Podcast Companies Begin to Advertise Like Hollywood Studios - WSJ

The company has identified two priorities to boost advertising: podcasts and the two-sided marketplace.

“We love the ads and we expect the ads to continue. But I think that long term to have a healthy content business, you have to have multiple revenue streams and you don’t want to be completely dependent on advertising,” said Jacob Weisberg, the former editor-in-chief of Slate Group who started a podcasting company called Pushkin Industries with Mal... See more

The current state of podcast advertising is a situation not so different from the early web:

Consumers interact with brands through sound in a variety of ways, from podcasts to radio ads — even the log-in music for a favorite streaming service. The most memorable “sonic” brands can drive sales, raise awareness, and stand out among competitors. While marketers know how to glean data and insights from traditional advertising, the audio lands... See more

The podcast business is still predominantly powered by advertising, a channel that’s especially tethered to the ebb and flow of the greater economy. Speaking with over a dozen podcast makers last week, I’ve heard about several instances of ad cancellations and preemptive non-renewals. These pullbacks were said to be mostly clustered among industrie... See more

Stepping back, though we should probably ask where all these ad budgets are coming from, and, more importantly, where the growth for internet advertising will come from next. The obvious answer is television: print is mostly already gone, but ‘TV’ viewing is now finally unlocking, with US pay TV subscriptions now down by over a third 

“Genre, medium, and format are secondary concerns and, in some instances, they seem to disappear entirely.” One piece of intellectual property inspires a feeding frenzy of podcast, documentary, and miniseries offshoots. Single episodes of streaming-service TV can run as long as a movie. Visual artists’ paintings appear on social media alongside the... See more