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🎙Australian Podcast Awards Unveil Spotlight and Specialist Finalists
Podwires Team
October 16, 2024
🎙️TODAY’S BRIEF
🔥 Top Australian Podcasts of September 2024: True Crime and Comedy Dominate Charts
🚨 Podcast Insight: Top Advertisers Take Note: New Data Shows Radio Outperforms in ROI
🌏 Podcast Elsewhere: Leading Podcasting Platform Libsyn Welcomes Former Megaphone CEO to Drive Growth
đź‘‹ Hi, Podsky!
Miguel here! We've got a lot to look forward to in today's edition! There are lots of new studies and awards ceremonies coming up, and we've got the latest podcast rankings for you too!
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TRITON DIGITAL
🔥Top Australian Podcasts of September 2024: True Crime and Comedy Dominate Charts
Image: Digital Triton
The Australian Podcast Ranker for September 2024, from Triton Digital, brought much change with its surprising debuts and climbers-in fact, a really shifting landscape in the world of audio entertainment.
The ranking includes the top publishers and podcasts, with ARN/iHeart remaining number one among all publishers, followed by "Hamish & Andy", "Casefile True Crime", and "ABC News Top Stories." "Hamish & Andy" from LiSTNR (SCA) is number one for individual podcasts. The ranker is based on data from participating publishers only, compliant with IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines.
The Key points:
Top publishers: ARN/iHeart, LiSTNR (SCA), and Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Top podcasts: "Hamish & Andy," "Casefile True Crime," and "ABC News Top Stories"
New debuts in Top Podcast Ranker: "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard," "ABC AFL Daily," and "Giddy Up with Gareth Hall"
New debuts in Top 200 Australian-Made Ranker: "Take Me To Your Leader!, Deep Fake, and Marlee and Me
New to both charts: "Just For Girls," "Glass," and "Everyone Has An Ex"
Why it matters: This podcast ranking provides the podcast industry in Australia with a scorecard as if a race is on. It identifies the most popular podcasts, such as "Hamish & Andy," "Casefile True Crime," and "ABC News Top Stories," aiding users in finding new podcasts that resonate with their tastes. This serves as a great benchmark for podcast creators to contrast their shows against those in leading positions within the industry, enabling them to work on content quality and audience engagement. With this, podcasters will make sure that they enhance the quality of their content and have more audiences tune in, which would go a long way toward shaping the future of podcast entertainment in Australia.
Our Analogy: The Australian Podcast Ranker to podcasts is as the music charts are to songs. Just as Billboard tallies the most popular songs, this ranker reflects which podcasts are rising, sticking in the top, and which new shows are making a splash. It is a dynamic monthly snapshot of the trending podcasts in Australia, painting a vivid picture of the audio scene for eager listeners and aspiring creators alike.
Our take: As podcast producers, the Australian Podcast Ranker is an invaluable resource for emerging genres, listeners' demographics, and trending formats of content to base evidence-based decisions on for our shows. It allows us to benchmark our performance against that of industry peers, helps identify what content strategies are working, and adjust this approach accordingly to meet the evolving needs of our audience.
The growth in every category of new shows also points to potential opportunities for innovation and further growth. In this regard, digging deep into this information will also keep us upgrading storytelling, marketing well to target audiences, and working on the best quality productions in a bid not only to engage our listeners but also move up the ranking ladder. Ultimately, it would help the entire podcast industry to move at a faster pace, as healthy competition instills a culture of continuous improvement in content quality and innovation across the entire audio entertainment space.
🗞️ TL;DR - PODCAST NEWS
Libsyn Appoints Podcast Industry Veteran Brendan Monaghan as New CEO. It has tapped a veteran podcast executive named Brendan Monaghan as the new CEO to lead Libsyn in its continued growth and further improve its services to both podcast creators and advertisers alike.
Comedy Duo Tackles Adulting in New Season of Chart-Topping Podcast. Two popular contestants from "The Traitors" are launching a new season of their comedy podcast, offering humorous and unfiltered advice on various aspects of adult life, with new episodes releasing twice weekly starting October 22nd.
Australian Podcast Awards Unveil Spotlight and Specialist Finalists. The Australian Podcast Awards announced their Spotlight and Specialist category finalists and are offering early bird discounts until October 24th for tickets to the awards ceremony at the Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour on November 21st.
Adam Gidwitz's 'Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest' Podcast Returns for Spooky Fifth Season. Pinna, Realm's kids and family division, is launching a new season of Adam Gidwitz's fairy tale podcast "Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest" in 2025, with a Brooklyn listening party on November 2nd.
4th Annual Anthem Awards Announce Finalists for Social Impact Excellence. The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences announced the finalists for the 4th Annual Anthem Awards, recognising outstanding social impact work across categories. Winners will be announced on November 19th, and Community Voice Awards voting will continue until October 31st.
THE REST IS POLITICS
🔥O2 Arena Hosts Final Show of The Rest Is Politics Live Tour
The hit podcast The Rest Is Politics has finished its UK tour with a sold-out show at London's O2 Arena last night.
