The Faults In Their Apps

Again, revisiting some topics from last year in this entry. (I promise, the blog will cover new ground going forward). Since May 2016, Pandora appears to have done very little to expand its first foray into podcast distribution (when it picked up NPR’s “This American Life” and “Serial” programs).

It’s surprising but not so surprising at the same time. Pandora has been thoroughly eclipsed by its competitors such as Spotify, even in its main reason for being – streaming music. If anything, in the year and a half since Pandora dipped its toe into podcasts in this manner, the script has flipped – Pandora has become the small fish, not even an equal to podcasting as a media force.

The previous leadership of Pandora recently departed, and apparently did not take the podcasting distribution initiative much further. The new CEO, Roger Lynch (see Variety’s coverage), comes from the satellite TV industry. While Lynch pledges in this story that he will re-commit Pandora to non-music programming, one wonders if that would be at odds with its newer backer, SiriusXM, which invested $480 million in the company after forcing out Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder and previous CEO, in June 2017.

SiriusXM, as mentioned in the previous blog entry here, is now experimenting with social media sharing of audio, non-music programming, with its new Spoke app. Pairing an interest in Pandora with Spoke illuminates SiriusXM’s pursuit of a new strategy of mixing free content with samples of content that is normally behind paywalls.

The clarity of this strategy is suspect, however. Arbitrarily distributing some content for free and some for subscription fees, without carefully curating the content or assessing its value, seems too scattershot – like SiriusXM, overall, with Pandora and Spoke, is throwing different business model approaches at audiences to see what sticks or what works.

Editor’s Note: As an aside, the Spoke app I raved about in the previous entry does have some glitches, I’ve since discovered. The audio player can tend to pause repeatedly on its own, making it frustrating to get through clips that are only three to five minutes in all. The feature that lets one flag clips is useless because there doesn’t appear to be any place in the app that then compiles whatever clips are flagged to browse later.

Podcast of the moment:

The Carson Podcast, June 22, 2017. Host Mark Malkoff, who devotes his show to all things Johnny Carson related, speaks with legendary TV director Hal Gurnee, who had worked with both Jack Paar and David Letterman, about his experiences shaping late night legends. The interview is both a window into old show business and a source of insight about Letterman’s innovation of the late-night talk show format.

The Blog Gets Spoke.

I’m resuming this blog that I had written for a limited time last year. A good place to begin again is with “Spoke,” a new social audio app developed by SiriusXM satellite radio. Spoke comes a little closer to being a single place to find podcasting content – something that did not seem as possible when writing this blog about podcasting last year (see July 24, 2016 entry).

Spoke also does two important things for the podcasting medium. The app makes it possible to share insightful bits from podcasts or streaming audio programs through social media. It also pairs, possibly for the first time, content from satellite radio with content from podcasts. These are key advances that I think I also identified in this blog last year – or if I didn’t explicitly do so, at least skirted doing so in some entries.

Of course, a new app or service isn’t going to be perfect overnight. Aside from SiriusXM show clips, on first glance, it’s pulling from Vox Media, Recode, Midroll (on a limited basis), and small independent unaffiliated podcasts. Spoke probably is, naturally, walled off from getting clips from the shows on Amazon’s Audible Channels. Spoke also does not appear to have clips from Gimlet, Howl, Panoply, Earwolf or Wondery.

All that said, though, Spoke has the architecture to add more sources of streaming audio content as it works out permissions and licensing. Spoke has the potential to get stronger as an aggregator, overall. It’s already married satellite and free content. On top of that, making social sharing of clips from programs spreads seeds that can grow podcasting well beyond the 2% share of all audio entertainment listeners that Edison Research reported as of August 2016.

Editor’s Note: Watch this space for shorter, but more frequent insights on the podcasting industry and its development as a medium. And, again, recommendations for full episodes of shows (footnote – the point of podcasting, even with greater availability of clips, is their ability to go in-depth), starting with:

Podcast of the week:

Hidden Brain, July 25, 2017 “You 2.0: Deep Work.” A good, old friend I reconnected with recently turned me on to this NPR podcast. It’s the first of several episodes in its “You 2.0” series. This episode tackles how one can be more productive by enforced disconnection from constant streams of emails and messages in a work environment – in order to devote more hours and more sustained attention to thinking through work challenges and producing output, whatever the product or industry.

