Compiled by Tess Connery and Alisha Buaya
“The sky’s the limit”: LiSTNR introduces sensory non-music audio with Sound States
Having come out of SCA’s The Lab Contest, the new Sound States channels are now live on LiSTNR. After SCA’s own research found that more than two thirds of its under-35 audience have heard of sensory non-music audio – and use it to influence their mood – the team decided to take the plunge. They have now introduced the Sleep and Focus channels to the world, using ambient noise and brown noise respectively.
Podcast Week’s Tess Connery spoke to SCA head of digital & innovation, Chris Johnson about bringing Sound States to life.
Chris Johnson
When going through the list of ideas submitted to The Lab contest, Johnson says that Sound States came out on top because it ticked the three main boxes the team looks for.
“We put things through a few different filters: desirability, feasibility, and viability. When the submission came through, the desirability was quite clear. If you look through the App Store, apps like Calm, for example, are billion-dollar businesses. They have huge global consumption – particularly with young audiences, which are certainly a key demographic for us
“We already create sound streams – we do that with radio and music every day. So we thought, why not look at this type of content as well?”
There was another benefit to Sound States as well when it came to a commercial point of view.
“From a cost perspective, you don’t necessarily have to licence that content. We’ve got audio producers right across the company that can create that kind of sound.”
The two types of Sound States that LiSTNR has made available are Sleep and Focus. Sleep uses ambient noise: the background noise of any given environment, with the primary thing you’d usually be listening to stripped away. Focus uses brown noise, which Johnson says “is kind of like that static you used to get when you turn off an analogue TV.”
“We’re exposed to all these different sounds from when we’re in the womb and very early in our existence – there are certain things that stimulate different parts of the brain, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Once the team at LiSTNR got their hands on the sounds they wanted to use, Johnson says it was a matter of narrowing them down.
“It’s about trying to find those right sounds that really complement the different states that we’re trying to provoke – there’s more science behind it than even I’m prone to. But from a production side of things, we’ve gone through a number of those different elements and fine-tuned them. We started off with 10 different formats, and went to the ones that performed the best.”
To create the Sound States channels, LiSTNR partnered with Memu at Uncanny Valley, an artificial intelligence powered music engine. Johnson says “it was a natural fit to collaborate with them.”
“We wanted something that wasn’t just static, we wanted something that felt like it was organic. LiSTNR is all about a curated experience, so getting their technology to continue to interpret the soundscape that we create was part of the journey.
“What they do is they take a stem of audio – we create a short amount of it, say 10 minutes, for example. Then the AI is capable of reproducing that and remixing it around a theme, so it continues to evolve. That way you don’t feel like it’s repetitive, it’s constantly stimulating in different ways.”
Sound States isn’t the first time that LiSTNR has veered away from straightforward audio. In December last year, the company partnered with Grey Goose Vodka and its agency OMD Create to take listeners to a virtual garden bar using 3D augmented reality audio and sonic seasoning. Johnson says that when you have a team as creative as LiSTNR’s, it makes sense to bring different types of audio to the market.
“Our main areas of focus are radio, podcasts, and music stations: they’re always the channels that are going to bring in the big audiences. But we’ve always envisaged LiSTNR as an all-audio app – we wouldn’t limit ourselves to certain types of formats.
“The sky’s the limit, really, in terms of what we can do. We want to play around in that space as much as we want to continue to grow radio and podcast consumption.”
[Listen to Sleep here]
[Listen to Focus here]
Nova’s Decoding Crypto returns with a brand new lineup
Season three of Nova’s Decoding Crypto is here. The last two seasons have been hosted by expert crypto investors, Justin Baldori and Jason Pizzino. This time around, financial journalist Edwina Stott and Collective Shift CEO Ben Simpson will be tasked with helping listeners understand the latest in cryptocurrency news.
Podcast Week’s Tess Connery spoke to Stott and Simpson about talking people through the crypto space in episodes that drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
A lot of people have thrown the concept of crypto into the ‘too hard’ basket. This doesn’t have to be the case, and the pair say that they want to help people start from the bottom of the ladder.
Stott: “When Justin and Jason started the podcast, the market was in a very different spot. Now we’ve had the huge crypto crash, and a lot of people got really quite badly burned – personally, I know one of my cousins lost $70,000, when Celsius went down. I think what became apparent in the crash was that people don’t have that basic education because crypto is so new, and what we want to do now is strip it right back to basics.”
Simpson: “People dive into crypto because they think they’re going to make all this money. They see their friends making all this money, but they don’t see the bad stories – the media really tends to focus on the good stories. So we’re just trying to really bring back and deliver a lot more basic education so people can succeed amongst all the nonsense out there.”
For Stott in particular, being a part of Decoding Crypto means a lot more than just chatting about the market: it’s an exercise in visibility.
