This is the download from Sounds Profitable, your daily source for the essential news in the business of podcasting, brought to you by Spreaker from iHeart. I'm Gavin Gaddis. Here's what you need to know for today, Monday, November 18th. First up, Spotify's push for more video podcasts puts networks on defense.
As announced last week, Spotify has ramped up their focus on video content with a new monetization path and partnership program. Starting in January, Spotify premium users in the US, UK, Australia... And Canada will no longer encounter dynamic ads on video podcasts, with monetization changing to paying those podcasts based on watch time rather than ad impressions.
One potential outcome of this YouTube-style watch time focus is content that's traditionally more difficult to sell ads on. For example, political conversation podcasts and hard news content will be able to generate profit off of direct audience engagement. rather than solely relying on ads.
Next up, Facebook is changing its primary metric to views. In an effort to bring Facebook video more in line with Instagram metrics, Meta has announced Facebook is pivoting to views as the core metric on videos, photos, text posts, and anything someone can post. to the platform. For the real functionality specifically, Facebook will count a view as how many times the video is played.
for everything else on facebook a view represents how many times that piece of content shows up on a user's screen and if it appears multiple times each instance will count as a new view With this push towards views as a metric, and with the audio side of podcasting moving towards video content, a new question comes to the surface. In a world where video and social media posts are all using views as a metric, can they be compared equally?
Next up, Ask Your Doctor. This is from the Optimizing the News newsletter. After a 15-year gap, the Food and Drug Administration has updated its advertising guidelines for drug manufacturers. The new rule requires TV and radio ads to present major side effects of drugs in a clear and conspicuous and neutral manner. Anticipating this change, many pharma advertisements have adhered to this idea.
for years already. An open loophole in the FDA's authority over pharma ads is social media and influencers and telehealth companies, as none of them produce the drugs and thus aren't beholden to FDA requirements for drug producers. This might become a moot point in January as incoming Department of Health and Human Services pick Robert F. Kennedy campaigned on banning direct customer advertising by drug companies.
Finally, creatives urge marketers to resist swing towards conservative post-election ad messaging. Creative agency strategists predict that marketers could course correct to become more cautious and conservative with their messaging in light of the election results earlier this month.
While likely not as literal as ads suddenly depicting nuclear families and white picket fences, In Ocean, USA CCO Jason Sperling anticipates marketers course correcting for the election will sink into faith and family tropes, including return to nostalgic ad concepts like adopting pets, greeting returning veterans, and out.
word patriotism. Consumers react well to seeing themselves depicted in advertising, with 58% of US consumers telling a March YouGov study that diversity and inclusion in advertising influenced where they shop. 69% said a diverse staff mattered for their shopping choices. In June, a meta study found inclusive advertising drove a sales uplift of 16% compared to less progressive ad content.
As for the rest of the news, Audioboom exceeds forecasted profit expectations in a new trading update. Triton Digital has expanded its demos plus audience metric to feature the Netherlands. AdResults Media has hired Craig Stein as their new SVP of media planning. Celebrity podcaster and venerated talk show host Conan O'Brien will host the 2025 Oscars. AdWeek has joined the growing list of major publications discussing podcasting's role.
in the 2024 election. Be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app or at soundsprofitable.com where you can also subscribe to the newsletter version. The download is written and produced by Newton Schottelcotti, Brian Barletta, Tom Webster, and myself. This episode is hosted on Spreaker. For Sounds Profitable, I'm Gavin Gaddis. Download us again tomorrow.