Spotify: more podcast listening

• Spotify had their Q2 2020 earnings call for investors. We learnt:

  • Their podcast catalogue has 1.5m shows, 50% of which launched in 2020. (Apple’s data is 1.45m shows, 25% of which launched in 2020, reports ListenNotes.)
  • One of their recent tests in the app “increased (podcast) listening among the group by 33%”.
  • Podcast revenue is small , but outperformed other advertising on Spotify.
  • Spotify has 299m monthly active users, up 29% from a year ago. 21% (62m) are listening to podcasts (up from 19%). The amount of podcast listening, however, has more than doubled.
  • “Exclusivity is a key component of that strategy, we want to create more and more original programming that only exists on Spotify … but it’s important that we are an open platform and we’re seeing more and more content … It’s impossible, even if we wanted to, to have all of that content exclusively on our platform.” said Daniel Ek.
  • Spotify launched its own show about the company, Spotify For The Record. Daniel Ek and Paul Vogel will be on it tomorrow.
  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 26 2023

• Spotify is hiring for a senior podcast producer, for all elements “of Spotify’s internal podcasts”; and a Content Operations Associate to “build and manage a team of podcast moderators and curators responsible for keeping the Anchor platform a place for creative, thoughtful, and safe content creation” (More podjobs)

  
  Aug 26 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Spotify have also been seen testing shareable quote cards for their new Michelle Obama show, which launched this week. They’re static images with a link back to the show.

• Podcast Day 2020, planned for October 26th in London, will now be an online event - the physical event has been postponed to 2021. (More podevents)

• Yesterday, we talked about the all-new Entale app, but didn’t link over here to show you what it’s like. So we’ve just fixed that.

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• ART19 announced a new partnership with Bertelsmann’s Audio Alliance in Germany. The news brings more than 100 podcasts to ART19 from Europe’s most talented entertainers and celebrities, leveraging ART19 technology for ad sales and distribution.

• Podcast Movement Virtual has opened its call for speakers.

• Grant Wahl, a former Sports Illustrated journalist, is working with sports podcast network Blue Wire as part of a “serious journalism channel”.

• Anne Frisbie from AdsWizz and Brad Smith from Simplecast spoke to our Editor at the RAIN Global Business Summit yesterday. Smith spoke about the additional targeting opportunities from making audio more personalised, which Simplecast offers in a number of ways; Frisbie highlighted the auto transcription services that AdsWizz offer, which allows advertisers to advertise alongside individual topics - or to avoid them completely.

• Jacob Mørch reviews an app called Airr, which is built to allow you to take notes while listening to podcasts. (It also does transcripts).

• In Germany, the Kuratorium für Journalistenausbildung is launching a podcast workshop: a five day seminar, then online training, and a seminar to conclude. Pricing is €3,000 (US $3,500).

Tips and tricks

• What I learned from speed listening - it’s not so good when multitasking, apparently, but helps you find new things. (Publishing Well)
• The best podcast marketing is baked in your show says Jeremy Enns.

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