Search for ‘IAB’

How tough has this year been for parts of the media industry? Touch enough for DW Akademie to be running a show called Survive and Thrive: The Media Viability Podcast. The team has published a look back at the second season.

How big is the global podcast market? Justin Jackson’s research website has increased its estimates. It suggests that 2024 saw around $3-3.4bn in global ad-sales; that the hosting business is worth around $100-150mn, and that podcast events and conferences are worth $15-20mn. The estimates don’t include YouTube. Sources are given: and it’s open for others to contribute. The IAB estimated US podcast ad revenue at $1.95bn for 2023.

The IAB has published “creative best practices in podcasting”, with a set of examples of host reads, pre-rolls, branded segments and others.

Daily Wire has just received IAB v2.2 certification for “download” and “listener”. They’re currently hosted with Simplecast, which is only at v2.1.

Breaking Congratulations to Acast, which has just achieved v2.2 of the IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines. They’re the eighth to get to v2.2 this year.

Riverside has raised $30mn in a new funding round. It previously raised $35mn in 2022, $9.5mn in 2021, and $2.5mn in 2020. The company has around 165 employees, and aims to be profitable in the next two years.

Magellan AI has confirmed that it has earnt IAB Tech Lab certification for podcast measurement.

Podcasting is the fastest-growing ad format in Australia, according to data from IAB Australia. Podcast advertising for the quarter was up by 26.5% year-on-year at AU$31.4mn (US $20.5mn). Podcasts account for 40% of all online audio ad spend in the country (streaming gets 60%).

Attribution and analysis company Magellan AI has successfully joined the list of companies compliant with IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines v2.2.

Acast has tweaked its free podcast hosting plan. It used to offer unlimited episodes; it now offers up to five; and there are adjustments to website and embed player customisation options. “We're making these changes to ensure we can continue providing reliable, high-quality hosting services for the long term,” said an Acast spokesperson. “Like many platforms, we've found that a balanced approach between free and premium features helps us invest in better infrastructure and support.”

Spotify appears to have quietly changed its language about its analytics, dropping the claim that its definition of streams “align to the IAB definition of a download”. Specifically, stats for “streams” in Spotify are not de-duplicated by unique listeners - listen three times to an episode (from the same device), and you’d count for three “streams” but would be one IAB “download”. A “listener” in Spotify is de-duplicated through the life of your podcast; a “listener” according to the IAB guidelines works very differently. We’ve updated the section on Spotify’s stats in our article about how to understand podcast stats, as well as making other improvements to the article - feedback is always welcome.

Buzzsprout has achieved the latest IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines compliance to v2.2. Megaphone achieved v2.2 in late July; Captivate and Audiomeans are the only other podcast hosting companies to be compliant with the latest standard.

In the Podcasting 2.0 podcast this week, Dave Jones briefly discusses video podcasting, and how the alternateEnclosure and HLS streams are really the best way to support them. HLS streams can be of variable bitrate to deal with network conditions and are significantly cheaper for podcast hosting companies than serving one big 4K video file.

In Australia, online audio advertising is the fastest growing ad category, says the IAB.

The Secrets from a Coach podcast is celebrating its 200th episode. The show aims to help listeners thrive and maximise their potential in the evolving workplace.

Audiomeans has achieved IAB v2.2 certified status. The French podcast hosting company is certified for Download, Ad Delivery, Listener and Client-Confirmed Ad Play, and is the first hosting company to achieve certification in all four metrics for v2.2.

The IAB has announced a webinar on Aug 27. Podcasting in the Creator Economy: Where Influence Drives Purpose has speakers from SiriusXM and BetterHelp.

Ad analytics service Podscribe is now IAB v2.2 compliant. It gained compliance on Tuesday. We list all IAB certified podcast companies.

The Gynarchy with Dr. Kirti Patel aims to create a space where women can find reliable, up-to-date information on women’s health and important feminist topics, delivered in an accessible and engaging format, and launched yesterday. Dr Patel is a board-certified gynecologist with over 20 years of experience in women's health.

Megaphone is now IAB certified under v2.2, says an email to customers. They’re the second company to certify to the new v2.2 standards; the first was Captivate. Megaphone was one of three Spotify companies who quietly withdrew from IAB certification at the beginning of the year, as Podnews reported in April; after criticism from customers, that decision was changed in early June.

Growth-oriented podcast hosting platform Captivate is the first podcast host to achieve IAB v2.2 Certification for Podcast Measurement. The company supports IPv6 and has a self-auditing spike detection system for accurate and reliable data. v2.2 of the podcast measurement guidelines were released in May.

iHeart’s average weekly downloads in the Podtrac ranker for June are 78mn, 18% higher than Triton’s number, despite both solutions being IAB Certified. Over the last month, trying to understand why they’re different, Podnews spoke to Podtrac, Triton, iHeart and the IAB - and learnt:

What is an IAB Certified Download? Bumper’s Stephen Hallgren says “a lot of industry professionals who should know, don’t” - and, that the word “download” (and, indeed, “listener”) don’t really describe what they represent.

Mediastream was given IAB v2.1 certification yesterday for podcast measurement. We have a full list of certified podcast hosting companies.

Libsyn has blogged about earning IAB v2.1 podcast measurement certification - the company is certified for Download, Ad Delivery and Listener. It’s the first time the company has covered the news; Podnews reported its recertification when it happened in April.

Media company WaitWhat has made a set of recent hirings, including Leital Molad, head of podcasts, previously of Pushkin Industries and First Look Media; Eve Troeh, executive producer, previously at The New York Times; Eric Purcell, video editor, previously at The Daily Show; Jordan Smart, associate producer, previously at Kindred Media; Tricia Bobeda, senior producer, previously at Pushkin Industries; Noa Wollstein, video editor, previously at The Messenger; and Rachel Ishikawa, producer, previously at Michigan Public.

Podcasting in Italy - does it pay? A session with Acast at the Salone Del Libro in Turin looked at why podcasts in Italy earn around three times less than in other countries - and what needs to happen to continue growing the medium.

Exclusive: Spotify’s Megaphone is working to be recertified to the IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines. Earlier this year, Podnews revealed that the company had pulled out of IAB membership, and its companies had been removed from IAB’s certification program. Now, in a welcome move, the company’s enterprise podcast hosting platform Megaphone says it is working to regain certification. A Spotify spokesperson told Podnews: “We have remained committed to IAB's mission, have maintained compliance with the IAB guidelines, and are currently working with the IAB on the v2.2 certification of the Megaphone platform.”

“Decisions in their best interest vs yours“: Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta has written a strongly-worded article against Spotify. In it, he criticises the decision for Megaphone and Chartable to no longer be certified to IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines; and criticises the decision to remove minimum pricing for the Spotify Ad Network. He suggests publishers call for IAB recertification, and actively investigate moving away from Megaphone for the benefit of the industry. “Walled garden solutions don’t require IAB Podcast Certification, after all.”

Launched on RSS in May 2005, with its first episode back in June 2001, The Archaeology Channel - Audio News from Archaeologica has been going for 23 years, and has never missed a weekly episode. One of the longest continuously-running weekly podcasts, the show offers a reliable digest of archaeology news from around the world.

The data was produced by Podnews and presented by its Editor, James Cridland, who also warned in his opening keynote that Spotify’s withdrawal from the IAB was concerning for the industry; that the BBC appears to now be fighting against the open podcast ecosystem it helped to establish; and that Podcasting 2.0 offers the industry a significant opportunity.

The IAB focuses on the recent Podcast Upfront, which was a few weeks ago in New York.

Spotify’s Megaphone podcast host, which is no longer IAB certified, has sent an email to publishers with the news that they will no longer be able to set minimum prices, or “price floors”, for ads sold by the Spotify Audience Network (SPAN). “The current ad ecosystem on Megaphone operates as a waterfall, with each ad request hitting direct-sold, then SPAN, then VAST/programmatic,” explains podcast ad-tech newsletter The Download: its publisher Bryan Barletta says the move may let SPAN take more inventory, and prevents a publisher from maximising their revenue.

The bankruptcy case of former podcast producer Kast Media is continuing in court. Arcadian Vanguard, the company behind Jim Cornette’s podcasts, has objected to a claim by CEO Colin Thomson for any money; the judge has reduced his claim by 50%. Arcadian Vanguard has also claimed that money destined for SoundStack might belong to them instead. Meanwhile, X1T LLC (which is fighting a separate case against Kast Media) is also objecting against protection given to Colin Thomson, who they say has not claimed bankruptcy himself.

Inside Radio covers iHeart’s presentation at last week’s IAB Podcast Upfront, which focused on the diversity of content in the network. (Inside Radio is owned by iHeart).

Digiday covered the IAB’s annual Podcast Upfront, which took place yesterday in New York City.

