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 Schottelcotti. And I'm Gavin Gaddis. The Download is brought to you by Podscribe. Find out more at podscribe.com.
This week, what's happening at South by Southwest? What makes news podcast consumers special? News podcast listeners over-index on video podcast consumption, and smaller shows win on efficiency, says PodScribe's quarterly dive into podcast ads. Let's get into it. This Thursday, regarding South by Southwest, Brian Barletta has put together a handy Google sheet detailing podcasting-related events. That's after parties, meetups, etc.
and 24 sessions relating to podcasting from this Friday through Thursday. The majority of those events will be taking place at the official podcast stage in Ballroom B of the Austin Convention Center. If you're reading this first thing Friday morning, first off, thank you for being a dedicated download recap reader, but also the first session will kick off today at 1130 a.m. Better get planning.
We've heard through the grapevine that the podcast stages sessions are among some of the most favorited events of South by Southwest overall in the app. So let's make that even more so. If you're headed to Austin for South by or there already, we encourage all attendees to log into your South by Southwest accounts, fill out your profile with the photo and some information about yourself and then favorite podcasting panels you intend on attending.
Having built a full profile really helps with networking within the South by Southwest app and will help highlight panels to people who might not have come across them organically given the sheer size of the South by Southwest ecosystem. This Wednesday from Tom Webster, in anticipation of Sounds Profitable's upcoming branded podcast research, Webster takes a last look at the first entry in the Sounds Profitable education series. The three findings include a look at the growing age disparity.
The mean age of news podcast consumers is around 47, while the average age of cable TV news viewers is in the high 60s. News consumers are incredibly social with their podcast consumption, choosing to co-listen to content and consume podcasts while traveling more than the average non-news respondent. A quote from Webster,
News podcast consumers are much more likely to listen to or watch podcasts with other humans, often two or more. Part of this is down to the context for habitual daily news consumption, which, unlike other forms of podcast consumption, is likely tied. to a specific morning ritual or a commute. 88% of news podcast consumers who co-listen with others rate listening in a car or while traveling.
as an important benefit of podcasts, compared to 66% of podcast consumers in general. 21% of news consumers report abandoning a podcast because it had too many ads. They are a pond that can be overfished. However, 61% say they are likely to listen to brand-sponsored podcasts, and 46% say a company's involvement makes them more likely to try a new podcast.
Webster recalls when nightly news broadcasts were tentpole family events. Podcasting social nature with co-listening makes it less of a lonely activity than reading articles and social media posts. News fans present a strong draw for bringing more people into podcasting as a medium and a powerful selling point for advertisers. The past few days have also seen outside coverage of the above news podcasting report that Newt was talking about, covering different angles of the data than Tom did.
such as Monday from Sarah Guaglione when Digiday covered the news podcast Consumer. Specifically, the piece focuses on findings regarding video consumption. News podcast audiences are falling more in with podcasts in general, with 50% of them reporting spending more time with podcasts in the last year compared to 42% for non-news respondents. News fans are 6% more likely to consume video podcasts. That's 87% total versus 81% for non-news fans.
According to Digiday, executives at news publishers such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, and Vox revealed that pushing video production has helped grow their podcast audiences, and they are looking to continue this move forward in 2025. YouTube is firmly the place news audiences are finding new podcasts, clocking in 65% for YouTube versus non-news fans is 49%. 93% of those news podcast listeners had consumed video on YouTube in the past month in comparison to 78% for non-news consumers.
Audiences who regularly consume news content are no stranger to video, are hungry for more podcast content, and are actively seeking it out. For a more general overall coverage of the report as a whole, We are also linking to the inside audio marketing coverage of the report. This Monday from Podscribe, a look at the Podscribe podcast performance benchmarks for Q4 2024. Built from 12 months of data encompassing 64,000 podcast campaigns.
over 240 advertisers, and 20 billion impressions. CEO Pete Bersinger highlights the benchmarks showing shows with smaller audiences are more efficient at driving visitors per impression. Quote, big shows because they're more likely to have more transient listeners that pop in and out is that their listeners are not quite as committed.
Whereas smaller shows may have more committed, niche audiences that are more connected to the host. Smaller shows, if you can organizationally find a way to buy them and achieve the scale you need, we think there are benefits there. But of course, buying a bunch of them obviously comes with more costs too, and more overhead.
Maybe that's sort of what the market has priced in and the difference is the difficulty in buying more of those small shows, end quote. In general, episodic ad buys delivered 1.52 times higher visitation rates and 1.44 times higher... purchase rates than impression-based buys, along with being 10% cheaper. Finally, it's time for quick hits. These are articles that didn't make the cut for full coverage in today's episode, but are worth including in your weekend reading.
This week I've got for you, first up, not an article, but something you should look into signing up for. Sounds Profitable is hosting a webinar next Wednesday, March 12th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Tom Webster will be joined by Liz Hames from Jar Audio and special guest Andrea Marquez from Amazon as they present the power of branded podcasts featuring new research from Sounds Profitable and a key case study from Amazon.
Register now for access to the event and to be one of the first to receive the report after it's over. There is a link in the show notes and newsletter version of today's episode for you to register now for the free event to see the webinar live and to receive. The report, once the webinar, is over. Next up, No Mono unveils the world's easiest way to create immersive audio at South by Southwest 2025.
An overview of Nomano's new spatial audio bundle that they're debuting at South by Southwest, a $79 a month subscription that gets users access to Nomano's sound capsule, Nomano's spatial audio tools, and AI-powered. cloud platform. And you can catch them on the show floor at South by Southwest, as well as at the podcast stage. How CityCast Picks Its New Cities by David Plotz and Andy McDaniel.
A thought leadership piece for Sounds Profitable that breaks down the decisions that went into expanding the company's coverage to two new markets, Seattle and the Twin Cities. That's Minneapolis and St. Paul for anyone not in the Midwest. Reviewing Spotify's pivot to video by Amanda McLaughlin. Multitude podcast founder and CEO took to LinkedIn to share her thoughts on the efficacy of Spotify's new Spotify partner program.
including why one of her clients ultimately chose to opt out after one month in the program. Four Ways to Use Audience Surveys for Podcasts, Videos, Ads, and Branded Content by Paul Reismundell. As podcasters, we're constantly trying to get feedback from our listeners, but what do you do with that data and why? Signal Hill Insights CEO breaks it down in this piece.
And that was the download brought to you by Sounds Profitable. 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 soundsprofitable.com. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the talk.
stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Newton Schottelcotti. And I'm Gavin Gaddis. Our producers are myself, Newton Schottelcotti, Brian Barletta, and Tom Webster. Special thanks to you for listening to the download. We'll see you next week. Robot? Download complete