Podcasters wanting an inside look into how public radio and podcast experts evaluate new show ideas have an opportunity to peek under the hood of WNYC’s Podcast Accelerator Pitch Session. On Friday at 3:30 PM PDT the Online News Association will live stream the five Podcast Accelerator finalists giving their last pitches to the judges: Dean Cappello, Chief Content Officer and Senior Vice President of WNYC; Glynn Washington, host of the popular podcast and public radio show Snap Judgment; and Emily Botein, Vice President of On-Demand Content for WNYC.
While the judges deliberate, Anna Sale, from WNYC’s Death, Sex & Money podcast, will lead panel of well-known podcasters discussing how they discovered their unique podcasting voices. Panelists include: Sean Rameswaram, host of Sideshow from WNYC/PRI’s Studio 360; Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s Note to Self; Al Letson, host of Errthang Show and Reveal; and Lauren Lapkus of Earwolf’s With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus. The event is hosted by Anna Sale from WNYC’s Death, Sex & Money podcast.
The five accelerator finalists have been working with WNYC podcast producers who have been mentoring them and helping to hone their pitches. You can learn more about the finalists in this post from ONA.
Tune in Friday 3:30 PM Pacific to watch their pitches and find out who wins at: ona15.journalists.org/sessions/wnycpodcast/
Music Industry Revenues from Streaming up 6%
Many listeners love streaming music services, while many artists and other critics complain that the royalties paid to musicians are paltry, and don’t make up for declining sales in CDs and digital tracks. Yet, there’s no sign streaming is going away, so it helps to understand just how much money is at play.
The Recording Industry Association of America just released its mid-year revenue report [PDF], showing a 6% increase in streaming revenues over the first half of 2014, for a total of just over $1 billion. Making up 32% of all music revenues, streaming still trails digital downloads, which brought in $1.23 billion, although downloads declined 3.6%.
Ad-supported on-demand services, like Spotify’s free tier, brought in the smallest portion of streaming revenues, $163 million, but 27% more than last year. SoundExchange–which covers most online radio–paid out $387 million, which is 20% more than the first half of 2014. Not surprisingly, paid subscription services paid out the most, at $478 million, marking a pretty impressive 25% increase over the same period last year.