Breaking: A slow-down at mid-tier companies has resulted in US podcast ad revenue growing 5% in 2023, according to the eighth annual US Podcast Advertising Revenue Study from the IAB and PwC, published minutes ago. The figure hit $1.9bn, missing a widely-expected $2bn figure; growth was out-paced by digital overall (+7.3%).

Yesterday: You got your email from Podnews late yesterday. It wasn’t you, it was us. Sorry.
Tomorrow: we may delay 90 minutes so we can carry the IAB US Podcasting Advertising Report data._

In Marketing Brew, Alyssa Meyers suggests that in spite of podcasting not needing “upfronts” they’re becoming more popular anyway - describing both PodMov Upfronts in Los Angeles, and the IAB Podcast Upfront later this week in New York.

In Better Podcasting this week, the team look at the new IAB guidelines, and Spotify's withdrawal.

The IAB has released v2.2 of the Podcast Measurement Guidelines. It’s the first new set of guidelines in over three years. To help understand what’s changed, we’ve prepared a summary of changes between v2.1 and v2.2, and between the public consultation vs final. One change is the removal of Spotify as a contributing company: Spotify left the IAB earlier this year.

Libsyn Ads reports a slight drop in average podcast CPM to $21.75 last month, down 0.9% monthly, 4.5% yearly. The company is speaking at the IAB Podcast Upfronts next week.

In & Around Podcasting this week features the story we broke last week about Spotify leaving the IAB, and what that means for the industry. Mark Asquith and Danny Brown chat with Podnews's Editor, James Cridland.

IAB UK has published its Digital Adspend Report for 2023. The report is behind a login wall, but Adelicious report that it says podcast advertising in the country grew 23% year-on-year to £83mn (US $103mn). Digital audio as a whole grew 12% to £176mn ($218mn).

We covered Spotify’s quiet withdrawl from the IAB on Monday. In commentary about Spotify’s IAB , RAIN’s Brad Hill calls it “a signal of extraordinary self-sufficiency”. He also notes that the IAB’s website still lists Spotify as a member of the IAB Podcasting Technical Working Group; we spotted that too, but we’re told this is an error (not least, the named contact, Kevin Sachs, left the company at the end of March).

What’s the difference between IAB Certified and IAB Compliant? We’ve updated a page with the difference between the two words - and given an example from history about why mere “compliance” might not be all that’s needed.

EXCLUSIVE: Spotify is no longer a member of the IAB, having quietly ceased its membership in the last three months. After a press enquiry from Podnews, Spotify’s Megaphone, Chartable and the Spotify for Podcasters host formerly known as Anchor were removed from the published list of compliant companies for podcast measurement. They last underwent certification in 2020.

AdsWizz has successfully recertified for v2.1 of the IAB Podcast Measurement program. Podtrac and Simplecast also recertified in March. On the IAB TechLab website, there are still a number of companies only certified to v2.0, who haven’t recertified in more than three years: Anchor (now Spotify), Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, Libsyn, Megaphone and Podbean.

In the US, the IAB has released the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Total internet ad revenue grew 7.3% in 2023. Internet audio, including podcasts, grew 18.9% to $7.2bn. We’ll learn the podcast revenue numbers on May 9.

Expect some internet ad revenue numbers from the IAB later today.

Details of the 2024 IAB Podcast Upfront have been released. The invite-only event is in New York (and online) on May 9.

The IAB Australia Podcast has been updated with four sessions from the Audio Summit, including a session about advertising within true crime podcasts, and "the balance of keeping crime content responsible while scratching the itch of crime obsessed Australians".

New from the UK's Sky News today, Unreliable Witness looks at the story of Ellie Williams, a young woman jailed for lying about sexual assault and grooming. Was the story all it appeared to be? And why would she do that?

“We are losing our network to ad tech.” Writing on X, Lisa Laporte explains why podcasting is struggling. One reason, she says: advertisers are requiring an ever-wider set of technologies in podcast feeds, leading to unreliability and privacy issues.

Oxford Road's Media Roundtable looks at Spotify's hosting dominance, the IAB Australia's Crime Pays report, and media buyer and planner Spencer Semonson's new phone. Guests include our Editor, James Cridland.

True crime shows aren’t getting their fair share of podcast ad revenue, in spite of being one of the most popular genres, and skewing younger and more female. IAB Australia has released an excellent report looking at the genre, how it performs for advertising, how to write the best creative for it, and why brand-safety tools might be letting this genre down.

The IAB in Australia released its Audio Advertising State of the Nation 2024 report. The podcast advertising market in 2023 was AUD$99.1mn (US $65mn). 64% of media agencies intend to increase spend in 2024.

The IAB Tech Lab has released a new version of its Podcast Measurement Guidelines for comment. You’ve until March 23 to get your comments in.

Want an embedded podcast player for your website? Our examples page now includes the Elfsight Podcast Player, which is now IAB compliant by default.

On Monday, we covered the premium Elfsight podcast player widget, which preloads audio against IAB podcast measurement guidelines. Elfsight mailed us after publication, saying that they had no plans to remove the preload feature. We told them why it matters for podcasters: and they have now confirmed that they will, after all, stop the widget from preloading audio. A new release is due today.

Caution: The Elfsight Podcast Player widget, a paid-for podcast player, is downloading audio on page-load: against IAB guidelines, and defrauding advertisers. We contacted the company last week to report the issue and invited them to comment. We’d suggest you use Spotify or Apple’s players.

The Media Roundtable returns this week, with our Editor among the guests. Does podcasting need the IAB? Why isn't programmatic advertising as good as host reads? And are podcasts on YouTube a real thing now?

Ten podcast companies are still not certified for the latest version of the IAB’s podcast measurement guidelines v2.1, in spite of being asked to do so by the end of 2022. More than a year later, the IAB’s list of compliant companies still shows AdsWizz, Anchor (now Spotify), Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, Libsyn, Megaphone, Podbean, Podtrac and Simplecast as only compliant to v2.0 of the guidelines, something that means “they will lose current status”, according to the IAB Tech Lab.

Happy Holidays from the US government, who has blessed us all with the new Corporate Transparency Act. If you run a corporation, LLC or another qualifying legal entity, you’ve just over a year to tell Uncle Sam who owns your company, or pay the hefty penalty. Gordon Firemark has written this helpful guide. Quite a few podcasts in the US - and this very newsletter - are owned by an LLC, which is normally a good plan (it stands for Limited Liability Company, which is a clue.)

Jenny Hermanson has left Spotify - she was Managing Director for Spotify Nordics. “This decision to move on has been carefully considered”, she wrote on LinkedIn. The post appears to coincide with Spotify’s announced redundancies.

Embedded players from ListenNotes, like this, were preloading audio until yesterday, against IAB guidelines. That meant that when your browser loaded a page containing an embedded player, it downloaded the audio in full: which appeared as a valid download in podcast analytics - even if you never listened. After Podnews reported it, ListenNotes has quickly fixed the issue.

What’s the future for IAB Podcast Measurement? In November 2022, we reported that the IAB’s v2.0 certification would no longer be valid after Dec 31 2023. As of today, some of podcasting’s largest names are still only compliant to v2.0, and all will lose their claim to certification by the end of the year unless recertified: Adswizz, Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, “EmpireStreaming” (now Soundstack), Libsyn, PodBean, Podtrac, Simplecast, and “Anchor” (now Spotify Creator Studio).

In Australia, the IAB reports digital audio advertising was flat quarter-on-quarter for Q3/23 at AUD $68mn (US $45mn), but it increased 16.2% year-on-year.

From Airwave: Historical Blindness is a podcast about history’s myths, mysteries, and misconceptions. By examining cases of outrageous hoaxes, pernicious conspiracy theory, mass delusion, baffling mysteries and unreliable historiography, host Nathaniel Lloyd searches for insights into modern religious belief and political culture.

Ad revenue from branding campaigns has doubled in just two years, according to analysis from Signal Hill Insights of the IAB's US data.

Octave writes about the company's recent appearance at the IAB Podcast Upfronts in the UK.

The IAB released its US Podcast Advertising Revenue Study 2023, looking at drivers, strategies, and tactics for growth. Amongst its findings:

Further reading: The Media Leader reports from the IAB Podcast Upfront in London ... Brett Spencer writes about why walled gardens (almost) never work ... and Earbuds looks at delightfully engaging kids podcast episodes, curated by Meg Lewis.

The IAB UK Podcast Upfront took place yesterday. Sony Music Entertainment previewed their slate of shows.

Ever had a podcast guest bail on you at the last minute? Spotting a growing issue, PodMatch is adding a 'reliability score' to its guest booking service.

Eric John is to leave the IAB at the end of the month. He was part of the team responsible for the initial IAB Podcasting Measurement standards.