Edwina Stott
Stott: “There aren’t many women in crypto, it tends to be men that look a lot like Ben! [laughs]
“This is a really exciting financial revolution, it’s completely changing the way that finance works. If it is the future of money and finance, we need women to be at the forefront of that.
“It’s really important that if this is the future of money, we welcome women into this space so that we don’t end up with the same financial system that we have now – a very small percentage of incredibly wealthy white men at the top.”
With the world of crypto moving faster than you can say ‘Bitcoin’, Simpson says that the podcast will focus on educating people beyond the headlines.
Simpson: “We’re going to be covering a combination of basic education with a mix of what’s happening in the market. A week in crypto is like a year in the real world! It’s just insane, there’s so much that happens. We’ll be monitoring things as they go, so we can talk to people through the news. For example – if you have money in Celsius, this is what you should do. “
Whilst telling someone to picture a crypto investor may conjure up images of people in expensive clothes driving Ferraris, Stott says that it’s the potential of what the currency can do outside of that stereotype that excites her.
Stott: “The reason I’m really passionate about cryptocurrency is because of the capabilities it offers for people who live in countries that aren’t as democratic as ours. We are lucky to live in a place that is liberal, democratic, open – there are quite few controls on our money realistically, whereas lots of people don’t live in countries like that.
“Things like Bitcoin can really open up huge leaps forward in human rights with what they enable people to do with their money, and the fact that they liberate people to not be controlled by financial constraints.
“I think the really remarkable thing about cryptocurrency is what it lets people do.”
Ben Simpson
Ultimately, Simpson says that he hopes the podcast will teach listeners something new, while having a bit of fun along the way.
Simpson: “We’re wanting to build a platform that people come to and learn, because there are so many bad actors in the space and so many scams – there’s a lot of bad crap in crypto! I would hope that Decoding Crypto can be a space where you can get free educational content, in like little bite-sized episodes, rather than a 120-page report.”
[Listen to Decoding Crypto here]
LiSTNR and Schwartz Media launch first co-production podcast The Sport
LiSTNR and Schwartz Media has launched their first co-produced podcast, The Sport. The Sport is a unique perspective on the way sports shape society and is hosted by award-winning sports presenter Sam Squiers and The Saturday Paper’s associate editor Martin McKenzie-Murray.
Together the co-hosts will delve into back-page stories with front-page analysis.
The Sport will take the big sports story of the week and break it open, investigating what it means, what is driving it, and what makes fans care so much.
Covering all sports, the podcast will put topics and people on the agenda and look deeper into the ways sport tells us about who we are.
The Sport is available every Wednesday on LiSTNR app and all podcast platforms.
LiSTNR and the Royal Institution of Australia launch The Science Briefing
LiSTNR and the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) have launched their second co-created podcast, The Science Briefing, delving into the science of everything to explain the why and how.
The Science Briefing is designed to appeal to younger audiences, showing that science is fun and something we all should be comfortable with.
The twice-weekly podcast series will unpack the magic box of science stories we hear and read about, with episodes covering what mad cow disease means for Australia and the amazing, never-before-seen space images from the James Webb space telescope and how it works.
Hosted by Dr Sophie Calabretto and the smart young scientist-journalists from Cosmos magazine, the podcast blends science and news, to explain what’s happening and why.
The journalists show their authentic curiosity and skills in all things science to provide listeners with a unique way of looking at the world.
[Listen to The Science Briefing here]
The Official Block Podcast to share exclusive show content
To accompany the newest series of The Block, 9Podcasts is launching The Official Block Podcast, hosted by Shelley Craft.
This new production will run alongside The Block: Tree Change, which premiered on Channel Nine, Sunday, August 7.
In the 18th season of The Block, five city-slicker teams must each build a 500-square metre homestead, with a blockbuster room reveal every Sunday night. The Official Block Podcast, hosted by Shelley Craft is the only place fans will hear exclusive content from the show.
Each week after Sunday’s room reveal, Shelley will be joined by judges, including Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer, The Block contestants, and Scott Cam to answer viewer questions and lift the veil on decisions made and verdicts rendered.
It’s the only opportunity for Blockheads to interact directly with the stars of the show, to learn why creative choices were made whilst hearing detailed explanations and advice on why some designs were huge hits and others were major flops.
The first episode of The Official Block Podcast is available Monday August 8, with a new episode every Monday across all leading podcast platforms and on 9Now.
[Listen to The Official Block Podcast here]
iHeart grows podcast network with Outspoken the Podcast partnership
ARN has announced that the iHeart Network has partnered with entertainment podcast, Outspoken the Podcast.
Hosted by journalists and Adelaide-based triplets, Amy, Kate and Sophie Taeuber, Outspoken is a twice weekly-dose of influencer and pop-culture news. The sisters dissect what’s making social media headlines in the influencer and celebrity world.
