Finding Untapped Advertising Potential

Nielsen’s Podcast Insights report for the first quarter of 2018, referenced in the previous entry for its facts bolstering the premise that Apple’s domination of podcast distribution is not necessary unbreakable, contains another nugget with just as much relevance to podcasting’s place in the media landscape.

Those who are not yet familiar with podcasting are prone to stereotype their listeners and creators as either tech-obsessed nerds and or overly concerned with esoteric subject matter. However, Nielsen’s figures of what podcast listeners buy contradicts that impression, or at least supports the idea that podcast audiences have value and buying power. 

Looking at just one slice of consumer behavior (or should I say bowl?), breakfast cereal, Nielsen states that the podcasting audience influences $4.5 billion (that’s no typo – billions with a ‘b,’ not millions) in cereal sales annually. Those categorized as avid podcast fans (25% of all podcast listeners) spend about $9 more per year on breakfast cereal, which adds up. Notably, 94.4 percent of all listeners of podcasts about kids and family issues buy breakfast cereal, and 57.2 million households who are fans of music podcasts are also cereal buyers.

Overall, in a host of industries and fields, Nielsen points to “lift” statistics showing that podcast advertising increases listeners’ intent to buy from those advertisers, based on a survey of 7,000 listeners ages 18 to 49. Among those listeners, society and culture shows produced a 9.2% lift, news and politics shows created a 12.8% lift, comedy shows made a 7.3% lift, sports shows had a 9.3% lift and business shows had a 14% lift. Also, among all of the listeners surveyed, 69% said podcast ads made them aware of new products or services.

So, putting all of this together with the consideration of podcasting’s potential if distribution platforms become more diverse and competitive, the industry is still sitting on a lot of untapped value that could be unlocked. One wonders why CEOs of companies with skin in this game, like Gimlet, Panoply and Midroll, aren’t pushing Google to get cracking on that podcasting native app. It’s in their own interests.

Podcast of the moment:

Slow Burn, Season 1, Dec. 5, 2017 – Jan. 30, 2018: Slate’s eight-part series about Watergate manages to find and explore unfamiliar ground about the scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation in 1974. There are great moments, such as the account of special prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s investigators finally getting some of Nixon’s tapes from the White House, and having to ask for a box to put them all in, then carting them out through the gates, past crowds of protestors, to their offices to sit down and listen to them. It’s unbelievable that such a momentous development was so unceremonious. 

There’s also perspective provided by Jane D’Arista, a staffer of Congressman Wright Patman, a Democrat in his late 70s at the time, who tried to investigate the break-in before the rest of Congress eventually got on board, and also an interview with former securities industry association executive Marc Lackritz, whose first job after law school was as a staffer for the Senate Watergate Committee. By listening to “Slow Burn” one gets a better sense of the humanity of the figures involved in Watergate, at both the highest and lowest levels.

Apple's Hold On Podcasting: Not Insurmountable?

Last month, I was intrigued by an item in Nielsen’s Podcast Insights report for the first quarter of 2018, which noted that podcast listeners are loyal to the Apple ecosystem above any other, namely Android.

This seconds or confirms what Rob Walch of Libsyn said in March here about how podcasting’s reach as a medium would be increased if Google finally developed a native podcasting distribution app for Android devices.

I don’t think that Apple’s hold on podcast distribution is ironclad or unbreakable forever. But the competition does have to get its act together and correct the long-running lack of a competing interface. It would be a challenging task but not an impossible one.

For instance, if Amazon thinks Android is important enough to make sure its Audible distribution channel is available through that format, that should tell Google something. After all, according to Nielsen, the use of smartphones to download podcasts has increased 157 percent since 2014.

Next time – I’ll consider another surprising item from Nielsen’s report: that marketing on podcasts can influence buying decisions for something as prosaic and old-school as breakfast cereal.

The Big Technology Barrier Blocking Podcast Discovery

When writing about podcasting in this blog, particularly in 2016 (see this June 16 entry), I have been concerned with, and been asking about, what the medium’s growth potential is. Certain shows, such as “Serial” and “Making Oprah,” and certain guests (President Obama appearing on Marc Maron’s WTF) have become part of pop culture, water-cooler conversations.

At the same time, however, the medium is often a target for comedians who will joke that “everyone has a podcast now.” That’s even though so many comedians themselves seem to be popping up with podcasts of their own. Or actors such as Dax Shepard and Anna Faris launch conversational shows (I haven’t gotten to those yet, so I can’t say whether they are worthwhile or self-indulgent). These might be what satirizing comics also have in mind.

Still, the undercurrent of these points is that podcasting still is seen as, or in fact exists as, a secondary medium, the province of those who are among a highly educated elite or obsessive consumers of media, rather than entertainment for everyone in the mainstream. As Kevin Allison, founder and host of the “Risk!” podcast puts it, “People in their 50s and 60s are a demographic that maybe have yet to discover podcasts to the extent that they would probably really enjoy them if they found them.”

Once listeners do discover the medium, they are more likely to first find podcasts spawned by organized media interests, because those have more promotion and marketing muscle. Or those listeners can discover those podcasts through those organizations’ other properties.

However, Rob Walch of Libsyn, who expressed in last week's entry that independent podcasters still have plenty of exposure despite the rise of organized media interests in the medium, identifies a technology barrier to the continued growth of podcasting’s reach and influence. That barrier is Google’s lack of a native application for podcast listening in its Android smartphone operating system, like iTunes has for podcast distribution. Apple’s iOS (operating system) and its ability to handle podcasts is a big reason why the most relevant podcast ranking is the iTunes podcast charts.

