Month: April 2023

Daily Podcast Industry Newsletter Podnews Acquires Podcast Business Journal

~ jen

Podnews, the leading industry newsletter for podcasting and on-demand, is proud to announce the acquisition of Podcast Business Journal, a well-respected newsletter from Streamline Publishing Inc.

With more than 26,500 daily subscribers, Podnews operates a free daily newsletter, with details of news, jobs and events throughout the podcast industry.

“I’m delighted to welcome Podcast Business Journal into the Podnews family,” said Podnews Editor, James Cridland. “We’re pleased to continue to document the growth of the podcast industry, and maintain Podcast Business Journal’s role of independent coverage for serious podcasters.”

“As Podnews continues to grow, with our series of networking events called Podnews Live, the in-depth weekly podcast Podnews Weekly Review and other plans in the works, we see great benefit in an additional brand to focus on those in business,” Cridland added.

Podcast Business Journal will become a weekly newsletter, containing in-depth interviews with podcast business leaders, and will carry an overview of the week’s podcast business headlines and news. Its first weekly edition under Podnews ownership can be subscribed to here. 

Podnews was launched in May 2017, and is a daily briefing of news and information to those in podcasting. The Podnews editorial team will expand in the coming months to support its continuing growth. You can subscribe to Podnews, free. 

Launched by Streamline Publishing Inc in 2018, Podcast Business Journal was edited by Ed Ryan, and published by Deborah Parenti. Gary Krantz, CEO at KMG Capital | M&A Advisors (a division of Krantz Media Group) served as the exclusive advisor to Streamline Publishing on the transaction.

I get Podnews: any change to my newsletter?

Nope!

I get the Podnews Weekly: any change to my newsletter?

Yes – if you get our secret weekly newsletter, you’ll now get the Podcast Business Journal. Same time, same content- plus, a long-form interview and business data.

Who can I contact if I have questions?

Contact us

Lemonada Media And Apple Books Launch Book Club Across Books And Podcasts

~ jen

Lemonada Media, the award-winning podcast network that makes life suck less, and Apple Books, the best way to experience books and audiobooks, announced a new iteration of The Lemonada Book Club, a first-of-its-kind, free-to-join digital program that puts the audio in book club, uniting fans of nonfiction storytelling across books and podcasts.

Each month, Lemonada and Apple Books will select fascinating audiobooks spanning a wide range of topics and genres – including memoirs, life guides, and other eye-opening storytelling – and foster conversations about them across Lemonada’s award-winning podcast network.

By joining The Lemonada Book Club, members will receive regular audiobook recommendations that relate to the topics discussed on their favorite Lemonada podcasts, hear from the authors of selected titles on these shows, and participate in digital community events with other listeners. 

The first round of audiobook selections from Lemonada and Apple Books include: A Living Remedy by Nichole Chung, You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, and Drama Free by Nedra Glover Tawwab.

“When we piloted The Lemonada Book Club last year, the immediate demand demonstrated to use that our listeners want to engage, build community, and have access to more curated content,” said Lemonada CEO Jessica Cordova Kramer. “This new collaboration with Apple Books helps us to do just that – expand the range of titles available to listeners, provide, even more curated recommendations, and foster a greater sense of community among listeners.”

Sign up for The Lemonada Book Club newsletter. Members can find all the audiobook selections in The Lemonada Book Club collection on Apple Books and listen to Lemonada’s award-winning, critically-acclaimed podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Members can also follow @LemonadaMedia and @AppleBooks on Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date on the latest selections, hear more from authors, and engage with other members and listeners.

 

Libsyn Powerful Publishing And Content Management Program Now Available en Español

~ jen

Liberated Syndication Inc. (“Libsyn”), the leading all-in-one podcasting platform for creators and advertisers, announced that its powerful publishing and content management platform is now available in Spanish. The Spanish-language integration represents an important step in Libsyn’s ongoing commitment to creator empowerment for traditionally underserved populations like the Hispanic community.

Specifically, Spanish-speaking creators can now take full advantage of Libsyn’s trusted hosting platform that offers in-depth IAB stats on episode and show performance, Canva platform integration, episode snippets, and custom audio players. Specifically, the language setting is available on:

  • The Libsyn homepage, sign-in, the blog, and support page
  • The sign-up, plans & pricing, features, and monetization pages
  • The Libsyn dashboard
  • The knowledge-based articles
  • The tooltips & guides page
  • The invoicing page

Beyond offering the language setting via its support page, Libsyn is also offering ‘Help Desk’ support, providing Spanish language assistance.

The Spanish-language integration is part of the Company’s greater mission to bring more opportunity and visibility to diverse creators to foster a more inclusive podcasting ecosystem. The Company has commissioned and supported the launch of Edison Research’s Latino Podcast Listening Report – important research that tracks emerging habits and preferences among Latino listeners – for two consecutive years; hosted a dedicated Libsyn Latino Podcasters Meetup to further explore what the research findings mean for the future growth of the Latino community and the broader podcasting industry; unveiled grassroots effort, dubbed #ClaimPodParity,  which aims to uplift, educate, and nurture female audio creators; and partnered with BIPOC Podcast Creators to help build a premier talent pipeline of multicultural creators and professionals in podcasting.

Libsyn is exploring the integration of additional languages in the future to better serve the broad array of diverse creators in the booming podcasting space. Stay tuned!

Acast To Manage Ad Sales And Distribution For Higher Ground Podcasts

~ jen

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, will manage ad sales and content for Higher Ground podcasts. 