The partnership will help Outspoken the Podcast continue to grow its audience base after already hitting over 4 million downloads since launch and enable more brands to tap into their influential power across the 18-34 year-old female market.
Co-host and co-founder of Outspoken, Sophie Taeuber said, “It’s been amazing to watch Outspoken grow over the last three years. We are very grateful for the support of all of our listeners and are so excited to now be a part of the iHeart family.”
[Listen to Outspoken the Podcast here]
iHeartRadio Australia turns nine
ARN’s iHeartRadio has blown out nine candles, having celebrated the milestone birthday on August 5th.
Mediaweek spoke to iHeartRadio content director Brett Nossiter about how the brand has developed so far, and what the future looks like.
Brett “Nozz” Nossiter
“When it first began, it was largely based around streaming our ARN stations – KIIS FM, WSFM, all that jazz. Fast forward to today: because it’s an open platform, it’s now so much more. We’ve got ABC on there, we’ve got SBS, the CBAA and the community stations. We’ve brought in a whole ton of podcasts.
“In the beginning, iHeartRadio was an app just to stream our stations. Now, its purpose is very much at the centre of ARN’s digital strategy.”
Gushcloud launches new finance podcast New Money
Gushcloud has launched its new finance podcast, New Money, hosted by content creator and actor Reggie Couz with actor, producer, and entrepreneur O’Neal McKnight.
In the 30-minute show, also available on Couz’s YouTube channel, they discuss real-life hustle in today’s digital-first world.
The New Money podcast breaks down all things new money, from the basics and complexities of making money in the digital space and the Web3, to the unorthodox success stories.
Guests of the series include hip hop mogul and Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons and influencer DeStorm Power.
Couz said: “We’re extremely excited for the launch of the New Money podcast. I’ve been in the digital space for eight years creating content on Instagram, TikTok, Meta, and YouTube, and I wanted to get into the future of the space.
“This podcast is another avenue where I can reach out to a different kind of audience and discuss the different ways people can now make and grow money online. And I’m thrilled that I get to do this with one of the big names in entertainment, my good friend O’Neal McKnight. He is the perfect person to talk to when it comes to hustling,” he added.
McKnight said: “I grew up in a generation where we prefer to have tangible things and where talk of making money in the digital space was non-existent. So, to be part of this podcast with Reggie is definitely exciting.”
Gushcloud CEO and co-founder Althea Lim said: “Gushcloud is committed to creating sustainable careers for creators in the industry. We’re constantly innovating and developing tools to see how we can play a crucial role in shaping the future of the digital space.
“Hence it is important for us to work with O’Neal and Reggie for the New Money podcast. We hope that conversations from the show will educate and inspire today’s generation as they think of their future goals and money-making ventures,” she added.
[Listen to The New Money here]
Australia-based podcast company Ranieri & Co. announces Veritonic as ad measurement partner
Ranieri & Co. has selected Veritonic as its audio attribution solution to enable the ANZ podcast company and its clients to accurately track and measure podcast ad performance.
The podcast company represents local podcasts such as The Byron Cooke Show, The Mind Muscle Project, The Fitness and Lifestyle Podcast, Single Minded, and The Junkees with Dave O’Neil and Kitty Flanagan, as well as original podcasts, Motherlode and The Long Haul.
The company will use Veritonic’s attribution solution to understand the impact and prove the value and ROI of the company’s audio creative for the podcasts it represents.
Rob Ranieri, co-founder and CEO of Ranieri & Co, said: “Veritonic’s end-to-end measurement and analytics capabilities will allow us to gain actionable insights that further the ROI on our client’s advertising dollars.”
“This holistic picture of how our client’s audio is performing and the actions it’s driving enables us to truly understand, optimize, and maximize the performance and ROI of our podcast advertising,” he added.
As a key component of Veritonic’s suite of campaign performance tools, Attribution enables brands to understand the impact of their audio creative across any app, hosting platform, or listening device.
The solution allows users to glean actionable insights on how audio is driving action on a given landing page, including site visits, cart activity, transaction data, and more.
The attribution data can also be enhanced with benchmarks, norms, and unparalleled second-by-second engagement and brand lift data to provide the industry’s most comprehensive set of lifecycle audio measurement analytics available today.
Scott Simonelli, chief executive officer of Veritonic, said: “At Veritonic, we understand that data is everything when it comes to making informed marketing, brand, and advertising decisions.”
“By deploying our Attribution solution, Ranieri & Co. is providing the podcasts it represents with unparalleled insights to understand and optimize the performance of their advertising campaign investments.
“We look forward to building a partnership with one of Australia and New Zealand’s leading podcast companies to help validate investments, optimize audio assets, and ensure increasing ROI for its clients,” Simonelli added.