The IAB released its Podcasting Buyer-Seller Checklist. "The comprehensive checklist delves into the world of podcasting exploring every stage of the podcast ad campaign cycle and provides a framework for buyers and sellers to align on objectives, targeting, creative, measurement, and more." It was produced by the IAB and twenty members of a working group.

Somethin'Else, the podcast and radio producer bought by Sony Music Entertainment in 2021, is to pull out of making 18 different radio shows for the BBC. The Media Podcast reported that other programme producers have also pulled out, saying that BBC production budgets - at a reported £800 for a two-hour music show - are too small to be viable.

The regulation says it applies to all streaming services that operate in Canada, not those physically based there. We're asking the CRTC what an "online streaming service" is (Apple Podcasts? or Wondery?); and what "operating in" means (employees in Canada? or content available there?). We're also asking what sanctions are liable should a company not register by Nov 28. The CRTC has not responded to a request made over 24 hours ago.

In the US, Bloomberg reports that ABC could be being sold to local broadcaster Nexstar. CNN's Reliable Sources reports concern within the company.

In Australia, the IAB reports that online advertising was still growing in Q2/23, but that growth has slowed. Podcast advertising grew 24% last quarter, and was AUD $91.2m (US $59mn) in FY23 (July-June).

From The Society for Endocrinology, Hormones: The Inside Story is back for a third series. The show will bust myths around common hormonal conditions, including diabetes and thyroid disfunction, and taking a closer look at the latest technology to manage them - as well as some of the surprising ways that hormones impact all our lives. It's produced by science podcast specialists First Create The Media.

Advertising agencies and brand marketers are more interested in podcast advertising than ever, according to new data highlighted by Westwood One. Spending intention has grown 6x since 2015. Nearly 60% of agencies and advertisers currently advertise in podcasts, a nearly 4x increase since the first IAB podcast upfront in 2015.

Editing tool Descript has purchased Squadcast, a remote recording service. Terms weren't given. The announcement says that the two services will continue separately for now, but Descript customers will get remote recording included immediately in their subscriptions for free; and SquadCast customers can choose to switch their subscription to Descript to get its editing capabilities at no additional cost.

Colin Thomson, the CEO of Kast Media, emailed us a link to a guide on US libel law. He later denied that this email was meant as a threat, telling us: "Was curious myself. I didn't know, looked it up".

The number of job vacancies in digital advertising has "plunged", according to new research from IAB Australia.

A number of news podcasts are being censored by Meta's Facebook, Instagram and Threads in Canada, after the Canadian government passed Bill C-18, a new law requiring tech companies to pay to link to news content. The 905er podcast is one of those affected. In a video, Canadian YouTuber and journalist J.J. McCullough calls it "ill-conceived" and akin to extortion; our Editor has personal thoughts too.

US podcast ad revenue is now worth $1.8bn

In Australia, the IAB report that podcast ad revenue saw 20.7% annual growth. This is against a total online ad revenue decline of 0.8%.

The US podcast ad market is now worth $1.8bn, according to new data from the IAB and PWC. Revenue grew 26% last year, twice as fast as total internet ad revenue: however, the company saw a significant slow-down in Q4/22. News has also dropped from its place as the top genre for ad revenue: the sports category is now #1, with a 15% share. The IAB predicts the market will be $3.9bn by 2025.

Doing something great in podcast measurement? Does the idea of a 14-hour plane ride fill you with joy? Have you ever seen a kangaroo or a koala? IAB Australia is looking for submissions to speak at their MeasureUp conference in Sydney NSW on Sep 13.

Dovetail from PRX, the company's podcast publishing and monetization platform, is now IAB certified. We've updated our list of podcast hosts.

Our Editor, James Cridland, will be the opening speaker at The Podcast Show 2023 in London. He will speak at 9.10am on Wednesday, in the 400-capacity Amplify Theatre, in association with Amazon Music / Wondery and IAB UK: focusing on the last year in the podcast industry and the years to come. His speech will be followed by Crime Junkie host Ashley Flowers. (You can still buy tickets for the event - the code PODNEWS will get you a discount)

First look: NewsGuard, a "news reliability data service", has announced its entry into podcasting today. The company says it's the world’s first journalist-vetted podcast credibility rating service; its release includes example ratings for five podcasts.

April's average CPM rates for Libsyn's AdvertiseCast were up 4% to $23.07. The company has also announced that it is a sponsor of the 2023 IAB Podcast Upfront.

Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai returns today from KUOW, Seattle's NPR station. It's a vibrant, diverse, and bittersweet celebration of Asian America... and a challenge for all of us to reimagine stories of the past and future. Across the series, Shin Yu Pai explores a collection of objects and artifacts that tell us something about Asian American life – from a second-hand novel to a blue suit.

Podcast ad spend grew by 32% last year in the UK, according to the IAB.

Podscribe is now IAB certified. The company says it is the only measurement provider certifed by the IAB Tech Lab that does not currently sell media.

The IAB has announced the agenda for the 2023 IAB Podcast Upfront. It's on May 11, in New York NY, USA and virtual.

Auphonic has released metadata variables, for quicker automation.

Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil is new today from Wondery - it's the first series to debut from the SmartLess Media slate and features a panel of hilarious guests, who each share tales of their worst/craziest dates ever, and then weigh in on everyone else's misfortune. It's available exclusively on Amazon Music today, but everywhere next week.

Mel’s Electric Adventure is new from Tortoise today - Mel Giedroyc and journalist Giles Whittell discover the world of electric cars, discuss life and wonder how it’s going to be changed by the electric revolution. It's available everywhere today.

In Australia, three new podcast publishers were today announced to be joining the Australian Podcast Ranker. The Squiz, Shameless Media, and the country's biggest podcaster the ABC. "Let the battle commence!" joked Commercial Radio & Audio CEO Ford Ennals, announcing the news at the IAB Australia Audio Summit.

In Australia, the IAB has revealed that podcast advertising spend in the country was AUD$82mn (US$55mn) in 2022. Overall, the online ad market saw a growth of 15% in the first six months, and 4% growth in the second half of the year.

What a Drag is new from Podshape: a show with Australia's youngest drag queen. The show celebrates diversity and empowerment, and is hosted by Logan Kelly.

Becoming An Icon is new today from Sonoro Media: a show that chronicles the lives of Latinx artists who have left an indelible mark through the sustained brilliance of their careers. It’s hosted by Lilliana Vazquez, the first and only Latina to host E! News, and Joseph Carillo, a highly-successful and sought-after celebrity makeup artist.

In Australia, the IAB has announced a new industry digital audience measurement currency called Ipsos iris. The tech is already in use in the UK, and will initially be used for TV figures; it could be used for other media types, too, in future.

Kast Media and Big IP Media have announced a multi-year partnership. The companies have now partnered on five shows: Happy Sad Confused, The John Campea Show Podcast, The Big Thing, The Dan Murrell Podcast, and Star Wars Explained.

Abbie Atkinson, the host of Don’t Let Dave Win, is interviewed by Pod Bible. The show talks about tackling your negative inner voice: "I named the voice in order to humanise it and make it seem less intimidating."

While Julia Louis-Dreyfus has announced a new show talking to women over 70, podcast host Sherrilynne Starkie says she might not be a famous Hollywood actor, but her independent podcast, 50 Women Over 50, is worth a listen too: and, unlike Louis-Dreyfus's, it's out now.

Livewire reports that Libsyn's podcast consumption stats are now using IAB-compliant numbers. Those figures had been their own legacy numbers until September. The company appears to include all AppleCoreMedia downloads under Apple Podcasts data, and claims Apple has 69.5% of all downloads, Spotify 13.7%, and Google Podcasts at 2.2%.

Buzzsprout has posted its network statistics for November. The only regularly released IAB-compliant numbers, the numbers show a slight drop for Apple Podcasts (now 38.2% of all downloads), and a smaller rise for Spotify (up to 26.6%). Google Podcasts is the third largest podcast app, with 2.7% of all downloads.

Podcast host Ausha has achieved IAB certification. The company was already following the ACPM guidelines, one of the two French podcast audience measurement organisations. Ausha's press release includes an infographic explaining what an IAB download is.

The Samsung Free podcast app will "soon be updated", according to a communication from Acast to its podcasters, to remove the cause of a significant increase in downloads from automatic plays. (See yesterday's Tech Stuff for more). In the meantime, Acast has demonetised listens coming from the Dalvik useragent "to protect our advertisers"; and notes that "under IAB guidelines, these listens are considered valid". (Also considered valid downloads: those podcast plays bought in games apps)

Sylvia Brudeli has been appointed as Chief Product Officer at Nomono, an audio recording tool developer. She joins from Telenor, a Norwegian telco.

