, i.e. in home devices, and how Google is working on handing off device to device
  • The ubiquity of Google to interact with a person’s life, and the ability to hand content off device to device, resulting in a lot of data about life that is played into recommendation engine
  • The changes in listener experience interacting with the actual content that can be creating a variety of interaction paradigms, developing content, shifting public to private
  • Google’s player can help get more people excited about podcasting, and result in perhaps another renaissance
  • Why this is a chance for podcast producers to stop and listen to content and consider how it is going out to the world

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In this episode:

Drawing the line with audio data, discovery, targeting, and advertising

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Why podcasts need to think through discovery (how much is too much), where prediction and control begin and end, and what is the “creep factor” in audio data — plus an interview with Sarah Rhea Werner of “Girl In Space” and “Write Now with Sarah Werner” podcasts, and headlines from podcasting and on-demand from Podnews…

  • As a medium not good at discovery, targeting or advertising — starting growth pains and spurts with solving these issues
  • The relevancy of GDPR, Facebook privacy, Cambridge Analytica, and a new national consciousness
  • Podcasts have been asking for more audio data and analytics, so what comes with that
  • We don’t have a lot of tools for targeting and engaging users, and networks are starting to create them
  • What’s a good experience and what’s a bad experience in podcast players?
  • Targeting and re-targeting, and how much data can be deployed and gathered on one individual listener, and the need to understand when it crosses the “creep line” despite value for marketers
  • What type of model are we building for listeners — aggregated buckets and themes, or targeted for the individual listener?
  • Why gathering data in hopes to sell it can be a bad play in some circumstances
  • Hyper-targeting and psychographics profiles, and acclimated to feeling OK with selling or trading our privacy data in the United States, and therefore a lot of our behavior can be predicted on an aggregate level
  • Not much we can do to unplug our privacy at this point, even when disconnecting
  • At what point do we put the control of privacy and data back in the hands of the user and listener?
  • Responsible and acceptable targeting, and control over our own experience vs. that created by an algorithm

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In this episode:

Are podcasts a medium of opportunists or thoughtful content creation?

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gold mic

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Why podcasts, advertising, and podcast players need to change to grow listenership — plus an interview with Dave Jackson of School of Podcasting, and headlines from podcasting and on-demand from Podnews…

  • The impact of the recent podcasts stats on listenership from Edison research report
  • More monthly actives than Twitter
  • The number of people engaged, listening
  • A lack of differentiating content impacting the growth rate of podcast listenership
  • The need to recapture the people not showing interest in listening to podcasts, requiring reengaging and retraining
  • Are the importance of podcasting and where you can listen to podcasts both shifting?
  • The way people are listening has changed, as radio is also shifting and changing
  • More podcasts are listened to in the car than satellite radio
  • Why we have not reached a saturation point with podcasting
  • How podcast consumption habits are similar to radio without skipping sponsorships
  • A rich audio experience will allow ads
  • Listeners have been prove to take action because of call to action in a podcast player
  • Long-form audio and the willingness of audience to consume ads
  • Content partnerships, giving the listener what they need for their life in return for mindshare as the next level of advertising
  • A push to native content in podcasts
  • Where trust starts, stops, and breaks with advertisers and shows
  • Do ads that are long form shows break trust similarly to influencers who hock clothes and don’t report it
  • The challenge of how to activate Americans who don’t listen and the people who tried podcasts and denied it is not for them
  • Are podcasts a medium of opportunists? Or thoughtful content creation?

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In this episode:

The Age of Active Audio – Long-form

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longform audio

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Long-form audio as a looping conversation…

We in the podcast — or long-form audio — community sometimes think of podcasts as a passive audio experience. We create an hour or more of audio and then people listen to it. Outside of writing in response, this seems to be the current extent of the creator-listener relationship.

However, there is more to the world of audio than this. More and more interaction with devices is through voice. In fact, 22% of searches on Google are being done by voice. App creators are starting to understand their apps in relationships to others. Content creators are also understanding the context in which their audio is being listened to. We approaching an age of Active Audio, if we don’t live in it already.

What does it look like when audio becomes ambient and ubiquitous, search becomes a conversation, and we start to change how we interact with the world? What is this new audio age, this new audio world? Continue Reading →