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Spotify (and Audioboom) post profit

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  • Spotify published its Q2 2024 results. As part of a record high $297mn quarterly profit, the company reported improved podcast profitability, “driven by growth in impressions sold across Original and Licensed podcasts and the Spotify Audience Network”. The company says it has more than 6 million podcasts.

  • Audioboom published its H1 2024 results. eCPM (revenue per 1,000 downloads) was up 38% in Q2. Revenue is up 7% in total, and adjusted EBITDA profit is $0.3mn.

  • More keynote speakers at the upcoming Podcast Movement in August. Ira Glass is the iconic voice behind This American Life, and will join NPR’s Wild Card host Rachel Martin on stage. Additionally, a new edition of The Podcast Landscape will be shared on stage. Use code PODNEWS to save on passes.

  • YouTube Music added the ability to mark a podcast as played earlier in the month. We also notice that in Australia, we now get a “podcasts” chip at the top of the screen; you can now auto-download shows; and there are ways of filtering episode lists to only show, for example, unplayed or downloaded episodes.

  • Magellan AI shared its list of top (US) podcast advertisers for June. BetterHelp remains at #1; AI voice provider AudioStack is the newest “mover and shaker”, spending $1.7mn. Magellan AI has a short webinar on Thursday to discuss the results.

  • FeaturedUp, a Q&A platform for podcasters, is to close. “We have not achieved the necessary growth in the podcast community to sustain our operations,” said founder Gurneet Paul in an email to users.

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Daniel Ek on podcasts in Spotify

Question: Now that major podcasts are largely non-exclusive, how has podcasts engagement changed on Spotify as more of the industry shifts to video podcasts? How do you attract more creators and grow engagement versus a platform like YouTube?

Ek: First and foremost we are seeing very healthy engagement on podcasts. Where we have video podcasts, engagement is even higher than what we have seen when it’s audio only, which is a really positive testament. This is also what organically creates word of mouth with creators. So we’re seeing more and more creators now uploading video content too. We have about a quarter a million [video podcasts] already. Consumers of today don’t really care too much about formats. They’re actually moving in between of audio, video and even reading things very effortlessly, especially younger consumers. And so creators will obviously respond to that and should make their content available in as many formats as possible.

The way we attract more creators is a bucket of three things. So I think that the first bucket is things that are native to the Spotify platform. So things like podcasters already like musicians, those are sort of a prime bucket to convert and add more things because they’ll see higher engagement and thereby higher monetization. Then I think there’s a second bucket, which is if you’re already uploading video to other platforms today, you’ve taken most of your costs already. So it makes a lot of sense for you to try to amortize that cost against as many platforms as possible. And you see this already where a lot of people on the short side are uploading not just to one platform but are uploading to many platforms. And we’re starting to see some of that behavior happening on Spotify, too. And then I think lastly, there’s things that will perform a lot better on the Spotify platform than perhaps on other platforms. For instance, longer form content tends to do really well on Spotify on video because people go back and forth between backgrounding and foregrounding. And that is something that works really well on Spotify because of our lean back history as a platform. So overall it’s looking very nicely and with lots of improvement, of course, and more and more creators are coming to the platform each and every day.

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Companies mentioned above:
Acast logoAcastAudioboom logoAudioboomAudiohook logoAudiohookCanadaland logoCanadalandMagellan AI logoMagellan AIRooster TeethSpotify logoSpotifyYouTube logoYouTubeYouTube Music logoYouTube Music

Podcast data for Jul 24

#1 in Apple Podcasts
US flag Hysterical (Wondery | Pineapple Street Studios)
DK flag Du dør hvis du græder (JFM)

#1 in Spotify
US flag The Joe Rogan Experience (Joe Rogan)
DK flag Pretty Lonesome with Madeline Argy (Unwell)

Over the last week, 181,873 podcasts published at least one new episode (down 1.6%). source

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