First look: Acast has just announced Keyword Targeting, a way for advertisers to target topics and keywords they wish to advertise next to. The tool joins Conversational Targeting, which matches podcast content with the IAB's content taxonomy.

Correction: Following our piece about the IAB now requiring annual re-certification for podcast measurement, the IAB's PR company has clarified pricing has changed, "to make certification more accessible to the wide Podcast measurement community". Rather than being $45,000 for certification for an IAB member, new certification costs $12,500, with renewals costing $6,250. We've updated the original piece.

The IAB Tech Lab is now requiring annual re-certification from podcast companies. In a note that has appeared sometime over the past month on the IAB's website, the IAB says it "is updating its compliance program to require annual recertification".

Data: In New Zealand, 79% of media agencies have used podcast advertising in the last twelve months, growing significantly from 60% in 2021. NZ media buyers are buying more podcast advertising than those in Australia, according to a study by IAB NZ.

After Podtrac told us that purchased podcast plays in game apps were "consistent with IAB guidelines", the IAB's Eric John has told Bloomberg that "the standards are in a continual state of review". The practice has been widely criticised elsewhere.

Those purchased podcast plays are all OK, it seems. After yesterday's news that iHeartMedia and others have been purchasing podcast plays in game apps, Podtrac tells us: "We decided not to filter these downloads as they are consistent with the latest IAB guidelines. It’s our understanding they appear as browser traffic without a unique user agent (or [unique] IP address). These downloads don’t have a material impact on the publisher rankings including the rank order of the top publishers."

Players get game tokens if they listen to a podcast for just twenty seconds. (Carman posts a graphic). But, because more than 60 seconds of audio are downloaded by the player, as demonstrated in this article in Sounds Profitable, these plays count as an IAB-certified download from podcast hosts and in prefix services like Podtrac. That allows podcasts promoted in this way to charge for the ads delivered in the show, and for that traffic to be counted in rankers.

Adnan Syed is now out of jail and in home detention, having had his murder conviction quashed by Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn after 23 years in prison. Now aged 41, Syed is not officially innocent: he faces a new trial into whether he was guilty of the death of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. A new episode of Undisclosed was released last week after the prosecutors asked for this new trial; host Rabia Chaudry highlighting that Serial's reporting was unreliable. A new episode of Serial is due today.

Baltimore City's state attorney has asked for a new trial for Adnan Syed, after new information has come to light that points to alternative suspects. Cell phone tower information has also been shown to be unreliable. The case was highlighted in the first season of Serial.

The Brussels Court of Appeal has dismissed IAB Europe's appeal against a ruling that said the IAB's "Transparency & Consent Framework" popups were illegal under the GDPR. The case is to be referred to the European Court of Justice.

SpokenLayer is the latest company to sign with Sounder for third-party brand safety verification. Advertisers will be able to buy ads knowing that the shows adhere to their brand values and to the brand safety guidelines set by the IAB and GARM.

Podcast hosting company CoHost has gained IAB Certification for its analytics. The company launched in May.

Global's DAX has signed with Sounder to provide automated brand safety verification. Sounder’s solution will enable advertisers to purchase media across DAX’s podcast portfolio backed by the assurance that they adhere to brand safety guidelines, including those outlined by the IAB and GARM.

Good news: Spotify's Chartable has a new Spotify integration - promising a more reliable connection with Spotify stats. Bad news: you've got until Friday before the old integration goes away.

While yesterday's IAB #concernedpodcasters document was heavy on the concerns and light on any solutions, we're reminded of this work for podcast listening using ULIDs, from Dan Benjamin and Dave Jones, which potentially fixes any issues around download analytics. It is a straightforward suggestion to append a random string to the audio request.

The IAB Tech Lab has written a paper "to address emerging privacy mechanisms and their unintended impacts to the podcasting ecosystem". It expresses concern about the rise of Apple Private Relay and VPNs, and how they might damage ad targeting, and content geoblocking. The paper calls for increased dialogue and more participation between the IAB and podcast platforms for a commitment for some form of geolocation to be passed to podcast hosting companies, and a way to better measure downloads and user numbers while respecting privacy.

The app appears to be listing some third party content. It's also added variable-speed playback for iOS users last week; we're told it's rolling out on Android, too.

Data: In Belgium, podcasts are more popular than ever, reports The Brussels TImes. The research was gathered by Ipsos.

Journo returns for season two today: the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas podcast that explores how news is made, used, abused, and how it can be made more reliable and trustworthy. The first episode, posted today, focuses on how the media has reported on the war in Ukraine.

AdsWizz has posted video of its IAB Podcast Upfront presentation.

At the IAB Podcast Upfronts, Sony Music Entertainment revealed their slate of upcoming podcasts. Vox Media presented The Verge's Nilay Patel talking with talent from across the Vox Media Podcast Network.

The sixth annual IAB US Podcast Advertising Revenue study was published. It shows US podcast ad revenue growth increasing dramatically during 2021, hitting $1.4bn. Revenues are forecast to hit $4.2bn in 2024.

The IAB US Podcast Advertising Revenue Study will be presented this morning at Podcast Upfront: we're expected to learn how podcast advertising grew in 2021, and whether the US podcast ad market is now over $1bn. In 2020, the report suggested it had reached $842m.

Digital Signage Done Right has won an IABC Gold Quill Award. The award is from the International Association of Business Communicators; the podcast itself talks about how to communicate better.

Someone wondered about the point of the "a valid download must be over 60 seconds" rule from the IAB, so we ran some analysis from Podnews's audio server. Over the past ninety days, we saw…

eMarketer is forecasting US podcast ad spending will hit $2.2bn in 2023. The numbers are similar to the IAB's, released in May last year.

The IAB has unveiled the agenda for the 2022 IAB Podcast Upfront.

Buzzsprout reports that Apple Podcasts had 37.4%, and Spotify 26.8%, of all downloads in March. These numbers are IAB certified, and generic AppleCoreMedia traffic is not reported under Apple's numbers.

IAB Podcasts Upfront will be held virtually on May 10-12.

Sonnant has launched new AI-powered tools for audio and video monetisation, including automatically matching podcast content with IAB categories, ad-marker creation and automated chaptering.

The IAB Tech Lab has said it will not work with Russian or Belarusian companies on technical certification.

In Germany, MA Podcast is a new podcast ranking tool for advertisers. Similar to Triton Digital's podcast rankers in other countries, it uses logfile analysis to produce a consistent measurement. It uses the existing IAB v2.1 standard. ) /thnx Steffen

Blubrry has released a new podcast statistics interface. The company was the first independent podcast host to be IAB Certified, in Dec 2018.

Buzzsprout's global stats for January, calculated to the IAB standard, show the company hit 100 million monthly downloads for the first time. Apple Podcasts continues to increase, with a reported 37.2% share of all downloads; Spotify decreased to 28%. (Their stats don't include AppleCoreMedia plays).

In the UK, Public Service Podcasting has been launched by Jonny Gould. It aims to serve minority communities with reliable news, who are otherwise overlooked or misrepresented by the mainstream media.

Buzzsprout has published its platform stats for Dec 2021. Compiled using IAB certified data, it shows Apple Podcasts once more well in the lead for episode downloads.

Spotify has purchased another podcast hosting company: Australia's Whooshkaa. The first non-US podcast host to achieve IAB certification, Whooshkaa also has technology that automatically makes podcasts from radio broadcasts. It will be integrated into Megaphone.

The IAB Podcast Upfront will be virtual in 2022.

Patrick Dolan has joined the Board of Directors at Libsyn. He had worked for the IAB for 14 years, and was recently COO and President.

After an incident we reported at one of their meetings earlier in the year, the IAB TechLab has posted an expected code of conduct for future meetings.

Thank you to Michael Jones who shares his Pocket Cast stats with us. He's saved ten years using variable speed (he listens to us at 3x speed). Yikes.

First look: Chartable has just launched Chartable Sales Sheets - a service that combines Chartable's IAB-verified stats with their Audience Demographics service (and Spotify's data, too). Chartable will help you share this independent data with prospective advertisers.

Amit Shetty has left the IAB TechLab, and will join Pixalate, an ad-fraud detection platform. Mike Midden left the IAB in June.

Cloudflare post an interesting piece about multi-user IP address detection. The current IAB specification discusses a method of marking some IP addresses (a big corporation, for example) as safe to assume it has multiple users on the end: but this technology looks as if it might automate that work.

If you missed the IAB UK Podcast Upfronts, here are the sessions from Fresh Air Production, Podfront, DAX from Global and Acast.

The IAB UK podcast upfront took place in London. Among other presentations, Sony Music Entertainment previewed their upcoming podcast slate.

Got unreliable electricity? Want to podcast? Tae Haar has some tips.