The relationship between Acast and Higher Ground is a win for listeners across the United States and around the globe. Acast will make several Higher Ground podcasts available to audiences for free on all podcast platforms and listening apps globally. Select higher ground podcasts will now support sponsorships, advertising, and branded integrations through Acast’s industry-leading technology, which allows brands to reach listeners of those podcasts across all platforms.

Higher Ground produces some of the most popular and iconic podcasts in the industry – including the recently launched Audible Original series Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast; the hit series Renegades: Born in the USA, a series of conversations between President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen and released as a New York Times bestselling book based on the podcast; Tell Them, I Am, an audio collection of universal stories from Muslim voices; The Big Hit Show, a series of audio documentaries hosted by Alex Pappademas that focuses on the pieces of popular culture that have defined and changed our culture; as well as The Sum Of Us, from Heather McGhee, author of the New York Times bestselling book of the same name.

The deal follows Higher Ground’s collaboration with Audible for a first-look podcast deal and the launch of Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast, an Audible Original podcast. Each podcast episode will be exclusively on Audible for two weeks, and then will be distributed widely by Acast and available wherever podcasts are found.

“Higher Ground continues to deliver among the most engaging and high-caliber audio content in the industry, and we look forward to teaming up with them to make vital storytelling available to communities all over the globe,” said Ross Adams, CEO at Acast. “This relationship marks an exciting new chapter not only for Acast, but for the audio industry at large, as we work hand-in-hand to make the world a more connected place.”

Dan Fierman, Head of Audio at Higher Ground, stated, “We’ve been deeply impressed by the creativity and innovation of the Acast team. We are excited to work with their team to bring our growing state of audio content to existing fans and new audiences.”

Now, brands and agencies can purchase ads, sponsorships, and integrated branded content partnerships on a number of Higher Ground podcasts that make use of Acast’s pioneering dynamic ad insertion technology, which allows advertisers to reach audiences using conventional targeting, first-party data targeting, listener demographics, location, and more. Ads may be purchased from Acast either programmatically or direct. Sponsors can work with the Acast Creative team to create bespoke brand integrations, such as branded mini-series, episodes, or Sponsored Stories for those podcasts.

Veritonic Added To List Of Preferred Audio Attribution Partners by Spreaker From iHeart.

~ jen

Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, announced that they have been approved as an audio attribution partner by Spreaker, a multi-faceted podcast platform and global leader in podcast ad technology.

As a result, the 50,000+ creators and brands that use the Spreaker platform to distribute their podcast content can elect to utilize Veritonic’s full-funnel attribution capabilities to optimize and further increase the ROI of their audio campaigns.

“At Spreaker, we remain committed to providing our users with the tools they need to make smarter and more informed decisions around the audio they create and share,” said Francisco Baschieri, CEO and co-founder of Spreaker. “The performance data that the Veritonic platform provides is indispensable for planning, executing, and enhancing current and future audio campaigns. We take pride in this partnership as we collectively work to further the growth of the audio landscape through insightful and actionable data and analytics.”

“We are pleased to support Spreaker in providing their publishers and creators with the comprehensive data and analytics they ned to meaningfully connect with their audiences and increase ROI,” said Simon Simonelli, Chief Executive Officer of Veritonic. “Our built-for-audio attribution and brand lift capabilities provide incomparable, full-funnel audio campaign lifecycle management and measurement in one easy-to-use, intuitive platform.”

Veritonic’s Attribution solution enables users to glean actionable insights from top-of-the-funnel branding initiatives through bottom-of-the-funnel conversions & transactions. Through an intuitive and interactive dashboard, brands can determine which publisher and specific ads had the highest impact and use that data to optimize ad performance.

Veritonic’s Attribution solution is available now via self-serve or managed service. For more information or to get started, visit www.veritonic.com or contact sales@veritonic.com.

 

Adthos Launches First-Of-Its-Kind AI Generated Ads

~ jen

From April 4, 2023, and for the first time anywhere, users of the Adthos Platform can generate complete audio ads from start to finish using AI technology.

Advertisers simply submit a short briefing via a self-service portal, and using AI-technology, Adthos will generate the script, adding AI voices, sound effects and music, resulting in a fully AI-produced ad that’ available to be played out instantly. 

The platform utilizes a dozen AI technologies including GPT-4, the lates language model to be released by Open AI. The platform’s own library offers 100’s of hand-pocked and trained top quality AI voices that collectively hold 1000 IMDB credits. This includes Emmy Award winning voice actors and talents who are part of the Top 10 Morning Shows in the US.

This breakthrough technology provides advertisers with efficient self-service and instant production of high-quality audio ads that offer the best voice talent available. For publishers it enables the kind of micro-transactions that will help to support long-tail revenue streams. 

Publishers are also able to add their own branding to the self-service portal to provide a more personalized service for customers. Adthos offers out of the box integrations with radio automation systems and ad-servers meaning that creative audio can be immediately played out, enabling publishers to create a true self-service ad-buying platform.

Raoul Wedel, CEO of Adthos: “Adthos has delivered several first to the industry, but I am more excited about this than any other so far. We have been working with OpenAI for the last two years as part of their programs and have already pioneered its use for creative script writing. The addition of AI to select voices, music, and sound effects takes it to a new and exciting level. I can’t wait to see what people do with it!”

Two dozen of the world’s largest publishers have already been selected to test out the product. To apply to participate in the. Trial, please contact press@adthos.com