This is the Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Newton Chattelcutting. And I'm Gavin Gattis. The Download is brought to you by PodScribe. Find out more at podscribe.com.
This week, the Podcast Landscape debuts, a look at why big ticket celebrity podcast deals are back, podcast ad loads are increasing, but have diminishing returns, and publishers fight the concept that hard news is dangerous to brand safety. Let's get started. This Wednesday from Tom Webster, it sounds profitable. The 2024 edition of the Podcast Landscape, a study of audience perceptions of podcasting, is now live.
This edition, fielded with signal hill insights, surveyed 5,071 Americans aged 18 plus, making it the largest publicly available study of podcasting in the country. Key findings include the fact podcasting is now reaching the majority of Americans every month. This is the first time that it has been reported more than half, 53% specifically in the case of the podcast landscape of Americans have listened to a podcast in the past 30 days.
Quote from Tom Webster's follow up article, focusing on key points from the study. Quote, this year we asked it specifically as consumed an audio or video podcast and not listen to an audio or video podcast. This reflects reality. Many of the newest podcast consumers are consuming us through video and they are watching, so the question needs to evolve as the consumer evolves. End quote. The industry also continues to generate new hits when asked to list their top five favorite podcasts.
Bond and still shows familiar shows like the Joe Rogan experience, but this year five new shows entered the top 20 results. The industry continues to index high with men and the 18 to 34 demographic, meaning podcast audiences aged 55 and up and women are solid opportunities for audience growth. The study launched with an hour long presentation from Webster in a recording that is currently available on Sounds Profitable.
This Wednesday from Reggie Ujewu writing for The New York Times, the Kelsey Brothers, Smash hit podcast, New Heights recently signed to Amazon's Wondry for a deal reportedly valued at $100 million USD. With the deal, New Heights will be distributed ad free on Wondry Plus and merch rights for the show are handled through Amazon.
Given the dour advertising outlook of late 2023 and high profile instances of surefire celebrity podcast deals that fizzled out, it seemed unlikely podcasting would see many big ticket podcast buys in 2024. Yet here we are just over halfway through the year with multiple instances of big name celebrity podcasts, signing exclusivity or distribution deals valued well into the tens if not hundreds of millions. Alex Cooper is moving her unwell network from Spotify distribution to serious XM.
The Kelsey Brothers are taking their massively successful new heights to Wondry, who also nabbed SmartLess earlier this year. Meanwhile, the Joe Rogan experience reportedly fetched $250 million to reupt their Spotify contract sans video exclusivity this time.
The big difference between the COVID boom years of massive podcasting deals and contemporary big ticket deals are consistently happening with proven podcasts that both currently make good money and likely will for the foreseeable future, not the promise of a good podcast. Last Friday from Katie Deaton writing for the Wall Street Journal, a report from Oxford Road and PodScribe published in Q2 of this year shows podcast ads took up an average of 10.9% of episode runtime up from 7.9% in 2021.
The study found respondents likelihood to follow through with a call to action in a podcast ad. It significantly decreased the higher the ad load in the episode increased. This backs up common assumptions of the industry. There's a sweet spot to the right ad load for a podcast.
The trick comes in finding it as many variables can influence where the sweet spot might be for any given show such as total ads per break, how many breaks an episode has, who's reading the ads, how long they are, etc, etc. One beneficial move forward for the podcasting industry as a whole would be for companies to openly discuss their perspectives on ideal ad loads.
If companies were to begin putting hard numbers to concepts like how many ads should be in a spot for a break, that would lead the industry to either agree with that number or challenge it and move to find something compromised. Either instance the industry grows forward and progresses with the consensus. This Monday from ad news advertising is full of received wisdom regarding the risks of brands running their campaigns on news website ad space.
Industry bodies like think news brands are working to fight against those common presumptions. Similarly to how studies like the media moves the message finds podcast audiences self-select content and actually prefer when brands support their favorite shows, 60% of respondents to think news brands study say they trust ads more when they appear next to premium news content.
Publishers have an uphill battle to fight though, as culture wars and social media-driven controversies have made media a minefield since the turbulent 2016 US presidential election. As brand insiders Laura O'Reilly reported on Tuesday, brand safety has become a double-edged sword that stifling news content. The growth of social media has a knock on effect of enabling casual organization, making the threat of boycott of brands advertising on politically charged content a genuine threat.
As a result, keyword block lists have become a commonly used tool in advertisement that has a material impact on news media. One example given is Time Magazine's feature piece on Taylor Swift accompanying her being nominated person of the year. During the time CEO Jessica Sibley, the feature piece was labeled brand unsafe because it contained language related to feminism and the word torture in the title of Swift's album, the tortured poet's department.
Brand safety tools are valuable, but the wider industry needs a re-alignment of values and strategy if even news adjacent media is to survive long term. Finally, it's time for our quick hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading.
This week I've got for you podcasting in the creator economy, a long term opportunity, a new report from the IAB specifically looking at podcasting's powers with influencers and audience engagement. How to conduct an audience survey with Gum Ball's latest feature by Dan Cardiel. Gum Ball has introduced a new feature for podcasts on their platform that allows them to run audience surveys. Spotify Instagram notes integration in the works to share real-time listening activity by Isaiah Richard.
Reverse engineering of Instagram shows an unreleased feature for Instagram notes that will allow what audio Spotify listeners are currently enjoying to show up as their Instagram note. Magellan AI's top spenders and movers and shakers for July. The latest update to Magellan AI's rancor includes a 579% increase in podcast ad spend from Wells Fargo from June to July. And finally HVAC podcasts are a hot product for a cooling market by Eric Wimple.
Podcasting's power of niche audiences that over-deliver in comparison to larger general audiences is demonstrated in Brian Orr's podcast about air conditioner repair, which now pulls down $400,000 a year in HVAC brand advertising. And that was the download brought to you by SoundProphetable. I know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app or on the download section of SoundProphetable.com.
And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Newton Chaudo Coddy. And I'm Gavin Gattis. Our producers are myself, Newton Chaudo Coddy, Brian Barletta, and Tom Webster, special thanks to Speaker for hosting the download and thanks to you for joining us. Robot. Download. Complete.