The IAB has released a new content taxonomy structure for public comment. The data provides a common language to be used when describing content, so that advertisers can choose where they want to advertise.

Challenges of measurement and the limitations of host-read ads were the subject of discussion at the IAB Podcast Upfronts, according to Digiday.

SXM Media is unveiling new programmatic capabilities for podcast advertising at the IAB Podcast Upfronts, producing a single access point for all SXM Media's inventory.

Backtracks has has its analytics numbers certified by the IAB TechLab. The company's certification for v2.1 of the guidelines covers download and listener numbers for shows hosted on the service, and join Acast as being certified for client-confirmed ad plays on the company's own player.

The IAB has announced the final agenda for the IAB Podcast Upfront. The invite-only event takes place Sep 9-10, and allows media buyers to preview new shows coming from podcast publishers and new adtech tools.

WBUR is to present at the IAB's Podcast Upfront in September. The IAB will also release its first-ever Audio Landscape report on September 9, with insights into consumption trends and ad spend patterns.

Dan Moren, a former Macworld journalist, writes in Six Colors that "Apple Podcasts reliability problem is turning into an image problem", citing ongoing issues with the app not listing some episodes for podcasts. "I haven’t seen any direct acknowledgment from Apple about this issue over the last two months, much less any indication of what went wrong and how it plans to fix it," he adds, and says "it’s started to feel uncomfortably like Apple doesn’t care about podcast creators livelihoods". (Podnews has repeatedly asked for statements and an interview with Apple).

The June 2021 US Podcast Report is out from Triton Digital. Stitcher are #1 for a second month, beating NPR (though iH eartRadio isn't measured). Average weekly downloads for the top 10 publishers were up by 5% year-on-year, in spite of an Apple Podcasts auto-download bug and a shift to IAB v2.1. (One investment analyst recently used figures from the competing Podtrac ranker to claim podcasting was in negative growth).

Podcast host Whooshkaa claims it's the first podcast host to recertify for the IAB Podcast Guidelines v2.1. (Julep Hosting from Germany was first to certify for this new standard).

The IAB Fall Podcast Upfront has been confirmed as a virtual event on September 9 and 10. If you're a brand marketer or agency executive, here's where to register.

Mike Midden, who worked at the IAB on the podcast measurement guidelines, is now working for Google.

Fusebox, an embedded player for podcast websites, is adding episode-level images (in an opt-in beta), and faster loading. It also now only loads audio once a listener hits the play button, complying with IAB rules.

Stitcher Media is the new #1 podcast publisher in the US, according to the latest Triton Digital US Podcast Report for the four weeks ending May 30. The company, owned by SiriusXM, beat NPR for both average weekly downloads and listeners. NPR News Now is still the #1 podcast, though. It's the first to be compiled to v2.1 of the IAB Podcast Technical Guidelines: the result is a reduction in average weekly users by around 5% for the top 5 publishers. The ranker measures participating publishers only; iHeartRadio owns Triton Digital, but it is not included in the ranker.

Riverside․fm has announced a media board - a virtual soundboard and videoboard, allowing creators to insert pre-recorded content directly into the live recording session. The clips are added as a separate track, cutting editing time. It's live to all users now.

Can you use email to build a viable podcast business? Sean Howard from Fable and Folly highlights the benefit of a viable email list in a three-part series.

Congratulations to Art Insiders New York for winning the 27th Annual Communicator Awards of Excellence by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), for their episode about the TWA Flight Center/Hotel. They won an award here last year too.

The IAB Tech Lab has a number of new board members, including Amazon Advertising.

Julep Hosting is now IAB certified: the first podcast hosting company from Germany to have achieved certification. They're also the first company in the world to have achieved certification to the new v2.1 standard. We've updated our list of podcast hosts.

AdsWizz spoke at the IAB Podcast Upfront.

mediabits․io is another, and new, editor to make small videos of your podcast for social media.

The IAB Podcast Upfront will be hosted by SuChin Pak. More than 3,000 ad buyers have registered.

"The ability to submit new shows for review is temporarily unavailable" says Apple Podcasts Connect for us today. This may be related to a big Apple announcement tomorrow, or perhaps it's just broken: the tool is famously unreliable.

Apple Podcasts on the upcoming iOS 14.5 release will automatically show the release schedule for shows. "Apple’s implementation of this feature seems to be a bit unreliable", says 9to5Mac - it's recognised ours as daily, though.

The IAB has released its annual Ad Revenue Report for 2020. Digital ad revenue grew by 12.2% in the year. The report os only available for IAB members.

The IAB announced their schedule for the 2021 Podcast Upfront, taking place May 11-13. The event is there for brands and agencies: 30 companies will speak; Libsyn is speaking for the first time. Buy-side attendees can request an invite here.

The IAB has published its Annual Report, predicting that "in 2021, [US] podcasting will be a $1 billion market". The organisation had $33.2m of revenue in 2020; $6.4m of that is from the IAB Tech Lab, who work on the podcast measurement standards.

Play just one second of a podcast on Spotify, and you've downloaded over 90 seconds of audio - enough to count as an IAB certified podcast download. Writing in Sounds Profitable this week with Claritas, Bryan Barletta concludes: "podcast streaming is a myth". A fascinating deep-dive into listener-initiated downloads and player-initiated downloads - worth getting it every week.

Gina Garrubbo, the President and CEO of National Public Media, has been named the Chair of the IAB's Board of Directors. National Public Media sells sponsorship opportunities across NPR, PBS and member stations.

The nominations for the Ambies, The Podcast Academy's awards for excellence in audio, have been announced. They were chosen by 120 members who volunteered to be on the Blue Ribbon Panel, and listened to over 30 episodes each, rating them across multiple variables. If you're a member, you now get to vote for the winners. Just want to listen? Our list of the nominations has links to all the major platforms.

The IAB tell us that the public comment period for their updated v2.1 podcast measurement guidelines is now extended until March 17. The first update of these guidelines since 2017, we'd recommend you review them; given our story yesterday you might want to confirm your feedback has been received.

The IAB Tech Lab released two updates to its v2.1 Podcast Measurement Guidelines for public comment in December and January. However, Podnews can reveal that over the entire 74 days, the public feedback email address given didn't actually work: emails silently bounced with a User Unknown error. The IAB described this as "unfortunate", but would neither confirm nor deny that it has received no feedback at all to this address as a consequence.

The IAB quietly released an update to their proposed v2.1 Podcast Measurement Guidelines at some point in January for public comment. There was no announcement, and the IAB appear to have removed their previous v2.1 proposal from the web: we kept a copy, though, and have done a diff of it. It now contains guidance for IPv6 measurement, and updated US-based podcast player market share. The public comment period has already ended.

iHeartMedia also owns podcast hosts Voxnest and Spreaker, podcast producer How Stuff Works, Mediabase and Media Monitors, radio software company RCS, and radio news website Inside Radio.

A deep dive into Triton Digital Podcast Metrics has been released by Sounds Profitable. The demonstration shows the kind of data that the platform, which is IAB certified, can offer.

At some point recently, Google Podcasts has switched its URL structure for individual podcast episodes. If you care, it's now… /feed/:rssuri/episode/:guid where the two variables are BASE64-encoded. (What if every app and service supported this basic link pattern?)

Parler, the 'free speech' social network, appears to be auto-downloading all podcasts in full on their website, according to Podnews analysis. These downloads aren't IAB compliant, and should be disregarded to comply with certification. (Podcast hosts can only spot these using a check on the referrer, which few actually do).

The Feed from Libsyn has unveiled the latest data from Libsyn's network, claiming Apple Podcasts was still #1 with 64.5% of all mobile downloads in November. The data relates to mobile downloads only, and the company tells us that these are not based on IAB certified downloads.

Move over podcasting - Netflix is rolling-out an audio-only mode to their Android app. The app also has variable-speed playback, and a feature called audio-description, which, on selected shows, tells you what's happening on screen. The company will hope you don't listen to a podcast, when you can listen to a movie or TV show instead.

The IAB has moved their Podcast Upfront earlier to May next year, the week after their video-based NewFronts event.

Thank you to Podscribe, the only transcript service designed for podcasters, for becoming our latest supporter. They now also offer critical intelligence for advertisers, we notice in Sounds Profitable. We're grateful to you for your support.

Podnews gave our feedback for the IAB v2.1 podcast measurement guidelines document today.

The IAB have released v2.1 of their podcast measurement technical guidelines for public comment. There is no changelog - so we've created one for you - there's some recommendations of useragent structure, Apple Watch, and a statement about IPv6.

Anchor, the largest podcast host in the world, has achieved IAB Certification for their podcast analytics. Here's their full certificate. We've updated our podcast hosts page. As a small warning: "some podcasters may notice a very slight decline in play counts as a result," the company says; though some that have contacted Podnews have seen significant drops.