Just under 13,000 people saw former Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy Alastair Campbell and former cabinet minister Rory Stewart in a "in-the-round" format. Special guests were The Rest Is Politics: US hosts British journalist and author Katty Kay and former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.
The hit UK podcast, with more than 9 million monthly listeners closed its live tour at O2. (Images by Goalhanger)
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Top Advertisers Take Note: New Data Shows Radio Outperforms in ROI
Image: Westwoodone
New research demonstrates that AM/FM radio is thriving in the digital age, driving superior ROI performance and sales lift. This study is also a counter-demonstration to the hypothesis that Media Mix Modeling is biased against AM/FM radio.
Instead, it showcases radio's excellent performance on both ROI and sales impact, which places a very high importance on having proper data inputs within MMM in order for radio to demonstrate appropriately.
The Key points:
AM/FM radio consistently shows up at the top tier of media for ROI in the Nielsen analysis.
Audio is second only to digital for short-term ROAS, per the Profit Ability 2 study.
The myth of MMM's bias against radio is rooted in historical issues with the level of data granularity.
Substituting as-run deliveries for planned weight in MMM inputs materially improves measured performance for radio.
Disaggregation of data by product hierarchy, creative campaign, and target demographics further refines the MMM accuracy for Radio
Why it matters: Convinced that radio is surviving, rather it's thriving, in the digital world, it will help companies optimally spend their dollars on advertising. This may mean better campaigns, a stronger ROI, and finally business growth.
Our view: This is a really encouraging revelation about the effectiveness of radio for the entire audio industry-that as podcast producers, it does better than many chains of media. That means through traditional radio or podcasts, audio content either way has that powerhouse effect on audiences and advertisers alike. This could bring more interest and investment into audio advertising and, in turn, more opportunities and resources into the podcast industry.
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🔆 FROM OUR COMMUNITY
Podcast Pros Share Lessons Learned: From Launch to Success. Four professional podcasters share experiences of how to successfully launch and grow a podcast, from equipment and marketing strategies down to engaging an audience with what advice a newcomer to podcasting really needs to hear.
Breaking Barriers: Inside the Inaugural Latinas In Podcasting Summit. Inspired by the lack of Latina representation in podcasting, Paulette Piñero created a free virtual summit to empower Latina podcasters, offer skills, and foster a supportive community as the industry faces diversity challenges.
IN COOPERATION WITH
The longest-running annual podcasting conference is PODFEST EXPO. From its humble beginnings in 2015 to its unprecedented 11th consecutive year in 2025, PODFEST has grown exponentially.
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AUDIOBOOM
🚨 Audioboom's Showcase Platform Drives 99% Revenue Surge in Q3 2024
Audioboom, the leading global podcast company, today announced 34% revenue growth in Q3 2024 as it delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of adjusted EBITDA profitability.
The Company has increased its full-year adjusted EBITDA expectations to US$2.5 million, approximately a near doubling of previous projections. In the Q3 Trading Update, the company announced that Q3 revenue had reached a record of US$18.8 million and Q3 adjusted EBITDA profit also reached a record at US$1.0 million. The company remains in fifth position in the Triton Digital and Edison Research rankings of top US podcast publishers for Q3 2024.
The Key points:
Record Q3 revenue of US$18.8 million, up 34% year-over-year
Record Q3 adjusted EBITDA profit of US$1.0 million
Showcase revenue of US$7.0 million, up 99% year-over-year.
Full-year adjusted EBITDA expectations increased to US$2.5 million
Average Q3 global monthly downloads of 96.5 million
Why it matters: Audioboom's stratospheric growth and profitability are demonstrations of how popular podcasts are becoming and their financial prospects. More people are listening to podcasts for entertainment and education. Businesses like Audioboom develop new streams of revenue tied to advertising and technology. Success here could spur more investments into podcast creation and technology-driving broader ranges of high-quality content for listeners and opening up new avenues for content creators.
Our view: The success of Audioboom points to a nascent industry that works for both creator and advertiser. Better ad revenue, combined with successes such as Showcase, may mean larger budgets for podcast production, boosting quality and variety.
The storyline gets even sweeter with the rise of eCPM, which indicates that podcasts are growing more valuable to advertisers and perhaps show the way to the possible route to take for improved monetizing of content by producers. This may usher in an increasingly investment- and innovation-rich industry, making podcasting more competitive and dynamic for creators and listeners alike.
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Podcasts Emerge as Key Battleground for 2024 Presidential Candidates Targeting Gen Z Voters. Popular non-political podcasts are helping presidential candidates reach younger voters who don't use traditional media.
Magellan AI's Creative Analyzer: Revolutionizing Podcast Ad Strategy Insights. Now, Magellan AI is announcing a new tool, Creative Analyzer, which helps businesses explore and understand the podcast advertising strategy of their competitors by tracking comprehensive insights into ad creatives, campaign distributions, and trends.
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