Spotify buys The Ringer, podcast listening up 200%

• Spotify claims podcast listening on its platform has grown 200% year-on-year, and has data showing podcast consumption on Spotify leads to stronger retention and upgrades to Premium. Spotify now claims over 700,000 podcasts on its platform; Apple currently has 873,466 in their directory. Just 16% (43m) of Spotify’s monthly active users engage with podcasts, though.

  
  Aug 21 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
  • As scooped by Vox’s Peter Kafka, Spotify has confirmed it is buying The Ringer, a sports podcast network with more than 30 shows. Terms weren’t disclosed; The Ringer earnt $15m in revenue in 2018; the price is likely to be around $100m based on a discussion with WarnerMedia last year.

• WeCrashed, a Wondery podcast about the rise and fall of WeWork, has been accused by one podcaster of taking multiple clips from his own podcast without attribution. The clips of the interview, featuring WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey, were originally from an episode of the Rich Roll podcast in July. Contacted by Podnews, Wondery claim “an honest mistake: we had, under fair use, taken portions of three interviews from different podcasts, and we mistakenly gave credit to only two of them.” The clips have now been removed, and Wondery have reached out to Roll to talk more.

• 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.

  • Del Fordham from parent company News Corp told us: “In Australia the number of adults owning smart speakers reached 5.7million in Jan19, 29.3% of the population. With some of the most popular questions to the speaker being about news, sport and weather, naturally content in the speaker space forms an important part of our audio strategy across the group.”
  • Might we also recommend “Hey, Google - play the latest from Podnews podcasting news”, which is quite good too.

• Casted, a marketing platform for branded podcasts, has launched, with an announcement that the company has secured $2.35m in funding.

• Spreaker is the latest podcast host to introduce a private podcast RSS feature. It’s ideal, the company says, to offer bonus content for paid subscribers and supporters.

  
  Aug 21 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• iOS podcasting app Castro is now accepting paid “promoted podcasts” within the app. Podcast promotions can be targeted geographically, and display to all Castro Free users.

• A sports podcasting network with over 85 podcasts, Blue Wire has signed with Podcast Ad Reps (PAR) and Simplecast for sales representation and distribution.

• UK radio audience figures have been released: listening to live radio via online and apps has increased 30% year-on-year to account for 12.5% of all listening. The overall radio figures are, however, the worst ever posted in terms of percentage reach and total hours.

• Podcast Movement Evolutions is almost sold out, the company says, as it releases their final keynote details. All attendees will also receive a 'virtual ticket’ of audio recordings from every session from their chosen track. Podnews’s Editor, James Cridland, will be speaking about international podcast trends first thing Friday in the Industry Pro Track.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 21 2023

From the new book Make Noise by Eric Nuzum, available now

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Reader’s letters

Ronde asks us why we stopped mentioning the hosts in our podcast news (below). It was a trick to make sure you were still paying attention. They’re back now.

Hit reply with your thoughts to anything you see in Podnews (or outside). Particularly - what’s your definition of “podcast”?

Podcast News

As part of the podcast industry gets ready for Podcast Movement Evolutions, Trade Show University is a new podcast helping small businesses benefit from trade shows. One listener claims the tips learnt in the podcast helped increase his leads by 250%. (Captivate)

A Slate Plus series from 2015, The History of American Slavery, has been republished for everyone to hear “at a time when the voices of the worst racists and history-deniers feel more emboldened to publicly renounce the rights of Black people” (Slate / Megaphone)

What did the 1920s sound like? Centuries of Sound is a mixtape for every year, as part of a project to release mixtapes for every year of recorded sound. 1921 is the latest episode, and runs for nearly two hours. An impressive historical artifact, but also an enjoyable listen, too. (via Feedburner)