Buzzsprout has achieved IAB certification for podcast measurement, achieving it without any adjustments to their systems. "Our customers will not see any drop in their numbers", says co-founder Tom Rossi.

In news that readers of Sounds Profitable, our ad-tech newsletter, will enjoy: IAB Europe launched a (display) ad-tracking consent framework a few years ago. According to the Belgian data protection regulator, it's, um, illegal under the GDPR, Europe's privacy law. The IAB has released a statement respectfully disagreeing with the finding.

Seeing a drop of about 3% of downloads? A reminder that, as of October 1st, Apple Watch downloads from Apple Podcasts are no longer included in IABv2 stats. Here's more from Sounds Profitable, our ad-tech newsletter.

AdsWizz spoke at the IAB Upfront recently, and has written up some of the stats that were shared at the event.

Can IAB-compliant downloads be faked? Anthony Gourraud thinks so: indeed, he built a contraption for about $210 that can theoretically fake up to 30,000 downloads a month if you're really determined and quite technical. He documents how he did it - and how podcast hosts can detect it. (Version française ici)

Emarketer reckon that US podcast ad spending will increase by 10% in 2020, but they give no source. In July, the IAB put 2020's predicted ad revenue increase at 14.7%.

The IAB has announced the full schedule for the IAB Podcast Upfront event in September, and the host: comedian Franchesca Ramsey.

The IAB Tech Lab has released guidance for podcasts on the Apple Watch. As Sounds Profitable notes, this is the first time the IAB has focused on a specific platform, and a specific player. Speaking to Sounds Profitable, the IAB have also confirmed this is specifically around the Apple Podcasts app on watchOS, and not the entirety of the platform. Read on for a full breakdown of what it may mean for your download numbers.

The IAB Tech Lab has released a guidance notice about Apple Watches resulting in inflated podcast numbers. We reported this behaviour on June 12. Any downloads to the Apple Watch will "no longer be counted toward any totals reported for the podcasting industry" from October 1. Legitimate downloads from Outcast, an Apple Watch app, may now be invisible to podcast hosts.

The IAB have announced their final schedule to IAB Podcast Upfront, including speakers from the New York Times and ViacomCBS. The event, which will be virtual, is designed for publishers to preview their latest podcast programming to advertisers: attendance is up by 400%, they say.

Thank you to podcast host Simplecast, who have increased their amount of support as their company grows. An IAB-certified host, they offer comprehensive analytics and unlimited storage. We're grateful to them for their support. Be like them.

EMarketer is forecasting US podcast ad revenue will cross $1bn next year. Historical data, uncredited in their report, appears to come from the IAB's annual Podcast Ad Revenue study, which we reported on July 14. eMarketer have forecast lower growths than the IAB, though.

"I believe the podcasting game is in the first inning," SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer said in the earnings call. "I don't know what the viability is of podcasting as a standalone business." Chief Content Officer Scott Greenstein added "The podcast is very nascent ... you can tell by the numbers, not many podcasts do very significant numbers."

The IAB has revealed the presenters at the IAB Podcast Upfront, which will be a virtual event this year.

Podbean, the second-largest professional podcast host, is now IAB Certified. The company achieved certification last week, and it means that Podbean is using a standard measurement for podcast downloads. Here's a full list of podcast hosts, including those that are IAB certified.

A columnist in Irish newspaper The Journal notes that there is no measurement for podcasts in Ireland, saying "verifiable listenership information ... is long overdue".

The US podcast ad market grew 48% in 2019 to $708m, according to the IAB's annual Podcast Ad Revenue Study: nearly $30m higher than predicted. Host-read ads were responsible for two-thirds of the revenue; the leading content genre for US podcast advertisers is News, which generated 22% of revenues.

ESPN have released a press release saying their podcasts are increasing in popularity. Blubrry's analytics, according to the release, are 44.2m downloads; Podtrac says ESPN achieved 45.3m downloads for the same time period. Both companies are IAB Certified.

The IAB reports that 52% of ad-buyers plan to spend more on podcast ads during the second-half of 2020. Only 14% plan to increase their spend on radio ads.

The IAB has released a report of internet advertising revenue for 2019. Digital audio advertising revenue reached $2.7bn, an increase of 21%. That number includes all forms of audio streaming, not just podcasting - but the bureau attributes a 25% growth in audio revenue on mobile devices, in large part, to podcasting.

Captivate have added customisation for their embeddable podcast player, and added the IAB seal to their sponsor kits. Disclosures

Exclusive: Podcast host Captivate will announce later today that they have achieved IAB Certification for their podcast analytics. The certification was achieved at an "unprecedented pace" according to CEO Mark Asquith, and podcasters will see no significant changes to their reported download numbers. The first UK company to undergo this work, Captivate joins another 10 retail hosts that are certified compliant. (Podnews's Editor is on Captivate's advisory board).

Podcast host Captivate have added unique listeners to their analytics. Calculated to the IAB v2 standard, they highlight it as "part one of an analytics upgrade". (Disclosures)

We've updated our list of podcast hosts, to identify those who offer IAB certified compliant stats; and done the same to the Github repo. We'd quite like to source little SVG logos for each of them, but that's a job for another day.

In these uncertain times, it’s hard to know who you can trust to get reliable, up-to-date information. The Chaser Report makes it even harder. The popular satirical team, who produce books, magazines, newspapers and have had their own ABC shows, have been signed up by NOVA Entertainment for a weekly podcast: it starts on Friday.

Audioboom's revenue for the first three months of this year was up by 40% from the same time last year, according to a trading update. The US$4m secured loan that the company obtained (Feb 13) wasn't used. The company has also started using Voxnest's IAB-certified measurement.

The IAB has moved NewFronts, their publisher showcase event, optimistically to June 22nd.

East Coast Studios post about a successful resolution of a problem with one of their podcasts - Unable To Play. Something went wrong. Try Again Later. tl;dr: don't go uploading variable bitrate podcasts, y'all.

To help schools move to online classes and aid the spread of reliable information, Buzzsprout is providing free pro accounts for those working to combat COVID-19 for the duration of the pandemic - including schools, government entities and NGOs, non-profits or first-responders combatting the coronavirus.

The numbers also come with a note: "In January, most publishers experienced a drop in UMA (Unique Measured Audience) with a simultaneous increase in downloads. This divergence was precipitated by a popular podcast app providing less-specific User Agent data on which the IAB UMA algorithm relies. Podtrac is currently working on a refinement to the UMA algorithm to address this issue."

Podcast measurement company Chartable has achieved IAB Certification. Today's announcement makes it the fourteenth company to achieve certified podcast measurement status from the IAB Tech Lab, and the third to achieve certification by prefix, after Podtrac and Blubrry. We've updated our podcast stats primer.

Is it possible to become the #2 podcast even if you're not available on podcast apps? A new Australian Podcast Ranker has been released, and the #2 podcast is "Sky News - News Bulletin", audio which is only available on smart speakers (though we found this listing). Similarly, "Fox Sports Audio Bulletin", at #9, is a smart-speaker exclusive. These are both pieces of on-demand audio delivered via RSS, so it's still a "podcast" to the IAB's definitions (and that of Commercial Radio Australia, which runs the ranker): but shows the high level of use of these daily bulletins on speakers.

Empire Streaming is the latest podcast host to achieve IAB Certification. The company is based in Pittsburgh PA, USA; there are now twelve companies with IAB Certification.

US news network HLN launches its first podcast this week. Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders is launched on Wednesday: a true crime podcast focusing on a crime in Delphi IN, USA. The podcast was previewed at the IAB Podcast Upfront in October.

Nielsen has announced their first agency client to subscribe to the Nielsen Podcast Listener Buying Power service - it's IPG Mediabrands, who own media buyers like Universal McCann, Initiative and others. "IPG will have access to podcast insights spanning 18 genres and over 90 individual podcast titles that can be cross-referenced among a variety of consumer purchase behavior patterns and services usage," the company says.

Norway has launched Podtoppen, a ranker of Norwegian podcasts. Produced by research company Kantar, their 'about' page contains details of how it works; it uses IAB v2 compliant data (but, unlike Triton Digital's rankers for LATAM, Australia, and their forthcoming US ranker, is not IAB certified).

Comparison: total revenue the entire US podcasting industry is estimated to have made in 2019: $678m

Telegram, a chat service, appears to have enhanced its support for playing "podcasts" - at least, when playing audio files over 20 minute duration sent via the app.

Triton Digital is to produce a podcast ranker in the US, called Podcast Reports. Already signed up are NPR, Entercom (inc Cadence13, RADIO·COM and Pineapple Street Media), Stitcher and Cumulus Media (inc Westwood One). The company is already producing a ranker in Australia, the Netherlands and Latin America, and has been producing a ranker for online radio for some time; Triton Digital uses logfiles to produce IAB certified data.

