This Week in the Business of Podcasting

After much flying (boy are my arms tired) the Sounds Profitable crew is back home from the Business Leader Summit in New York. Thank you to everyone who turned out for good times and good data. Now, we turn to this week’s news.

The Fastest Growing Languages in Podcasting

This Wednesday from Becca Butcher at Rephonic: While English-language podcasts have made up the bulk of shows for some time, the percentage of shows in other languages has been increasing at a rapid rate. To track the growth of various languages in podcasting, Rephonic used data from their podcast database at the end of each year from 2019 onwards, comparing the amount of podcasts in each language to track growth.

Highlights include the fact Indonesian has been the fastest-growing podcast language for the past five years. This is attributed to a technology boom starting around 2010 that has led to widespread adoption of smartphones in Indonesia, as well as an uptick in Indonesian startups.

Vietnamese-language podcasts continue to be on track for sustained and rapid growth, as the local podcast population has increased from a few hundred to over 6,000 in four years. 

Ukrainian is the fastest-growing podcast language in 2023. Rephonic speculates this might be motivated by the Russian invasion causing a cultural shift away from speaking Russian, causing more regular adoption and usage of Ukrainian.

Podcast Download Fall 2023, Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights

This Monday from Elizabeth Mayer at Westwood One: Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights have published the Fall 2023 Podcast Download, a report built from an in-depth survey of 608 weekly podcast listeners. The survey was conducted by MARU/Matchbox. 

Key findings include the growth of people who only watch podcasts as video, which has grown from 8% to 14%. YouTube is the “used most” platform among heavy podcast consumers (6+ hours in the past week), podcast newcomers, and “pioneers” who started consuming podcasts four or more years ago. 56% of respondents who found a podcast on YouTube will consume that podcast on other platforms as well.

Spotify Announces Layoffs

This Monday from Ashley Carman and Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek published a statement announcing a new round of layoffs. The 17% staff cut come as part of an effort to shrink costs and drive profitability. A quote from Ek’s statement:

“We still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact. More people need to be focused on delivering for our key stakeholders – creators and consumers.”

The decision comes during a Q4 where Spotify projects €93 to €108 million in operating losses. In his official statement, Ek points to both slowdown of economic growth and the increased expense of raising more capital as large motivations for the move. 

A brief reminder to those both hiring and looking to be hired: the Sounds Profitable job board is always taking new submissions and is 100% free.

ANA Study Finds Nearly 2/3rds of Ad Dollars Never Reach Intended Audiences

This Tuesday from Ryan Barwick at Marketing Brew: The Association of National Advertisers has released the second part of their programmatic supply chain transparency report, and as the article headline says: it’s found some discrepancies. 

According to their audit of an estimated $88 billion in open web programmatic advertising spend, the ANA found only 36% of ad spend on demand-side platforms actually reached the intended audiences set by the advertiser. 35% of every dollar spent went to nonviewable, non-measurable, made-for-advertising inventory, or bot traffic.

The report suggests media buyers prioritize inclusion lists over exclusion lists, and have direct contacts along every step of their adtech supply chain. We’ve said it before on The Download and will say it again: Transparency and communication are key to combating issues like this.

Quick Hits

While they may not be top story material, the articles below from this week are definitely worth your time:

• The Partial Attention Economy of Video Podcasting by Tom Webster. Surveyed podcast audiences say they’re media-agnostic when it comes to how and where they consume podcasts. Tom examines what this means for podcasting. Speaking of video and podcasting, don’t forget to register for Sound You Can See: Podcasting’s Video Dilemma, which debuts in a free webinar at 2:00 p.m. CST on Wednesday, December 13th. 

• Libsyn Unveils November 2023 Podcast Advertising Rates, and 5 Developments to Watch in 2024. Along with the latest AdvertiseCast average CPM for a 60 second podcast ad, CRO Dave Hanley shares five things to keep an eye on next year. 

• Deloitte: Audio Market to Surpass $75 billion in 2024. In addition to the overall number for audio advertising, Deloitte predicts podcasting has a fair amount of untapped potential for per-user revenue growth. 

• Podcasts aren’t as doomed as they look. But some of the best ones are by Scott Nover. A look at the last year for Spotify, as well as big-picture reflection on the issues facing more cost-intensive journalistic and investigative podcasts.

• Podcast Companies Begin to Advertise Like Hollywood Studios by Katie Deighton. Wondery is taking a page out of the Hollywood playbook, promoting the new Grinch podcast with a pop-up event in a Los Angeles mall.