Month: December 2018

NPR’s Latino USA Seeks Senior Editor

~ jen

The Futuro Media Group is seeking a Senior Editor for NPR’s Latino USA. It is an award-winning public radio program and podcast that focuses on Latinos and the Latino experience. 

The Senior Editor supervises the editorial and production process of the show, edits individual stories, and is responsible for overseeing the tone and content of the program, adhering to rigorous journalistic standards as well as consistently bringing cutting-edge storytelling to the show.

The Senior Editor, along with the Senior Producer and the Production Manager form the three-part Latino USA  leadership team. 

This is a full-time position based on Harlem, New York City, that reports to Futuro Media’s Executive Director, and works closely with Host & Executive Producer Maria Hinojosa and all other departments at Futuro Media.

Qualifications include:

  • Bachelor’s Degree required
  • Eight plus years of radio reporting or production experience
  • Proven editing experience either on audio or in print
  • Significant experience making long form or narrative audio
  • Experience as a manager and/or in a leadership position
  • Self-starter and creative thinker
  • Strong experience working with editorial standards and processes
  • Understanding of current trends in audio storytelling and production
  • Some Spanish-language proficiency required, native-speaker or fully fluent a big plus

For full details, visit the Futuro Media job listing to learn about the duties and responsibilities of this position and the application process.

Blubrry Podcasting Becomes First Podcast Hosting Company to Receive IAB Podcast Measurement Certification

~ jen

Blubrry Podcasting recently made history as the first podcast-hosting service provider to have its podcast stats certified by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Tech Lab for Podcast Measurement Compliance.

“This is the gold standard. There is no substitution to certification of compliance,” said Todd Cochrane, Blubrry CEO. “Ad buyers, networks, podcast hosting platforms, and podcasters now have an audited, validated, certified platform ready to serve them.”

Blubrry, which has been providing podcasting podcast statistics since 2005, was one of several organizations taking part in the extensive independent auditing and certification process based on the standards within IAB’s Podcast Measurement Guidelines. National Public Radio, a nonprofit membership media organization, was also certified.

As part of IAB’s Podcast Technical Working Group, Blubrry and 31 other podcast and traditional media companies contributed to the Podcast Measurement Guidelines, released December 2017, that provide strict rules and guidelines as the basis of certification, including downloads, listens, advertising delivery and advertisement play.

As of today, Blubrry Enterprise customers are able to label their podcast statistics as IAB Certified to be in compliance with the Podcast Measurement Guidelines. Blubrry Hosting customers and those shows using the Blubrry redirect with other platforms will quickly follow (as outlined in this blog post). Blubrry customers should expect no changes to their metrics as the certified platform system has been in place since 2013.

Unlike other providers, Blubrry podcast statistics are platform agnostic, meaning statistics services are not limited to Blubrry hosting customers. This has given Blubrry valuable insights on numerous areas in podcasting, with tens of thousands of shows being measured since 2005.

Anchor Introduced Anchor Sponsorships

~ jen

Anchor has introduced Anchor Sponsorships. Anchor says it is streamlining the entire process of podcast advertising.

Anchor Sponsorships gets podcasters paid by matching them with sponsors and helping them easily create custom advertisements for their shows. It’s a new world for podcast advertising, and anyone can be a part of it.

Anchor says that Anchor Sponsorships “revolutionizes the entire podcast advertising process by streamlining it into a single platform.” It claims that Anchor Sponsorships is “the first and only podcast advertising platform open to all podcasters and sponsors of all sizes, regardless of how many plays a show gets, or the size of a marketing budget.”

How does Anchor Sponsorships work? Any U.S. based Anchor podcaster can opt to turn on Sponsorships in any (or all) of their episodes. Once the podcaster does this, Anchor will get to work finding a sponsor match based on factors like subject matter, audience size, location, and more.

The podcaster will be notified when they have a sponsor match. The podcaster will always have the choice to opt into that sponsorship or decline and wait for a new match if they feel the sponsor is not the right fit.

It appears that Anchor podcasters can use Anchor’s creation tools to record an ad for a sponsor. It is also possible to import a pre-recorded version. Podcasters choose exactly where ads will fit into their episodes. Whenever a podcaster publishes a new sponsored message, Anchor will automatically update all episodes that have ad slots, across everywhere the podcast is heard.

How do podcasters who take part in Anchor Sponsorships get paid? Anchor says: “You get paid as soon as your ads are heard by listeners. Rates are based on a CPM (cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions) set by the sponsor, competitive with podcast advertising standards.”

Podcasters can cash out the total balance directly to any bank account or debit card through Stripe, (Anchor’s payment partner). Stripe takes a $0.25 fee on withdrawal transactions. The podcaster keeps the rest.

