Podcast Survey Results; Black Podcasting Winners; CNN Podcast Layoffs; Cumulus Strikes Again

 Seven Findings From Cumulus Podcast Survey

  This week’s Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® blog outlines seven key findings on the podcast audience.

• Nearly half of all U.S. 25-54 time spent with talk/personality content now occurs via podcast, up 2X in five years.  

• Podcast listeners are super audio fans, spending six hours a day with audio, +43 percent more time than the average American.  

• The median age of the podcast audience holds at 34 despite massive audience growth. The podcast audience is twelve years younger than the median age of AM/FM radio listeners and 26 years younger than linear television, where audiences have a median age of 60.  

• The podcast audience profile is employed, upscale, and educated, according to Nielsen Scarborough.  

• Most podcast listening occurs at home throughout the day. While podcast audiences have soared, the vast majority of listening still occurs at home (67 percent).  

•   Nielsen Scarborough’s Podcast Recontact Study finds podcast listeners are overrepresented in the top ten markets and underrepresented in small to medium markets.  

• Over the last year, Spotify surpassed Apple as the top podcast listening platform. YouTube and Apple tie for second.  

Black Podcasting Awards Winners Announced

The Black Podcasting Awards held its third annual awards ceremony. Twenty-one awards were given to the best black podcasters of the year, voted by the award show committee.

The winner list is as follows:

Best Black Business Podcast: Talk To Achievers
Best Black Comedy Podcast: Jazmyn Gives Bad Advice
Best Black Culture Podcast:Culturati: Conversations with Kierna Mayo
Best Black Education Podcast: Parenting For The Culture
Best Black Fiction Podcast: Unmasked podcast
Best Black Film/TV Podcast: Black Love: The Interviews
Best Black Health and Wellness Podcast: Charm Words
Best Black History Podcast: Strong and Free
Best Black International Podcast: Ehky Ya Masr
Best Black LGBTQ Podcast: Queer News
Best Black Music Podcast: The Tables Might Wobble Podcast
Best Black News/Informative Podcast: Queer News
Best Black Political Podcast: The Brown Girls Guide to Politics
Best Black Sex Podcast: Inner Hoe Uprising
Best Black Relationship Podcast: Jazmyn Gives Bad Advice
Best Black Religion and Spirituality Podcast: SOL Affirmations with Karega and Felicia
Best New Black Podcast: Queer News
Best Black Podcast of the Year: Dates and Mates with Damona Hoffman

Congratulations to all the winners. 

 Ashley Carman reports on Podcast Shenanigans and CNN podcast layoffs

 Bloomberg journalist Ashley Carman has reported on two key stories this week:

First, podcast companies are buying short podcast plays within mobile game apps, causing official downloads of shows no one may be playing longer than twenty seconds. Here's how this bait and switch scheme works. Each time a player taps on one of these fleeting in-game ads—and wins some virtual loot for doing so—a podcast episode begins downloading on their device. The podcast company, in turn, can claim the gamer as a new listener to its program and add another coveted download to its overall tally.

 “Not all impressions are created equal,” said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University, in a Time magazine article. “I’m not saying [this tactic is] not ethical or illegal, but it raises issues. If someone is trying to play a game and that’s the purpose of this interaction, they may just be eager to play the game and are not that interested in the information being shared.”

Second, David Zaslov, the head of the Warner Bros. Discovery, which now owns CNN, is at it again. After shelving a $90 million Batgirl film to chase a tax break, Zaslav has now ordered the layoff of employees from CNN's podcast division. Already, Zaslav cut 100 employees from the ad sales department.

So far, as head of the newly merged company -- Discovery and Warner Bros. -- Zaslav seems to be following the old Jack Welch -- former CEO of GE -- playbook and cutting costs and slashing capital investment to chase profits and stock price gains.

What's next? HBO Max will become HBO Mini-Max? Does Robin the Boy Wonder have to worry that he will be laid off by Zaslav. 

"Afford Anything" Podcast joins Cumulus Podcast Network

I guess the Cumulus Media can literally afford anything because they just made a deal to add the Afford Anything podcast to their podcast network.

Creator and host Paula Pant helps listeners make smarter decisions about money, time, and life to align daily behaviors and habits with lifestyle goals. In the podcast, Pant also talks with guests about investing, travel, lifestyle design, financial independence, real estate, entrepreneurship, productivity, personal development, and the philosophy of money. 

Paula Pant is the founder of Afford Anything, a personal finance brand with more than 70,000 newsletter subscribers. She is the creator and host of the Afford Anything podcast, an award-winning show with more than 22 million downloads that was named by the New Your Times as one of the “Seven podcasts your wallet will love.”

Pant is a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism and an MA candidate at Columbia University. Pant won the Plutus Award (the highest award in personal finance digital media) for Podcast of the Year in 2017 as well as the Plutus Award’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the age of 34.

Pant now has the cloud of Cumulus Media over her head. Hope it was worth it.