Last week I had the privilege of being invited to share some of our current data on podcasting as a part of the ADM’s “Get The Download” event at ad:tech SF. This week, we are making our most recent Podcasting data publicly available at our site, and I will be expanding on the current state of the audience for podcasting at Podcamp NYC later this week (where I have the last slot of the day on Friday–nothing readies you to get your drink on like a big bucket o’ numbers, but I promise to be concise!) My job at Edison Media Research is to analyze data and tell the story behind the numbers-whether those stories are good, or bad. In the case of the current state of podcasting, the story is good, so I am pleased to be able to share it with you here.

This year, our third annual Podcast Consumer Revealed report (derived from the 2008 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia study) details significant gains in both audio and video podcast consumption. The audience for downloadable media is not only growing, but also represents a very attractive target for advertising. Our national data shows that more than one in five Americans have ever downloaded and watched/listened to a podcast, which breaks down further to 18% of Americans having ever listened to an audio podcast, and 16% having ever watched a video podcast. Those numbers are up sharply from last year’s figures, which were 13% and 11%, respectively. Nine percent of Americans 12+ have listened to an audio podcast in the past month, and those 23 million Americans are affluent, spend lots of time (and money!) online, and are increasingly more difficult to target with interruption advertising.

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I’ve been working on a few new sponsorship deals for my podcasts recently and so I was really excited to point my newest client towards the recent draft standards put out by the ADM. The client in question is looking at trying out new ways of acquiring customers through non-traditional advertising. He had a lot of questions about what I mean by a download and how I measure my podcasts statistics.

I said, “Great questions and I’ll answer them for you. First, I am a member of the Association for Downloadable Media and they have just released the first draft of their advertising and measurement standards. You should take a moment to go over to their site and take a look at the standards and definitions they use to define these important concepts.”

His response to me was classic.

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Just a quick reminder that the thirty day comments period has begun for the Advertisting Unit Standards and Download Measurement Guidelines that were released this week at ad:tech at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. We encourage ADM members and the public to review and provide comments by following the options here.  Comments period concludes May 16.

As you are all no doubt aware, the Advertising Committee of the ADM has been constructing a list of standards that podcasters and media planners can agree upon, which should further the acceptance of podcasting in the eyes of ad agencies, advertisers, and key executives in the industry. I felt this was a task we could accomplish easily and I began the discussions with the committee with no trepidation. 

Several weeks into the process, back in January, Susan Bratton threw me a curveball that didn’t break and was coming directly for my head: “When you complete the ad standards, they’ll be reviewed by the ADM Board and turned over to an Advertising Counsel for review.”

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 ”But you know I learned something today.  We thought we could make money on the internet.  But, while the internet is new and exciting for creative people, it hasn’t matured as a distribution mechanism to the extent that once you trade real and immediate opportunities for income, for the promise of future online revenue.  It will be a few years before digital distribution of media on the internet can be monetized to an extent that necessitates content producers to forego their fair value in more traditional media.” (Kyle Broflovski, South Park)

Believe it, this excerpt from a recent South Park episode called “Canada On Strike” jabbed at the user generated content community (primarily YouTube).  It was a hilarious show if you go for the South Park humor.

Aside from the fact that this was clearly a commentary on the recent writers strike, it got me to thinking about why things are not as rosy as they could otherwise be on the online monetization front.  The downloadable media community is experiencing a piece-part of a larger phenomenon, that revenues for advertising with online media progresses slowly.

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Elyse Tager shows support for ADM’s initiatives on this blog post and will be at the ADM Forum at ad:tech. Are you going?

Saturday March 29th 2008 at the Guardian newspaper, London, UK, in a seminar entitled Podcasting, Rights and Music the UK Podcasters Association hosted a seminar highlighting both the impact of legislation upon podcasters and media producers, and also outlining an established legal framework for fully licensed music podcasting.

Becky Hogge from the Open Rights Group lead a meaningful session on how TV regulation threatens to spill over to internet. Dean Whitbread from UKPA moderated a panel on music rights in which speakers from the MCPS-PRS (the UK performing rights organisation representing writers and publishers) and the head of digital for the Association of Independent Music laid out the now more affordable and less rigid schemes designed to give podcasters access to their extensive repertoire of music.

Read more here on UK Podcasters Association website.

2008 NAB Show

As part of it’s commitment to content on all platforms through a new effort called Content Central, the 2008 NAB Show is devoting an afternoon of panels examining original online content (April 16 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, full conference April 14-17). The sessions will  focus on companies and content creators that are mining the new possibilities created by the Internet, rather than using the Web as a delivery mechanism for existing programming.

Participants include Turner Sports Online, which provides its viewers with a unique online experience that parallels the broadcast content; My Damn Channel, whose Hollywood insider artists could have gone the traditional online broadcast route (with managers, agents, testing, etc.), but chose to connect with their audience directly and retain full creative control; and JibJab.com; AskANinja.com and Animax, successful online entertainment companies working outside the system.

Attached and below is the full list of Wednesday’s new media sessions, with the “disruptive” content filling the afternoon.

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