Apple iOS or iTunes users consume 25% more podcasts than an average Android device user, according to Walch. Although there are about five Android devices for every single Apple device, the lack of a native app for Android magnifies the disparity of podcast listening of any kind to 25-to-1, Apple to Android, accounting for Android users who do listen even without such an app.

Google declined to develop a podcast app because it could not see immediate profitability in such a venture, as Walch explains, while Apple took a longer view and was rewarded with a firm grip on the podcasting medium, and a giant head start as the medium expanded, and as it continues to expand. “Now Google is at the point where they realize that not having a podcast app for Android makes them look silly and hurts their ecosystem,” says Walch. “Since profit was the motivation for them not to do it, shame is going to be the motivation for them to do it.”

Assuming Google does get around to offering a native podcast app, in Walch’s analysis, the consumption of podcasts would double just from the Android user population having the same access Apple users already have. And that, according to Walch, is the only development that can possibly significantly boost the reach of podcasting, sometime in the next five years.

Podcast of the moment:

Stay Tuned With Preet, “The Death of Sergei Magnitsky,” October 26, 2017. Former U.S. Attorney for the district including New York City, Preet Bharara began a podcast in September, tackling politics and criminal justice issues that concerned him when he held the office. This episode will make you better understand the depth of menace Vladimir Putin exerts on his country and the whole world. Bharara interviews Bill Browder, a businessman who had interests in Russia and abroad, who was targeted by Putin for exposing corruption. Magnitsky, a lawyer and prominent Putin opponent, suffered a cruel fate which played out slowly over the course of one year. Browder and Bharara tell a powerful story that will make you indignant.

Are Apple's iTunes Podcasts Charts Skewed Favoring Media Organizations?

In late 2017, I looked at a measure of podcasting’s reach among listeners to any kind of audio programming, Edison Research’s “Share Of Ear,” which had concluded that podcasting was getting just 3% of all audio listeners’ time. Edison’s sister measurement program, “Infinite Dial,” breaks down podcast listening habits.

I’ll revisit podcasting’s growth potential from another perspective, with some expert insight, in my next entry, but first let’s look at the issue of iTunes podcast rankings and whether they are now skewed toward podcasts that are backed by bigger media organizations.

The “Risk!” podcast, which features unique storytelling, mostly by comedians or comedy performers, is produced independently of any large media organization. It debuted in 2009, and achieved a run on the iTunes top 100 podcasts charts that began in February 2014 and ended in August 2016. At the time of its debut, there were about 250,000 podcasts in existence that could be tabulated for the iTunes chart, estimates Kevin Allison, creator and host of “Risk!”

The number of podcasts in existence now stands at about 500,000, according to Rob Walch, host of the “PodCast411” podcast and vice president of podcaster relations at Libsyn, a podcast publishing, hosting and delivery service that handles about 25,000 podcasts for both independents and media organizations. So there’s more competition for those top spots, and podcast networks such as Gimlet, Panoply and Earwolf or public radio spinoffs are more likely than independent podcasters to have marketing budgets to reach more listeners and get ranked on the iTunes chart.

“It’s not that [our] show has deteriorated,” says Allison, talking about the challenge of an ever-more crowded podcasting field. “The show is better than ever. It’s because we don’t have thousands of dollars to throw at marketing and to connecting us to business-to-business this-and-that. We have a tiny staff. We don’t have a huge money machine of some media corporation behind us.”

Independent podcasts like “Risk!” rely on their own “gumption,” as Allison puts it, and have to constantly beat the drum to promote themselves. “You have to show up places in person as much as humanly possible,” he says. “Just like a politician, shaking people’s hands, and telling them, ‘you have to listen to my podcast’ or ‘come be on my podcast.’” That includes, but is not exclusive to, social media outreach.

Walch, on the other hand, does not see organizational backing as an absolute pre-requisite for being on the iTunes top 100 podcasts list. “The majority of shows [on the list] are indie podcasters,” he says, adding that network or public radio podcasts make up less than 2% of all podcasts overall.

A cursory look at this week’s top 100, as compiled by itunescharts.net, finds a mix of independents and affiliated shows close to 50-50. “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which Walch emphasizes as a prime example of a successful independent show, ranked 3^rd on February 20 (itunescharts.net compiles charts daily but there is a lag in releasing results). The New York Times, WNYC, NPR, PodcastOne, Vox and Slate have shows on the list (amounting to much more than 2% but probably less than 10% of the list), yet most of the list could fairly be called independent podcasts, albeit of different sizes and scales.

Circling back to that “Share Of Ear” measurement – if podcasting makes up such a small part of audio entertainment, organizationally-backed podcasts would have an audience that is quite small. Collect up all the independent, unaffiliated shows, and that’s where the medium’s reach or power may reside.

Next time: A look at iTunes versus Android in achieving podcasting’s maximum reach possibilities.

Podcast of the Moment:

Risk! “Outta Place,” February 8, 2012. Writing the above entry sent me far back into the Risk! archives for this episode, in which Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver, both colleagues of host Kevin Allison, when they were in the State sketch comedy group, talk about misadventures related to travel. Garant tells about being on the road hanging out with heavy drug users in Wyoming, and Kenney-Silver talks about an unwanted trip to “Burning Man.”