Buzzsprout's Alban Brooke tells us all about their new mid-roll ads platform. Spotify describe RSS as “outdated technology." while claiming they will reach one billion listeners by 2030 and generate US$100 billion in revenue.

Released Friday, 10th June 2022

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Buzzsprout's Alban Brooke tells us all about their new mid-roll ads platform. Spotify describe RSS as “outdated technology." while claiming they will reach one billion listeners by 2030 and generate US$100 billion in revenue.

Friday, 10th June 2022

Good episode? Give it some love!

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Special Guest

Alban Brooke - Head of Marketing at Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout the world’s second largest podcast host, has just formally announced Buzzsprout Ads, letting podcasters buy adverts for their shows (and other podcasters to earn revenue).

We’re using them - automatically inserted by Buzzsprout Ads.

Show Notes & Links

Spotify had an Investor Day last Wednesday.

“Spotify share price slid 55% this year. Daniel Ek said Spotify would grow beyond music, increasing creator tools and moving into audiobooks. This growth, Ek predicted, would take the company to 10 times its current size, with an aim to reach one billion listeners by 2030 and generate US$100 billion in revenue.”

Maya Prohovnik said Spotify brought in around €200m ($215m) in podcast revenue last year. Podcasting lost the company €103m ($110m), though is expected to turn a profit within two years.
Maya Prohovnik described RSS as “outdated technology”, and said they have been able to replace it for their on-platform distribution. She also claimed that every new Anchor show brings 2.5 new monthly active users to the Spotify platform.
iHeart’s Conal Byrne writes for Forbes, promoting the benefit of RSS, which was soundly denigrated by Spotify in their presentation.
Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman noted in an entertaining Twitter thread that Joe Rogan was missing from their presentation.
Blubrry has emailed its podcast hosting customers that the company is ready to launch programmatic advertising.
AVURLAssetHTTPUserAgentKey has just appeared in Apple’s documentation for the next version of iOS, allowing all podcast apps to correctly state their user agent. Developers can adopt this today; there will be a public beta in July, and this will roll out for everyone in Q3. Expect Podnews to grumpily highlight apps that don’t bother with it.