Poductivity Wants to Standardize Audience Interaction

~ jen

Mark Asquith is the CEO of Poductivity. It is currently in the alpha testing stage. You can sign up to be in the beta by requesting an invitation. Poductivity is set to launch in early 2019. Poductivity was created by the same team behind Rebel Base Media.

Mark Asquith has a goal: to bridge the gap between what we believe a listener does and what they’re actually doing. He wants to standardize audience interaction across the podcast industry.

He wants all podcasters to be able to measure exactly how many listeners do the things that we ask them to do. He wants podcasters to be able to develop calls to action and calls to interaction that your listeners can use to directly engage with you, your show, your sponsors and your business.

Our interaction technology gives you the opportunity to set multiple, time-bound calls to action and interaction opportunities within each episode of your podcast. 

Using a single-tap button with a context that shifts depending on what you’re asking your listener to do within any given timeframe, e.g. over a pre-roll sponsor read, whilst telling them about your product, event ticket or merchandise, Poductivity allows your listener to act instantly to “get” whatever it is you’re asking them to get; Poductivity makes it easy for your listener to act.

Poductivity wants to make it possible for your listeners to do what you ask them to with just one tap. Right now, Poductivity is working to integrate with as many apps and platforms as possible on launch.

Those that request an invitation to the pre-registration beta need to be aware that it operates on a referral system. “The higher in-line you are, the earlier you’ll receive your invitation.” 

Gimlet Media and The Wall Street Journal Seek Executive Producer

~ jen

The Wall Street Journal and Gimlet Media are seeking an executive producer to develop, launch, and oversee production of a daily podcast. This is a hands-on role based in New York.

There aren’t too many specific details about what the new podcast will be. It does not appear to have a name yet. The job description says:

This new daily podcast will bring the Journal’s strongest reporting to our ambitious audience each day, sharing deep insights, context, analysis and storytelling from the Journal’s well-sourced reporters and editors in a format that is best suited for audio. We will draw from the Journal’s unparalleled business reporting and global news operation, plus Gimlet’s audio expertise to create this new show.

The executive producer will report to the Global Head of Video at The Wall Street Journal. Top candidates for this position will demonstrate excellent journalistic instincts and creative production and team-management skills.

They are looking for an editorial leader with a proactive and entrepreneurial spirit who wants to help shape the creative vision of an ambitious new show. The ideal candidate loves to tell stories, to innovate and problem-solve, and has a proven track record for developing and launching audio content.

Those who would like to know more details should visit the job description. It includes a long list of primary responsibilities of the Executive Producer, a list of key candidate requirements, and information on how to apply.

Blubrry Podcasting Offers Two New Features for Statistics Users

~ jen

Podcasting provider Blubrry recently updated its podcast statistics, offering to include hourly download reporting and additional regional reporting.

Users will now be able to see how many downloads they are receiving within the first hour of episode release, hour-to-hour, for the first week the episode is live; a useful feature for podcasters to track popular times for releasing episodes and ensure best practices for creators.

In 2017, Blubrry added Great Britain, Brazil, and Canada reporting: this year the company has added regional breakdowns for Germany and Mexico, countries with increasing podcast publication and listenership.

Along with new countries, Blubrry has added DMA (designated market area) regions for U.S. metro areas. The DMA metro regions will be separated from the rest of the U.S. reporting to provide clarity for monetization opportunities.

“Statistics are crucial for podcasters to grow their audiences and especially so for monetization,” said Blubrry CEO Todd Cochrane. “By continuing to provide more detailed, accurate information, podcasters are put in control of the future of their show and brand.”

Blubrry Podcasting is expecting to achieve IAB podcast measurement/statistics certification in the coming days. The auditing process and proceeding certification reflect the highest standard in the industry set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is posed to become the norm for all podcasting organizations.

Pandora Officially Announced Podcasts on Pandora

~ jen

Pandora announced that they now have podcasts on Pandora. They have over 100,000 episodes across a wide variety of genres including News, True Crime, Sports, Comedy, Music, Business, Technology, Entertainment, Kids, Health and Science.

Pandora users will have podcasts recommended to them via Pandora’s Podcast Genome Project. It can also recommend specific podcast episodes to users based on each person’s individual tastes.

Interestingly, the information Pandora released includes a little bit about how to get your podcast on Pandora. There is now a form that can be filled out by those who run a podcast network or those who own and host a podcast themselves. Previously, it appeared that Pandora was only accepting podcasts from the networks they had partnered with.

