PRX’s Radiotopia ended its Kickstarter last Friday at $620,412, which is 148% more than its initial goal of $250,000. The money will help fund four new podcasts–three hosted by women–along with financing a development fund for more new shows. On Tuesday Apple reported that the Serial podcast from This American Life has become the fastest-downloaded […]
Alex Blumberg’s podcasting company Gimlet Media just crowd-funded $200,00 in less than two days. Only the company didn’t use Kickstarter, Indiegogo or another familiar platform. Instead Gimlet invited qualified investors to become actual equity stakeholders under a provision of the 2012 JOBS Act. Gimlet ran this campaign using the help of a new platform called […]
I would be remiss if I did not mention yesterday’s debut of Wolfpop, the new popular culture podcast network from Earwolf that is curated by actor/comedian/podcaster Paul Scheer. I also must point out that I work for Earwolf/Wolfpop parent company Midroll Media, and specifically worked on the promotional campaign. That said, I do think it’s […]
First off, if you didn’t catch the big news that streaming music platform Deezer is acquiring Stitcher be sure to read my take on what it means for podcasting. I should also note that former WFMU host Tom Scharpling has announced that he is bringing back The Best Show “sometime in November.” This coincides with […]
This morning the global #2 streaming music service Deezer announced that it is acquiring Stitcher, the audio platform focused on talk, entertainment and podcasts. In an interview Deezer Chief Marketing Officer Beth Murphy explained that the deal is intended to help introduce more talk listeners to streaming music, while also provide music listeners with talk […]
The business of podcasting continues to attract serious coverage, which I report here each week. This week coverage comes from the Columbia Journalism Review and PBS’s MediaShift. There’s good reason for this attention: the business of podcasting is booming. This is a good thing for listeners, producers, and even stations The CJR piece focuses exclusively […]
Over the summer I mentioned a filer in the Federal Communications Commission’s proceeding on net neutrality who, identifying himself as a Internet radio host, complained that the unreliability of his broadband account forced him to resort to a more expensive ISDN line. “Neither my telco, Smart City nor Comcast can provide fast consistent speeds for […]
Last week Edison Research highlighted some data from its Share of Ear study which indicates that “podcasting is bigger than you think.” Although the Share of Ear study shows that podcasting only represents 2% of all audio listening in the US, those who do consume podcasts are “super listeners” who listen to more audio overall. […]
On Monday the so-called podcast patent troll, Personal Audio, won in court against CBS. A Marshall, Texas jury found that the television network had infringed on Personal Audio’s podcasting patent, rejecting CBS’s argument that the patent was not valid to begin with. The jury awarded damages of $1.3 million to Personal Audio. The Electronic Frontier […]
Alex Blumberg is trying to launch a podcasting start-up. Appropriately, he is podcasting his journey in his new show, also appropriately named StartUp. Blumberg is not just any podcaster. His resume includes a 15-year stint as a producer on This American Life and co-founding NPR’s Planet Money. That means he takes a well-produced, narrative approach […]
