🔮 POD FUTURE - January 29, 2019
Media layoffs // The untapped potential of audio media marketing // The Ringer bets on pods
Welcome to the third edition of POD FUTURE, a weekly newsletter covering the podcast industry, with a focus on business news and analysis. If you feel like it, please subscribe on Substack, follow on Twitter, and share with your colleagues 🙏
😞 SAD WEEK FOR MEDIA
BuzzFeed. Gannett. Verizon/HuffPost. The Players’ Tribune. Upwards of 1000 media jobs were eliminated this week, continuing a trend of industrywide contraction following 2018 cuts at Vox, Vice, The Outline, CNN, Refinery29, GQ, Vogue, Mic, and other orgs. The contributing factors to this downturn are many: perverse incentive structures driven by ad-supported models, more competition driven by lower barriers to entry/distribution, big tech ad dollar control, skyrocketing CAC, the death of local, accelerating concentration of ownership, massive economies of scale, a top-down assault on the honest journalism…should I go on?
I’ll write more about it soon, but for now I’ll pour one out 🍺 for all those affected and share this timely nugget of wisdom from the founder of Substack:
📰 TOP STORIES
This tweet from Zach Khan of Vox caught my eye:
Netflix is ahead of the curve here. Most media companies underestimate the potential of audio content marketing as lead gen for their core offerings. “Halloween Unmasked,” produced by The Ringer, is a good recent example: Excellent in its own right, it served as key component in the hype machine for the requel. (Apparently, requels are a thing now?) Third parties have already found success with recaps of popular series like Billions, Vanderpump Rules, and Insecure, and AfterBuzz TV has built an entire business on content recaps. Why aren’t more media companies leveraging their production expertise and unfettered access to create premium O&O audio recaps/aftershows/companions to amplify brand awareness and propagate their desired narratives? There are over a dozen pods about The Bachelor, and none of them are O&O by ABC/Disney! There’s a thriving cottage industry of pods covering professional wrestling and WWE produces exactly zero! This is low hanging fruit. Prediction time: Within a couple years it will be hygiene for vertical media cos to produce high quality audio companions for their full suite of offerings: TV shows, books, albums, movies, games, etc. There are so many creative angles: “making of” audio docs, in-depth interviews with creators/talent, “Talking Dead” style talkers, expanded universe audio fiction, etc. One promising example is the forthcoming 12-part series, “Past is Prologue,” documenting the creation of the Pixies’ new album in the lead-up to its September release. I can’t recall a project quite like this, but a “making of” pod as album companion is a perfect application of the medium. Excited to give it a listen!
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Per The Wall Street Journal, The Ringer is taking in $15MM/year in ad revenue from its network of 28 pods, which together averaged 35MM downloads/month in the last quarter of 2018. (What’s not clear is whether this $15MM figure is arrived at before or after Midroll Media’s 1/3 cut—I assume the former.) Estimating the entire podcast ad market reached ~$500MM in 2018 (based on 2017’s ~$315MM sum), The Ringer accounts for a healthy 3% of the entire market. Not bad. Per the WSJ piece, Bill Simmons and co. will continue to bet on audio to fuel growth in 2019. // Wall Street Journal 🔒
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The Economist is also betting big on audio, expanding its portfolio to include a new daily global current-affairs series called “The Intelligence,” to be run by a newly-hired team of eight producers and editors. Per Head of Digital Strategy, Tom Standage, “The commercial model for podcasts is really good, much better than video pre-roll, which is a horrible business. Video is expensive to make, and the CPMs are low. Advertisers want to reach podcast listeners.” The Economist is entering a crowded daily news vertical already populated by incumbents WaPo, NYT, Vox, FT, BBC, and The Guardian, so it will need develop a differentiated offering in order to break through the noise. Per Digiday, Standage claims “The Intelligence” will pay for itself via Acast-served ads and bespoke brand sponsorship deals. I admire the optimism, but declaring profitability for a prelaunch, ad-supported media product in the same week 1000+ employees of mostly ad-supported media companies were laid off seems…insane? Anyhow, I’m a big Economist fan, so hope it works out! // Digiday
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Panoply’s kid-focused pod service Pinna has been spun off into a standalone business, to be run by former Scholastic exec Maggie McGuire. The ad-free platform costs $7.99/month or $79.99/year. While most audiences remain allergic to spending on audio content, this niche product has a chance to break through by addressing two increasingly ubiquitous parental concerns: screen fixation and content moderation. Pinna already has content deals with Scholastic and Highlights and it’s easy to see a future slate comprised of licensed IP from big brands, which should entice listeners and contribute to growth. // Fast Company
⚡ QUICK NEWS
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s podcast brand “Masters of Scale” has partnered with Harvard Business Review on a new, classroom-focused audio product called Podcases. “Combining the power of personal narrative with a solid foundation in learning, Podcases engage your students with audio storytelling from leading business podcasts. Curated for academic use, they feature the milestones that helped shape successful entrepreneurial businesses and provide an innovative learning experience.” // Harvard Business Publishing
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Sean Howard, producer of the Alba Salix pod series, shared some insights into the Patreon fundraising process through the lens of his personal experience. Of note, he dives into the numbers to show how superficially positive campaign results may conceal less obvious downward trends. This is a good read for anyone who relies on fan support, whether on Patreon, Substack, or elsewhere. // Medium
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Electronics manufacturer Roland has released a new mixing deck for producing professional-quality video livestreams. “The focus of the VR-1HD is on making live streams as slick and engaging as video that’s been edited and refined with the addition of clever transitions and multiple camera angles. To that end, the mixing deck — which is fed via three HDMI inputs, two XLR jacks for studio microphones, and one line-in input — includes a selection of automated transition modes. One has the video follow the audio, which would be ideal for podcasts, wherein the camera automatically switches to the person speaking into the microphone associated with a certain video feed.” Looks cool. Love the chunky, retro vibe of the industrial design. // The Verge
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Audioboom is apparently crushing it. “…revenue for the 13 months ending December 30th, 2018 rose 92% from the previous 12 month period to $11.7 million, marked by "significant growth" in fourth quarter.” // All Access Music Group
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Looks like “Hey Siri” is coming to AirPods 2. // TechCrunch
💼 AUD JOBS
Spotify is looking for a podcast content programming manager in NY.
NBC’s Road Warriors unit is looking for an audio producer to cover the 2020 race.