Omny Studio does not use tracking pixels to collect personally identifiable information about listeners or target advertising for Midroll. Any third party tracking pixels which are used in our platform (referenced in our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy and GDPR documentation online) anonymize and aggregate data before being used for non-ad related purposes (eg performance/error reporting). We are happy to go into more detail, should Mr Pakman or any other podcaster be interested in what is possible and what we do.

We would note Maximum Media is on the IAB's publisher council in Ireland, yet continues to post its podcasts on SoundCloud - a publisher which is not IAB compliant.

Triton Digital has integrated Voxnest into their Podcast Metrics platform. The tool allows podcast advertising buyers to have an independent view of download data, designed to improve the trustworthiness of analytics. Both Podcast Metrics and Voxnest are IAB Certified.

The IAB Australia is wanting (Australian) media agencies, creative agencies and marketers to fill in a survey about your experience with audio advertising, including podcasts.

In France, media research company Médiamétrie will start measuring podcasts on January 1. Like radio measurement in some countries, the company will use a small electronic gadget known as a "portable people meter"; podcasts will need to be watermarked with an audio code; and panelists will need to plug both their headphones and their phone into the meter for it to register. (That won't work with Bluetooth). The company admits it has yet to approach independent podcast producers, preferring to talk to its current clients in radio and television. It has also worked on its own download guidelines to rival the American IAB's.

YouTube have released new terms of service, which allow the company to terminate your access if YouTube think you're "no longer commercially viable". The company says this is nothing to worry about. We've added them to our unusual terms of service section.

Russo also said that Triton Digital will voluntarily resubmit certification to the IAB every two years. "Just like we do on the streaming side, we have an audit team that works with the publishers, who work with the hosting companies and the CDNs and annually audit them to make sure that the quality is kept very high. You may not know this but IAB certification is a one-time only deal. As soon as you get certified, you never have to do anything. But: Triton Digital will volunteer to be recertified every two years."

Forrester Research has predicted that podcasting will become the next $1 billion media market next year, 2020. The IAB predict it'll hit $1 billion in 2021 and Magna predict it'll hit $1 billion in 2022, so someone's bound to be right.

Acast is now IAB Certified, and are the first to claim certification for "client-confirmed ad play": a RAD-like service that measures playback, in the Acast player, of a specific portion of audio (and whether a listener has skipped through it). Ten podcast companies are now certified.

Another podcast host is now IAB Certified. Simplecast achieved the citation this week. It means the podcast host's figures are calculated the same way as others, like Voxnest, Libsyn and Blubrry.

In the US, the IAB release their half year 2019 internet advertising revenue report. Digital Audio, a category which includes podcasting as well as online radio and music services like Pandora, increased 30.1% year-on-year to $1.2bn. The IAB add: "Digital Audio advertising's share of the total internet advertising revenue pie remains insignificant at 2.1%".

Commercial Radio Australia has unveiled the Australian Podcast Ranker, a look at "Australia's top 100 downloaded podcasts", accounting for 10m downloads in September. The ranker uses IAB v2 measurement, and consists of consumption by Australian consumers only. The ABC is to join in the next few months: and "all podcast producers with Australian and international content are invited to participate." Podcast One's Hamish & Andy is the #1 podcast according to the ranker.

Spreaker's analytics are now using an IAB Certified analytics platform. The change occurred on Monday: the company now uses the platform also used by Voxnest's Audience Network, which achieved IAB Certification in May. Confusingly, Spreaker had been announced as IAB Certified in the final Spreaker Live Show, but this was, we discover, not actually correct. Spreaker customers will see significant changes to analytics, as the company trailed earlier this month.

Westwood One reports that the amount of ad agencies advertising in podcasts has increased year-on-year once more, in data released ahead of the IAB Podcast Upfront 2019.

Stitcher podcasts are now represented in Australia by Whooshkaa, opening up Midroll podcasts to Australian advertisers. The company got IAB Certification in May, has its own Alexa integration, and we've covered similar Whooshkaa deals with WYNC, Wondery and Australian radio network ARN.

The new Google Pixel 4 will include a voice recorder with real-time voice transcription. We tried out the app - here's the audio and transcript. The audio is an AAC-LC file, at 32kHz samplerate and around 48kbps variable bitrate, if you're wondering. (Tip: on the occasion that we want free transcriptions, we use Google's Live Transcribe app.)

In the US, the IAB's Podcast Upfront in New York NY has sold out.

The IAB in the UK is to start their first-ever Podcast Upfronts. It's on October 3, and will feature Acast, Audioboom, DAX, Spotify and The Guardian. Meanwhile, the IAB in the US posted promo videos from their recent NewFronts West event. Here's Lex Friedman from ART19.

In the Netherlands, Dag en Nacht Media, a platform for dutch podcasts, has announced that it will be using IAB compliant figures from 1 October. (The platform hosts with ART19, which is IAB Certified). "We recommend that you get off to a good start immediately and choose a platform that meets the IAB Guidelines," a post adds.

Exclusive: The amount of listening to podcasts on the web is increasing, according to new data supplied to Podnews by Simplecast. The data represents all Simplecast shows, and shows plays from Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts on the web. "Many podcast hosts would just credit 'web browsers' with this data," said Stephen Hallgren, CTO of Simplecast. "But because Simplecast is able to check HTTP referrers, we're also able to see how successful Apple Podcasts Preview is on the web, and how popular Google Podcasts plays are within Google Search. All these metrics are IAB compliant and are reportable through our Audience dashboard."

Magna predicts slower growth for US podcast advertising revenue, predicting that it'll hit $1bn in 2022. Their report uses data from the IAB, who in June predicted it'll hit $1bn a year earlier. US radio ad revenue for 2018 was $13.4bn, but Magna says that radio revenue will drop by 5% every year from hereon in.

Acast has sent an email to publishers warning them that from Oct 1 "many Acast podcasters will see a change in listener numbers - in most cases a decrease". The company is switching to measurement using IAB v2 guidelines.

IAB Australia has published a Digital Audio Buyer's Guide. It's for members only, though; membership costs AUD$3,500 (US$2,355).

We reported on Triton Digital receiving IAB Certification earlier this week. The company has now published details: the certification is for the Triton Podcast Metrics tool, and Triton's Tap ad server. Podtrac have also published detail of their Certification,

Libsyn, Triton Digital and Podtrac are now IAB Certified.

The IAB has unveiled details of Digital Content NewFronts West, in early September. Podcast hosting company ART19 are one of the speaking companies, in an event to connect digital publishers with ad agencies.

Condé Nast men's lifestyle publication GQ has officially launched its Airplane Mode podcast on Megaphone. The podcast, about living healthier and smarter, initially surfaced in May. (Megaphone)

Podsights have released an Open Downloads specification, designed to be open and comparable with others. They have cited their problems with the IAB v2 standard, and explained that they have "decided to open source a spec for how we count downloads and share our blacklists with the podcast community as a whole." The company has also released code to calculate downloads according to the simple spec on Github.

Podcast host Podigee has launched redesigned, IAB-compliant, "Unified Podcast Analytics". It "not only makes us fully compatible with the IAB guidelines, but also goes much further in some areas - with technical specifications that, in our opinion, have not been described concretely enough by the IAB."

Fireside is changing its stats to better align with the IAB standards, it's told its customers in a newsletter. The company tells us it's currently considering IAB certification.

Exclusive: Podcast analytics firm Podtrac has removed a statement that it made in error on its website, Podnews can reveal today. The company is working towards IAB certification.

In Swiss German, Podcatcher does a full review of the desktop Apple Podcasts app. One interesting feature is called Smart Speed; it looks just to be variable speed playback (but something iTunes lacked).

Podcasting made $479 million in US ad revenue in 2018, according to the IAB and PwC. This is an increase of 53% year-on-year. It's estimated that the industry will be making over $1bn in 2021. Dynamically-inserted advertising is responsible for nearly half of all revenue.

IAB Brazil has a webinar - The Golden Age of Podcasting - tomorrow (30 May) at 3pm Brazilian time. You can sign up for free - the event is in Portuguese.

The IAB in Spain has published a study about internet audio listeners (pdf). A website called "toyoutome" - which inexplicably isn't a fan site of the Chuckle Brothers - reports that - 40% listen to podcasting. The study also compares live vs on-demand - news (80% live, 20% on-demand), and sports (77% live, 23% on-demand).

Podtrac is changing their measurement algorithm. A blog post appears to indicate that they're undergoing official IAB compliance, and warns "you should expect to see your download numbers decrease to be consistent with the new guidelines". Podtrac claimed last July that their figures were, and have always been, consistent with the IAB Podcast Metric Guidelines v2.0; but say this change is due to "more coalescing around specific interpretations of the guidelines" in the industry.