Filling out the form means your podcast will be considered to be published. It is not a guarantee that your podcast will be on Pandora. Be aware that Pandora takes some time to review and approve podcasts. They do not want you to submit the same podcast twice.

When your podcast is approved, Pandora will send you an email from their Content Partnerships team with the next steps. Once your podcast feed has been “onboarded”, subsequent podcast episodes will automatically be added to Pandora.

How did Acast get 35 Million Dollars?

~ podcast

It continues to be shocking what investors fall for when it comes to investing in companies.  Acast had a Series C investment of 35 million. Yet the Acast numbers tell another story. Using feed analysis data provided by Daniel J Lewis the following tells an eye-raising story of what Acast has going on with the small number of shows they have.

Acast Stats
2.4K podcasts (0.4%) of Global Listings in Apple Podcasts
1.3K active podcasts (52.9%) have published an episode in 90 days.
1.1K inactive podcasts (47.1%) have not published an episode in 90 days
186 with 3 or fewer episodes (7.8%)
444 with 4–9 episodes (18.7%)
1.0K with 10–50 episodes (43.4%)
713 with 51 or more episodes (30.1%)
1.1K point to podcast page on media host (48.2%)

Yet they only had 2 million in revenue and now 155 million pre-money valuation. If you compare that to Libsyns numbers and revenue Libsyn reports Libsyn should have a market cap of around 3 billion which is a pipe dream as well.

Libsyn Stats
40.9k podcasts
25.3k active podcasts (62.0%)
15.5k inactive podcasts (38.0%)
3.3k with 3 or fewer episodes (8.1%)
6.5k with 4–9 episodes (15.9%)
18.2k with 10–50 episodes (44.5%)
12.9k with 51 or more episodes (31.6%)
18.3k point to podcast page on media host (44.9%)

This is not going to end well for the investors at Acast in our opinion.

Some Shocking Statistics

~ podcast ~ 2 Comments

Daniel J. Lewis of The Audacity to Podcast has been doing some deep diving on numbers in the podcasting space looking specifically at shows in Apple Podcasts through their API and have come up with some stats that are absolute gold.  See more stats here.

Total Feeds
Almost 609K total podcasts in Apple Podcasts.

83K SoundCloud feeds
72k Anchor feeds
50K FeedBurner feeds
40K Libsyn feeds
28.3K Podbean feeds
27K Blubrry / PowerPress feeds
15.1K Spreaker feeds
8.2K Buzzsprout feeds
3.2K Simplecast feeds
2K Libsyn Pro feeds
1.1K podcasts.com feeds
1K Podtrac feeds
600 Fireside feeds

Some Interesting Metrics in relationships to the number of Episodes in the feeds

58K of the Anchor feeds have 10 or fewer episodes.
50K of the SoundCloud feeds have 10 or fewer episodes.
11K of Libsyn feeds have 10 or fewer.
A little more than half of all podcasts in AP have 10 or fewer episodes!
78.5K feeds in AP have only 1 episode!

When Daniel looked at the 3 or fewer episode metric per feed the breakdown even gets more wide-eyed.

42.4K Anchor feeds have 3 or fewer episodes
27.2K for SoundCloud
8.4K for FeedBurner
3.6K for Libsyn
3.3K for Blubrry / PowerPress
158.7K podcasts in all of AP have 3 or fewer episodes.

Overall Stats
263.3K (43.2%) of podcasts haven’t released an episode at all this year.

When Looking at Apple Podcast to see how many shows have the correct link back to there .com here is the breakdown.

-Of the 40.8K Libsyn-domain feeds in Apple Podcasts, more than half have their website properly set to something other than a Libsyn domain. Leaving 18.3K Libsyn-domain feeds pointing to Libsyn-domain websites. But without visiting every web page, that remaining number could contain any split between intentional an accident.

-SoundCloud has 83.3K domain feeds in Apple Podcast, and a smaller-than-I-expected-but-still-big 48.8K of those feeds have a Sound Cloud URL as the website.

-Anchor has 72,169 feeds in AP. All but 3 are pointing back to the podcast’s Anchor webpage and are not a podcast’s own branded website! (Edited by Request DJL)

He also looked at the total number of episodes across all feeds for the following companies an came up with these averages.

SoundCloud: 2,046,816 / average 24.5 episodes per show.
Libsyn: 1,980,221 / average 48.5 episodes per show.
Podbean: 789,113 / average 27.9 episodes per show.
Anchor  631,550 episodes /average of 8.8 episodes per show.
Spreaker: 613,082 / average 40.5 episodes per show.

There are some serious takeaways here we will update this article as he provides more data. Gives you some insight into what is really happening in the podcasting space.