Megaphone has hired a new CFO: Cameron Jones, who joins the Graham Holdings-owned podcast hosting and ad tech company from Revolt TV & Media, the independent Los Angeles-based digital cable TV network. Been a while since I’ve heard from Megaphone!
The Third Coast Festival has announced the 2019 winners for the TC/Richard H. Driehaus Competition. Here’s the list.
Speaking of Spotify…
(1) Another day, another content deal. Last Thursday, Spotify announced a partnership with Vice, which will produce three projects for the platform, straight through late 2020. Kate Osborn is the person of concern at Vice — sorry, VICE — as far as the audio stuff is concerned. She holds the title of “Global Director of Audio and Executive Producer.”
(2) Two personnel notes: Gimlet Media co-founder Matt Lieber has been moved to a newly created role within the company. He now holds the title of “Head of Podcast and Studio Operations” at the Spotify Studios division, under Courtney Holt, tasked with scaling the business, effective immediately.
Meanwhile, I missed this last week: Reyhan Harmanci is now the Deputy Head of Programming at Gimlet. Previously, Harmanci was the executive editor of First Look Media’s Topic.com property, which was recently restructured, or something.
Lots of change, lots of moving around.
On a separate note, this caught my eye — the New York Times is apparently looking for an audio producer focused on voice assistant platforms. In the job description: “This could mean producing short-form news segments, service journalism programs or longer audio series.” The relationship between big media brands working as audio publishers and on-demand audio’s on-going infrastructure sprawl remains… a persistent interest.