I’m able to confirm that Endeavor Audio, the podcast division launched by the entertainment conglomerate Endeavor in the fall of 2018, has laid off its in-house advertising sales team, and is pulling out of the podcast advertising sales business more broadly. At least one client has already been informed, and the sales team was informed […]

On Friday evening, at the top of a long weekend — a time slot known in some cultures as “News Dump O’ Clock” — the Wall Street Journal dropped a mighty curious story with considerable implications for podcast-land: Spotify, the story reported, appears to be in “early talks” to acquire The Ringer, the distinctly podcast-heavy […]

KPCC is launching “Public Radio Palooza,” a year-long event series celebrating public radio that will be held throughout Los Angeles — and yep, that’s the name they’re going with. Anyway, the line-up is spread pretty far out across the calendar, and you can find full details here. ICYMI: iHeartMedia initiated a round of mass layoffs […]

This segment’s going to be a little different from what we usually do. A few months ago, I was bumbling around LinkedIn — a rare occurrence, given, you know, *broadly gestures* — when a profile caught my eye: one Sofia Klatzker, who holds two curious titles that intrigued me. The first is “Vice President, Strategic […]

This is a Hot Pod ~exclusive~: after shifting subgenres and taking on the Biggie-Tupac story with Joel Anderson at the helm for its third season — which has brought in over 7 million downloads, and counting — the next iteration will see the franchise dip back into the political history well to examine David Duke’s […]

Just got this from the Luminary comms team: the paid podcast platform is adjusting its prices. The standard monthly price in the US is now $4.99 — down from $7.99, a fairly big dip. It’s also rolling out an annual plan for the first time, at $34.99. This move has some implications for the platform’s […]

ICYMI. Last Wednesday, I published an extra issue on Spotify’s push into podcast ad tech, via its new Streaming Ad Insertion product roll-out. I principally view the story as one about platform power, with Spotify looking to assume more market power by solving the monetization via advertising problem for the many deep-pocketed brands still meh […]