We reported on Friday that ART19 had received IAB Certification. Also awarded IAB Certified status is Voxnest's Audience Network, and the first non-US company to gain certification is Australia's Whooshkaa - good on ya, good to know your stattos will be fair dinkum, mate.

The podcast host ART19 is now IAB Certified, complying with IAB guidelines for measuring downloads. They join NPR and Blubrry.

How many Home & Appliance brands are buying two spots on the same episode? Magellan has the answer.

Transistor, a podcast host, has significantly increased available downloads within its pricing plans. The company is also reworking its analytics algorithms as it works on IAB compliance (which may have a negative effect on apparent total numbers).

25% of all Brazilians listen to podcasts "regularly", according to statistics quoted by IAB Brazil in an article discussing podcast advertising in the country.

Which personal care brand ran the most podcast ads? Magellan can tell you in a new post focusing on this sector. Clue: they're such friends of the podcast industry, they also support this newsletter.

Jimmy and the magic pizza shop is a little story from Dan Misener designed to help us understand IAB compliance and podcast metrics.

Two thirds of fashion brands have not yet discovered podcast advertising, says a new report from Magellan.

Podcast writer Nick Quah was a guest in CNN's Reliable Sources podcast last week. (knit)

The IAB published a list of "direct brands to watch". Magellan have examined the list, and concluded that 4 out of 10 of them have tried podcasting. The podcast ad research company says that personal care products are most likely to have added podcasting to their marketing mix - companies like our new favourite electric toothbrush company Quip (see below).

Job: Podcast Executive Producer for the New York Post. How important is podcasting to the newspaper? It's a part time role, and lasts just six months.

Thank you also to Jack Rhysider, Adam Spencer, Lieven Heeremans and De Radio Podcast for your kind personal support. You helped me build a much nicer audio player for our podcast pages, including variable speed and skip.

ESPN report that their podcast downloads grew by 43% over 2018, and also note that their figures are now IAB Certified, since they use Blubrry.

IAB Certification update: Whooshkaa lets us know that they, too, are in the process of attaining IAB Certification. They join Simplecast, Voxnest/Spreaker, Megaphone, Libsyn, Omny Studio, and ART19. Blubrry and NPR are already there.

Simplecast is in the process of attaining IAB Certification. They join Voxnest/Spreaker, Megaphone, Libsyn, Omny Studio, and ART19. With Blubrry and NPR having already achieved it, that's over a quarter of a million dollars that the IAB has earnt so far from certification. Cough

Omny Studio has indicated it is applying for IAB Certification. They join Voxnest/Spreaker, Megaphone, Libsyn, and ART19.

The team behind Anchor post their look back at podcasting in 2018. "As an industry, we’ve spent the year in limbo with regards to determining the best ways to make podcasting a viable business financially. The good news is that out of this uncertainty, many different business models have emerged and are continuing to evolve."

Voxnest/Spreaker has confirmed, as has Megaphone, that they are working on IAB Certification.

Is Marco Arment correct to claim that NPR's RAD podcast analytics is "a privacy violation and a GDPR liability"? In a special article, we looked into podcast apps, privacy and GDPR. In short: no. There's nothing to suggest that RAD is more of a privacy violation and GDPR liability than using a podcast app already is.

The IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines - formulated by the US IAB - have been accepted by IAB Australia. IAB UK, however, have not made a public comment on the guidelines, and they have not responded to our enquiries. The BBC called for a UK industry chart in July.

The IAB has released their 2019 Digital Audio Buyers Guide, "an excellent resource for marketers looking to invest in Digital Audio".

ESPN Podcasts have released their monthly podcast figures for October, quoting "43.6m IAB compliant downloads" from RawVoice, and "6.3m US unique audience" from Podtrac.

Cabana have announced their podcast stats are now calculated using the IAB v2.0 standard.

Yesterday, we reported incorrect information about Spotify's measurements, as heard on an industry podcast. Spotify measures a "listen" in a way similar to the IAB's guidelines - as long as you listen for 60 seconds or more, you count. They additionally give "stream starts". (The difference between the two shows how many listeners you lose within 60 seconds). We've updated the post, and our podcast statistics article, and regret the error.

UPDATE: He's wrong. Spotify measures "starts", roughly similar to downloads, and "streams", which measure listens for longer than 60 seconds (the IAB v2 standard).

At the end of the IAB Podcast Upfront was a chat with Bob Pittman, CEO and Chairman of iHeartMedia, and Jarl Mohn, CEO of National Public Radio. Here it is in print form. Question from the moderator: "How do you ensure that podcasts don't cannibalize terrestrial live radio?"

At the IAB Podcast Upfront event in New York yesterday, "downloads were just the beginning. Here come the distribution deals, live events, and albums."

Podcast host Simplecast has announced it is to move to IAB v2.0 compliant analytics. Meanwhile, Omny Studio has detailed how they filter and measure analytic metrics; they've incorporated Spotify stats to their analytics platform, and added an automated button for Spotify submission.

IAB Australia have updated their podcast measurement guidelines. RAIN highlight some differences from the IAB US guidelines.

Podtrac say their figures have always been "consistent with the best practices outlined in the IAB Podcast Metrics 2.0 document".

AdWeek says that "podcast metrics are still the wild west", repeating Wondery's claim that they're the first commercial podcast network to adopt IAB v2 standards.

"The growing consumption of on demand audio requires better and reliable data" - Benjamin Masse, Triton Digital on the state of podcast measurement

Podcasting revenue in the US was a record $314m in 2017, according to the IAB. In 2016, the figure was $169m, representing 86% growth year-on-year. Recode reports this figure in a sneering article as "close to nothing".

Digiday reports on what they call the slow steps the podcast industry is making to fully adopt a measurement standard. Wondery claims in the article that it'll be the first to fully adopt the IAB standard, including a 24-hour measurement window.

Digital Audio advertising in the US was up 39% in 2017, says the IAB. Total adspend was US$1.6bn.

Podcast host Podbean has released what the company calls a "fully IAB-compliant" stats system. Podcast stats from the company will probably appear 10-20% lower, they say. (Who isn't, yet, compliant?)

The IAB in Australia publishes their Digital Audio Advertising State of the Nation research, interviewing both agencies and marketers. From it, AdNews reports that podcasting adspend has tripled, that 14% of media agencies bought podcast ads in 2017, a figure increased from 5% in 2016. A total of 70% of Australian marketing agencies plan to use branded podcasts. Mumbrella have a different take, saying the research shows agencies remain unsure about podcasting and voice marketing.

Yesterday, we reported on highly inflated figures from iHeartMedia on Podtrac's charts. Nine hours later, Podtrac silently removed iHeartMedia from all of their ratings charts. The company notes on their revised release: "Preloading podcast content is prohibited under IAB podcast measurement guidelines." The new data and statement was not sent to their report mailing list.

In case you missed it: the (US) IAB released their "podcast metrics 2.0" document last week. "Common measurement practices are like oxygen. When they are absent, everyone notices immediately and the result is painful. When they are present, the industry evolves and flourishes."

The IAB in the UK announces acast and Triton Digital have also joined as members.

Podcast host audioBoom claims it's the first podcast network to become members of the IAB in the UK. They joined the IAB in the US in May 2017. New advertisers on audioBoom are being offered a 15% discount this month - email advertising@audioboom.com to find out what's on offer.

Pocket Casts, the podcast app for Android, gets an update. Now supports variable speed playback on Chromecast devices, and "more fixes than you can shake an admittedly small stick at".

The Apple podcast app gets properly slated in the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Since the Sept. 19 release of iOS 11, which brought with it a totally redesigned Podcasts app, my [morning] routine now includes two unwelcome variables: confusion and aggravation."

Libsyn plan to overhaul their podcasting stats to comply with IAB guidelines. "There is no easy way to tell our customers that they will see a decrease in the download numbers they have worked to grow."

iHeartRadio to produce four new podcasts, and partners with the Nashville Podcast Network. WNYC announces a ton of new podcasts, too. The Australian ABC and WNYC are co-producing a kids podcast.

In the US, the IAB ran a pitching event for podcasters to woo advertisers, Podcast Upfront.

The IAB Tech Lab have released their revised podcast measurement guidelines and invite comment. There doesn't appear to be any connection to the analytics promised by Apple, other than one mention.

HotPod 125 is published. Nick talks about the IAB study: "I don’t think there are any particular revelations contained in the study ... I’d say the actual story here is about the study itself". Reading time: 19 minutes, 32 seconds.

The IAB release their own podcast study after talking to 20 podcast advertising companies. Coverage: US podcast revenue to nearly double this year, hitting US$220m.