Media Roundtable: Industry Edition - September 7

Media Roundtable Industry Edition returns this week, with the entire panel just back from their trip to Podcast Movement 22.

Host Jennifer Laine leads this week’s discussion with Roundtable veteran Dan Granger and newcomers Tamara Zubatiy from Barometer and Oxford Road’s Gary Brown.

The show begins with the panel discussing the biggest news of his year’s Podcast Movement; Ben Shapiro’s unannounced appearance and the social media s#*t storm that transpired.

At the time of the recording, Podcast Movement hadn’t openly discussed their stance on the misinformed apology but has since addressed the situation on Twitter. It seems like they’re on the right track, though not without fallout.

After putting the elephant in the room to bed (hopefully for the last time), the team discusses other hot news items of the day, including Twitter’s dance with Podcast, Snap Chat’s financial woes, Cadence13 going Hollywood, and Veritone’s AI box of possibilities.

Click below to hear the whole episode, or check out the articles discussed below for those short on time.

Listen Here

Watch Here

Podcasts are Coming to Twitter

Announced last week, podcasts will now appear in Twitter’s redesigned “Spaces” tab, but you’ll be unable to choose individual shows: the interface gives pre-selected shows in topic-based playlists called “Stations.” It uses RSS feeds and is curated from what the people you follow are listening to. Twitter offers no search facility or ability to add your own RSS feeds, which significantly limits the platform as a legitimate content source. Our take is that while Twitter’s involvement in podcasts will undoubtedly help promote the medium, the way they’re going about it seems counter to how podcasts are typically shared and therefore lacks scale opportunity.

Read More

Snap Reducing Headcount by 20%

Snap is reducing its headcount by 20% and restructuring its ads team. The social space is increasingly tough, and increased competition and privacy concerns make it tough to monetize. But perhaps the more interesting takeaway is that some of the upcoming apps (LiveIn, Locket) lean more towards authentic connection rather than the traditional follower counts and self-promotion that make social media (shall we say) unfulfilling.

Read More

Cadence13 Goes Hollywood

Premium podcast studio, Cadence13 has hired Hollywood executive Patton Valentine to oversee IP adaptation strategy across its original content divisions. Cadence13 plans to adapt its audio documentary and scripted storytelling IP into the world of film and television, with several projects in work now. We’re going to start seeing more new podcast shows designed with the sole purpose of converting to television shows. The trick will be figuring out which ones are most likely to do so and negotiating baked-in ads so that 2nd and 3rd shelf life comes into play for advertisers. Stay tuned.

Read More

Veritone’s AI Voice Network

Veritone’s Voice Network now offers creators a multilingual custom A.I. voice solution and podcast monetization service that combines synthetic voice creation and AI translation services to localize podcasts. A.I. has gone from beating humans at Chess, then beating them at Go, to solving a problem in 48 hours that molecular biologists have struggled with for 50 years. Interest in A.I. has tapered since it seemed to plateau in the late ’10s with accomplishments like identifying objects in images. But it’s not going away. Capabilities are, instead, accelerating, and they will continue to. It’s the most important tech of our time. Brands’ applications will also rapidly grow better chatbots, A.I. script generation, optimization, and better attribution. Don’t stop paying attention to this one.

Read More

Delivering a Scalpel to Comedy

According to Edison Research, Comedy has topped the Q2 2022 podcast genre charts in the U.S. The team discusses that while some advertisers stay away from Comedy podcasts altogether due to brand safety concerns, with tools like Barometer, you can easily navigate the vast comedy podcast world while adhering to your brand’s values.

Read More