Hearing Audible's Channels Loud and Clear

It’s been some time since my last entry here, for unexpected reasons. Since then, although I haven’t been digging into thinking about podcasting as a business and seeking compelling observations in that vein, I have been consuming tons of podcasting content.

In mid-July, I wondered how Amazon’s Audible Channels foray into podcast-like programming with the multitude of free offerings already available in this format.

Amazon recently opened up Channels to all members of its Prime service, so I’ve had a chance to dive in. A few of the featured non-fiction shows have yet to start regular runs, and have just first ‘pilot’-style episodes up.

“The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson” is akin to “This American Life,” or perhaps even “99% Invisible,” as a documentary podcast exploring a business or societal trend in under 30 minutes. Similarly, “Mortal City,” which features stories of real inner city (New York only?) characters, backs into the importance of its subject, “Commander” Rocky Robinson, but once it does reveal his character, is fascinating.

There’s also comedy and fiction offerings, and blends of both. “Bedtime Stories For Cynics” features true collaboration – comedian Dave Hill writes his own crazed takes on children’s stories, introduced by Nick Offerman and read by performers like Maria Bamford and Lewis Black. Comics Eugene Mirman and Roy Wood Jr. have comedy shows on Audible Channels also, but they don’t quite surpass great podcasts already out there. Mirman interviews Mike Birbiglia in one episode, and lets him just repeat stories that Birbiglia already had in a special years ago. Wood hosts what amounts to a compilation of stand-ups’ bits about politics.

Lastly, in this presidential election year, there’s a raft of presidential-themed podcasts out there, notably “Presidential,” which is nearing the end of its run, devoting an episode to each and every US president, having just released its hour about Jimmy Carter; and Slate’s Whistlestop, in which CBS newsman John Dickerson shares in-depth takes on campaigns past. Audible Channels’ own presidential-themed show is much more whimsical, with each episode being a more comedic take on certain presidents. Jon Stewart and John Hodgman appear together on an episode about early 1800s one-termer James K. Polk. The FDR episode contains an audio skit about static with his mother in law (which really did occur).

The offerings on Audible Channels are voluminous, and include short fiction pieces also, building on Audible’s brand as a source for full-length audiobooks. In my July blog entry, I was critical of the value of including offerings available elsewhere such as audio of Charlie Rose episodes, but actually that may have some value for subscribers who aren’t going to be in front of a TV or don’t have a video service that would include Charlie Rose’s show on demand.

Overall, Audible Channels actually as a stunning amount of content to explore, that one probably cannot come even close to consuming in full. Some may duplicate other sources, but there appears to be enough original and exclusive material here, since it can be subscribed through Prime, to make it very worthwhile. The content offered can only grow, also.

 

Podcasts of the Week:

 

Revisionist History “The Satire Paradox” episode, August 18, 2016. The last episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10-part podcast series cuts deeply and authoritatively into Saturday Night Live, characterizing its satire as toothless in many respects, critiquing how the show deployed Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in 2008. This is especially relevant more recently since SNL let Donald Trump host, and Jimmy Fallon (with Lorne Michaels also his executive producer) has been criticized for being too “chummy” with Trump as a guest on the Tonight Show.

 

“Throwback: Jim Morrison 11-6-69” from Audible Channels. The “Throwback” series is a collection of diverse audio programming from past decades. This piece is a mellow interview with the Doors frontman, full of thoughtful pauses, at a time when the band’s career had been declining because of Morrison’s issues. Morrison doesn’t come off wild like one might think from some of his legendarily extreme behavior. The piece does transport the listener to another time in American culture and society.

What’s wrong with IAB’s Podcast Upfronts. (A statement, not a question)

Some people criticize the effectiveness of live reads of advertising in the podcast medium. So one wonders how podcasters are presenting themselves to advertisers. It's hard to know because the podcast upfront presentation being hosted by the International Association of Broadcasters (IAB) next month in New York is a new phenomenon, only in its second year, and IAB has not set up much of a mechanism for media to cover it.

