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 Shattelcotti. The Download is brought to you by Podscribe. Find out more at podscribe.com. This week, examining podcasting by zip codes, branded podcast performance and measuring that performance, On Wondery and SiriusXM opting out of rankers, and journalist podcast changes education in 25 states. Let's get started.
First, though, the Sounds Profitable educational series continues with a look at the news podcast audience in a live webinar featuring Tom Webster and Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing at NPR's sponsorship subsidiary, National Public Media. This free event will be held on Wednesday, February 26th at 2pm Eastern. Register at the link in the show notes. This Thursday from Tom Webster at Sounds Profitable.
Using zip code data provided by over 5,000 respondents to the podcast landscape, Webster provides a graph of podcast genre popularity by region in the U.S., the regions being West, South, Midwest, and Northeast. Comedy consistently scored well in the low to mid 30% range. Religious content scores highest in the South, along with healthy numbers for self-help content. Science remains relatively niche across the board.
Gaming is slightly more popular in the West than Northeast. A quote from Webster, quote, or maybe, just maybe, we're all just listening to what we like. Regional stereotypes be damned. End quote. End quote. End quote. End quote. This Wednesday from Paul Rees-Mandel at Signal Hill Insights, the company has published their second annual benchmark report for branded podcasts. Key findings include the halo effect brands receive for creating the branded podcast content.
61% of surveyed branded podcast listeners said the episode they had just listened to made them feel somewhat or more favorable toward the brand. 75% agree it kept their attention the entire time. Riesbendel also breaks down the need for context when measuring podcast efficacy. A quote from the article, quote, to illustrate, let's take a metric like brand awareness. When a large, ubiquitous brand like Coke runs a podcast ad campaign,
We can't expect it to have much impact on awareness of the brand because nearly everyone who hears the ad already knows it well. A new or emerging brand, however, can reap significant gains in boosting an upper funnel measure like awareness.
Trying to compare Coke's awareness lifts scores to benchmarks that are strongly influenced by emerging brands is just not fair. A Coke campaign isn't a failure if it can't meet such a benchmark. A more meaningful benchmark in that case might be brand favorability. Context is everything, end quote. This Wednesday from Podcast News Daily, a look at the recent opt-out from both PodTrack and Triton Digital Podcast Rankers by Wondery and SiriusXM Media Podcasts.
A Wondery rep told Podcast News Daily the decision was motivated by a rancor that only represents RSS-based downloads, not representing their total audience. A representative from SiriusXM offered a similar explanation. Podcasts have grown on non RSS platforms to the point their audience can't be properly tracked with just RSS.
that does not know about traffic on video, social media, fast, that's free ad-supported TV, channels, and streaming platform versions of their podcasts. A quote from True Native Media CEO Heather Osgood, quote, I don't believe opting out of these rankers negatively impacts ad buying. Advertisers are increasingly prioritizing audience engagement, looking at ratings and reviews to gauge a show's ability to cultivate an active and loyal listener base.
one that's engaged enough to spread the word, end quote. As the creator economy evolves, so does the measure by which advertisers decide how engaged podcast audiences are and worth investing in. This Wednesday from Rick Hess at Ed Week, an op-ed interviewing Emily Hanford, creator of the investigative journalism podcast, Sold a Story.
Hanford, an American public media correspondent, spent several years researching the widespread problem of a debunked strategy for teaching children to read, still being printed in new books being sold to schools who required it in their curriculum. Hanford discusses the multi-year process of reporting the story, turning it into a podcast, and podcasting's ability allowing her team to move from the initial format of single stories per episode to a more serialized long-season story.
As a result of Sold of Story gaining attention, the show claims 25 states have revised their curriculum to focus more diverse strategies for teaching reading, an example of what investigative journalism and podcasting can achieve with the right support.
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, ARN's iHeart is celebrating its fifth birthday with major partnership extensions, including BBC Radio and Exactly Right Media. LinkFire has published their Q4 interim financial report, including a 7% growth in revenue and 182% in improved earnings.
Realm has expanded their partnership with Adalicious to become the exclusive U.S. sales partner for Adalicious's podcast slate. SiriusXM looks to YouTube and Spotify to help grow podcast subscribers. PodNews shares a first look at SiriusXM's new expansion to Spotify, YouTube Music, and other podcast apps via supporting cast. And IGN Entertainment has launched the podcast network Geek Media with representation by Realm.
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 top stories you might have missed from the past week. I'm Newton Shalakati. Our producers are myself, Gavin Gaddis, Brian Barletta, and Tom Webster. Thanks for joining us. Robot. Download.
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