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| 1 | | The IAB Podcast Upfronts took place today, with many studios and marketers focusing on turning around the slumping revenues seen across the landscape. There were presentations scheduled from iHeartMedia, Wondery, NPR, Acast, Sony Music Entertainment, WNYC, Cumulus Media, SiriusXM, and more. More: - The IAB released a report ahead of the Upfronts on Thursday that total ad revenue in the podcasting industry reached $1.8B in 2022, falling short of the forecasted $2.1B.
- 2022 was a slowdown in terms of ad revenue compared to 2021, when total podcast ad revenue grew 72%.
- Companies have released their Q1 earnings recently, and podcasting revenue has been down across the board, with many companies laying off employees.
- The Upfronts also land as the WGA writers' strike is ongoing, as fiction podcast writing is included in the strike guidelines.
- Paramount dropped out late from the presentation, potentially because of the writers' strike.
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What the numbers show: The Athletic subscribers have grown over the past five years, making a large jump after the company was acquired by The New York Times. The Athletic offset part of The New York Times' digital advertising losses that it has suffered over the past year, primarily due to a loss in podcasting advertising revenue. Relevance: A part of The Athletic that is working is the commitment to live audio rooms. Set aside from the company's true podcasts and dubbed "live podcasting" because people can listen in on these recordings live, and then later on, when they are published to podcast feeds, they offer a two-way experience for users. Live audio rooms are available so that sports fans can discuss something that just occurred in a game or a sports landscape in the live audio rooms. Anyone can listen, but subscribers can ask questions and discuss topics with the hosts. Things to look out for: Live audio rooms have become more prevalent over the past year and a half. The Athletic hosted its first live room in September 2021, and it is closing in on its 1,000th. The live rooms exist in The Athletic app, and it sends push notifications when a room goes live. | | | |
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| 3 | | Audacy, the radio and podcast broadcasting company, announced a Q1 2023 net revenue of $259.64M, down from $279.3M YoY. The digital breakdown of the revenue, which includes podcasting, dropped from $69.1M to $56.9M over the past three months. More: - It is the lowest net revenue for digital has been since March 2021.
- The overall net loss also widened to $35.9M, much larger than 2022's $11.07M net loss.
- CFO Rich Schmaeling said on the conference call that the costs at the company are expected to drop by 4% over the last three quarters of the year, saving the company about $35M.
- The company also said that podcasting advertising revenue was up 14%, excluding the loss of Crooked Media to SiriusXM last May.
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| 4 | | The New York Times added subscribers during the first quarter of 2023 but saw its podcasting revenue decrease over the past year. Q1 2023 digital advertising revenue decreased by 8.6%, mainly because of lower revenue from podcasts. More: - Digital advertising revenue dropped from $67M in Q1 2022 to $61.3M in Q1 2023.
- The loss was partially offset by the addition of digital advertising revenue from The Athletic, which The New York Times acquired in 2022. The Athletic began making podcasting free to non-subscribers, which could explain some of the gains there.
- Digital subscribers rose over the last quarter, as The New York Times added 190,000 digital subscribers. This was done in large part because of bundles offered that included a subscription to the NYT, The Athletic, and more.
- The total print and digital subscriptions now stand at 9.7 million.
- Print ad sales also declined by 8.7% YoY.
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| 6 | | Triton Digital, the digital audio company, is partnering with Audacia, a global advertising marketplace, to boost its audio programming in Asia. The Audacia ad network will now have access to Triton Digital's audio publishers across all formats for the Asia Pacific region. More: - Triton Digital's Supply Side Platform (SSP), which is an audio-first SSP, will be leveraged by Audacia for broadcasters and podcasters.
- This will be used for live streaming, on-demand audio recordings, and podcasts.
- Audacia will be able to make custom packages of audio inventory for listeners.
- "Audacia's partnership with Triton Digital will connect advertisers with publishers intending to reach the same target audience while expanding access and increasing adoption of programmatic advertising," said Kym Treasure, CEO and founder of Audacia.
- Triton Digital's audio publishers recently opted into Audacia's ad network packages to be able to monetize international inventory.
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- Lana Condor will lead the voice cast for the new scripted science fiction show Evergreen from QCode.
- iHeartMedia announced the launch of Ruby, its branded podcast platform.
- The New York Times took a look at High Strange, a U.F.O. and alien encounters podcast from Tenderfoot TV.
- Podcaster Josh Neighbors was fired from the show Locked on Big 12 after replaying West Virginia men's basketball coach Bob Huggins's recent anti-LGBTQ slur, despite condemning Huggins's actions.
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 | Freelance Editor | | Christopher Hachey is a freelance writer and editor based in the New York City area. He has spent most of the past 15 years in newsrooms covering all kinds of topics like sports, tech, business, finance, and commerce. He's now returning to his broadcast journalism roots by diving into podcasting news. Reach out to him at chris@inside.com | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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