While other events, such as July’s Podcast Movement event in Chicago, next month’s Mid-Atlantic Podcast Conference near Philadelphia, and the upcoming DC Podfest in November, are dedicated to promotion of podcasts, which is fine, they do not have direct impact on where it may really count for podcasters – attracting advertising.

So it’s very disappointing, after asking IAB about provisions for media (and hopefully, having built a track record for those of you who do read this blog, as a concerned and credible venue for critical thought about the podcasting industry), to receive no specific response about how to attend, other than notice of how to sign up for a vague waitlist – without any differentiation about the purpose of the waitlist. That waitlist could possibly be for podcasters who are hoping to present to advertisers. There’s no way to tell from IAB’s materials.

Broadcasting – especially radio – could in some ways be seen as the enemy of podcasting, or at least a major competitor. So why are podcasters allowing IAB to mediate their relationship with advertisers? Especially when IAB is not well organized to promote its event, the way TV networks clearly do so professionally with their upfronts. It’s time for members of the podcasting industry to band together and organize their own upfronts, and do so the right way.

Podcasts of the Week

Mystery Show, episode 1 – about a video store that suddenly disappeared. This is a shorter length inquiry podcast reminiscent of “Thinking Sideways”, but more about personal phenomenon than stories that are known about somewhat in other forms.

Modern Love podcast from the New York Times -- (check out three episodes in which Jason Alexander, Sarah Paulson and Judd Apatow each read a non-fiction story about matters of the heart in one form or another).

Considering Ad Servicing

Even if podcasting is a medium that only has about 2% of all audio entertainment listeners, as Edison Research says, it still has a pretty mature ecosystem.

This is evident in the existence of companies that perform functions like distributing advertising, handling both the business and technical aspects of placing ads on podcasts. A couple of the more notable newer players in these spaces are Art19 and Performance Bridge, the former combining business support with technology to measure audiences, and the latter providing technology for advertising affiliates to support podcasts.

The closest analog to the advertising support functions these companies are taking on for podcasting is “ad insertion” in the TV broadcasting industry, which is a decades-old sub-industry within television. Yet this industry is itself trying to innovate, and seeing introductions of new technology such as “dynamic ad insertion,” according to a Wall Street Journal story from July 2015, which reports that this new wrinkle on TV advertising is a response to dropping ratings, but has yet to take off. 

Google is said to be working on its own dynamic ad insertion capability for TV or video programming, in partnership with DoubleClick. In “conventional” TV, Black Arrow was established in 2005 and AdGorilla, which specializes in cable TV, in 2011. The structural similarities that ad insertion as a piece of TV operations and business has with podcasting are not the only area where comparing the two industries can be instructive (a la carte bundling, or the lack thereof, is of interest, as written in this April 13 post).

The ways that podcasting does or can serve advertisers, and can best present their programming, are likely to play out in a manner similar to what is happening in television, and they can cross-pollinate. That podcasting already has the foundations for a mature advertising services industry in place is remarkable. It’s even more remarkable that a much more mature industry, television, is still striving to innovate and improve upon this function in its own operations. It’s unlikely podcasting could support companies like Art19 and Performance Bridge if it was only reaching 2% of the audio programming audience. If companies like these are succeeding and growing, that shows the strength of the medium.

Podcasts of the week:

The Bill Simmons Podcast episode 113, July 22, 2016, (38:30 mark) – a truly hilarious moment where Ringer writer and comedian Brendan Lynch discusses how his obsession with true crime and in particular the “Serial” podcast led him to go way out of his way to see the non-descript Best Buy parking lot, near Baltimore, that figured in the Adnan Syed case covered on that show.

“True North Story” episode 2 – Bruce Bavitt, the co-founder of Subpop, the independent label record label that released Nirvana’s first album and singles, discusses 8Stem, his new venture that aspires to bring an innovative approach to consumption and distribution of music. 

Real Crime Profile – “Making a Murderer” has become like the Bible, with a raft of podcasts and podcast episodes serving as its Talmud, dissecting every fact from the case as depicted in the Netflix series, as well as how the makers of the documentary series may or may not have distorted the picture they presented by omitting certain information. The best and most level-headed of these, however, might just be this series, which devoted its first six episodes to Steven Avery’s case (and has since gone on to dissect the murder cases of O.J. Simpson and Oscar Pistorius).