Podcast Show highlights + other news compiled by James Manning and Trent Thomas
Podcast outage caused by Spotify’s failure to renew security certificate
Podcast listeners could not access many shows for more than eight hours on Monday night and early Tuesday morning due to an outage on Megaphone, a podcast hosting platform owned by Spotify. The outage stemmed from the company’s failure to renew Megaphone’s security certificate, reported The Verge.
“Megaphone experienced a platform outage due to an issue related to our SSL certificate,” Spotify spokesperson Erin Styles said in a statement. “During the outage, clients were unable to access the Megaphone CMS and podcast listeners were unable to download podcast episodes from Megaphone-hosted publishers. Megaphone service has since been restored.”
SCA’s Grant Blackley tells international market about five-year digital transformation
There were a handful of Australians at The Podcast Show last week, a new London event that is set to become an annual fixture. Among those making the trip were a team from Southern Cross Austereo – chief executive Grant Blackley, chief operating officer John Kelly and head of LiSTNR Grant Tothill.
“This the first big trip we have made post-Covid,” Grant Blackley told Mediaweek in a break between sessions.
“We have done similar trips before. We spent a fair bit of time in the US and Europe before we built LiSTNR. All the plans we put in place after that have paid dividends. To get to talk personally with operators in different parts of the world and see where they are up to in terms of digital transformation and content development has been important for us.”
See also: The future of SCA audio content: Turns off feed to major streaming platform
On the way to The Podcast Show in London, Blackley stopped at Radio Days Europe where he was a guest speaker. Telling his audience about the importance of the digital transformation, Blackley said the company may one day change its name to LiSTNR.
“I was invited purely on one basis,” he said about the European radio conference which was held in Malmo, Sweden this year.
“That was to share the story of the digital transformation that SCA has been through in the last five years. The conference wanted to hear how we went from what was a broadcast linear model to a fully digital audio company. Many media companies around the world are grappling with this. Some haven’t started the journey, and some are partway through.
“We are effectively complete. While that is not unique, there are not many who have completed that journey. We had a lot of interest from companies wanting to know what we are doing.”
SCA’s Grant Blackley and Grant Tothill
James Cridland speaks in Europe on podcasting landscape and building the industry
In addition to SCA’s Grant Blackley making the trip to Malmo and then London, to talk about the future of digital audio and podcasting, was Brisbane-based Podnews editor James Cridland.
Also labelled a radio futurologist, Cridland was onstage presenting at both events – Radio Days Europe and The Podcast Show.
Cridland’s duties in Malmo included hosting a conversation with Johan Seidefors, the Nordic head of content at Spotify. (See below for more on that.)
In London at The Podcast Show, Cridland was kept busy on Day 1 of the 2-day event. He started the day presenting the very first session of the event, The Future of Podcasting, where he shared thoughts on the global landscape and how markets differed.
Later in the day he was the host of the entertaining and informative session, Supercharging Subscriptions, Driving New Revenues. It was during this session that Sony Music Entertainment dropped the news it would be launching an on-demand audio platform called The Binge.
Speaking to Mediaweek at The Podcast Show after his busy day, Cridland expanded on some of his topics.
“There are two things to consider when talking about the future of podcasting,” said Cridland.
“One is that no one company is ever going to own all of the content. In addition, the future will be multi-platform, with multiple ways of earning revenue.
“It’s a very exciting future ahead for podcasting because there are so many different elements.”
One slide in his presentation recommended his audience brawl less and talk more.
Cridland also commented on the size of the UK commercial radio investment in podcasting: “It is smaller here probably because the UK commercial radio industry is essentially three companies – Global is very forward-looking in terms of its Global Player, its advertising system and all the content it has access to.
“I don’t see anything exciting coming from Bauer which is the other big UK commercial player. They have a similar market share to Global. They are doing very little in terms of podcasting which is a shame.
“The only other commercial radio player of note is News UK and they seem to be in building mode with the more recent launches of TalkRadio and TalkTV. I would expect to see News UK at this show next year.”
Foxtel has a product called Binge, now Sony Music Entertainment does too
The difference between the Foxtel and Sony Music Binge products is very stark. The Foxtel Binge is a streaming video platform, while the new Sony Music Entertainment product will be audio-only.
In an announcement dropped on the first day of The Podcast Show in London, Sony Music Entertainment has revealed The Binge, something it is calling a first of its kind subscription channel providing fans with binge-access to full seasons of new podcasts each month from across SME’s podcast slate.
Beginning Monday June 6, listeners can subscribe to The Binge on Apple Podcasts to access full seasons of two new original podcasts, Witnessed: Friendly Fire and Fringe Network: Alien State, as well as a catalogue of SME podcast series.
Acast announces podcast episode-level conversational targeting advertising
Acast has announced the launch of new Conversational Targeting capabilities for advertisers. Available now through the Acast Marketplace, Conversational Targeting allows brands to target podcast conversations at individual episode levels, across every listening app.
Using advanced speech-to-text transcription technology combined with artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Acast is transcribing and analyzing hundreds of thousands of individual podcast episodes across its network of shows. Each episode is then categorized according to the industry-standard IAB content categorization taxonomy (v2), ensuring ad campaigns are automatically served against episodes of the highest relevance for their brand message.
Until recently, it was only possible to target by category at show level, and each episode was effectively categorized and labelled in the same way. Now, advertisers can dramatically expand their reach and appear on podcasts covering categories as diverse as sports, beauty or politics because the subject matter of that particular episode is directly relevant to their campaign.
Acast has also said that is working to add further capabilities to its Conversational Targeting suite this year, including the ability to target by specific keywords and topics, and by sentiment and emotion. At launch, Conversational Targeting supports Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, and later this year will extend to Swedish and Norwegian.
Bad Behavior partners with DM Podcasts for season 3
The winners of best interview at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards, Bad Behaviour, have partnered with DM Podcasts to release the third season of their podcast.
Queer friends and self-confessed rebellious spirits, Rosalind and Nikila, aim to challenge how people think about identity. Bad Behavior exists to normalise being open to, and vulnerable in, tough conversations. With empathic storytelling and playful commentary, the podcast centres vulnerability, inviting listeners to do the same.
In the new season the hosts plan to dive deeper than ever, bringing listeners conversations that echo what they are experiencing in their own lives. Rosalind speaks to one of her favourite YouTubers, Alayna Joy, about their shared journey through compulsory heterosexuality. After many years identifying as bisexual, Rosalind came out as gay in her mid-twenties after questioning her attraction to men. Nikila confronts her sometimes conflicting views on masculinity, speaking to guests such as Nevo Zisin and unpacks some of her experiences with toxic masculinity as a queer woman.
Other episodes include: Intimacy in film with Ita O’Brien the Intimacy Coordinator for shows such as Sex Education and Normal People; exploring how Financial literacy isn’t for everyone; and more conversations about sex.