Join Us For “The Podcast Consumer Revealed” Webcast

Included in the mission statement of the ADM you’ll find, “To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards, research, education and advocacy to all those involved in downloadable media…” In keeping with that mission we present “The Podcast Consumer Revealed – 2009,” webcast on May 21st, 2009, at 1:00 EST.

In this public webcast, ADM Member Tom Webster from Edison Research will  present the fourth iteration of this widely-cited, authoritative look at the growing audience for audio and video podcasts. The event will be free and requires pre-registration at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/502857363.

In the recently published Edison Research/ Arbitron 2009 update to their “Infinite Dial” study, results offered up hints of good news for podcasters. With awareness of podcasting increasing from 37% to 43%, and the percentage of Americans who have ever listened to an audio podcast growing to 22%, podcast consumption appears ready to break into the mainstream. According to Edison Research’s Tom Webster, “If you are in the business of creating downloadable media, this is key, significant research that you won’t want to miss.” He goes on to say, “This report and webcast will look at demographics and usage, key audience behaviors, content preferences, and attitudes towards advertising and sponsorships.”

The webcast will last one hour and will include time for your questions. Participants will also be able to download the presentation prior to its wider public release.

Please join us for this ADM event.

Why do they call it “Ad Insertion” when it can be so much more?

One of the more exciting technological developments for downloadable media is the use of systems to either dynamically insert or assemble content inside of primary content that has already been published.  Many of ADM’s corporate members offer a version of this technology, and many of our publisher members (including me) use insertion within their own networks.  

Usually this is called advertising insertion, because the primary intended use is to embed advertising campaigns within network content, so as to optimize monetization.  This has many benefits, including the ability to assemble and dis-assemble campaigns without laborious and expensive editing.  This post is not about the merits and distinctions between available insertion technologies; while many providers go about this process differently, the end result is generally the same:  ads are placed and at end of campaign they are taken out of future downloads.

As you might imagine,  we tend to use the metaphors associated with advertising to describe the system. For example, you click the “advertising” section of a web-service, run a “campaign,” select an “advertiser,” upload then schedule an “ad.” All this makes perfect sense if you use the service to execute ads within your network.

But we have realized that as with most descriptions, they have their limits, and many customers use the insertion system for reasons that extend far beyond advertising. While the language we use to describe the service might not jibe with these uses, they are both possible and very effective. Here are a few examples of uses that publishers have employed:

“Bumper” Insertion
Audio and video episodes often include bumpers at the front and back of shows. They are standard introductions and ending segments that signal the beginning or end of an episode. They tend to be consistent across all episodes. Organizations are using the insertion feature to publish these bumpers automatically. Why? It allows an organization to switch out bumpers at any point in time, without the hassle of re-editing legacy content. So if your content is “evergreen,” or relevant to the audience regardless of it’s age, you can freshen-up old content to feel current and lively.

New Research on the Podcasting Audience

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.

UK Podcasters Establish Legal Music Podcasting

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.

Downloadable Media, Education, and Teacher Benefits

I posted a few weeks ago about my views on the benefits to teachers found in podcasting and downloadable media. These benefits reach both the teachers and the students.

This week, I thought I would focus on the benefits specifically for teachers at all levels of education in using downloadable media. First, though, let’s go back in time to the old way of presenting multimedia lesson segments.

I’m probably dating myself but, do you remember watching filmstrips in school? The teacher would load the film strip into the projector and then play a cassette tape or vinyl record to provide audio content.

The narrator would speak and then a chime or beep would sound that signaled the person running the projector to advance the filmstrip one frame. Then came the video tape, DVD, powerpoint, etc. You get the picture.

The thing is, I’m sure that there were technophobes back in the day who didn’t like that filmstrip thing. They said that the students didn’t need it, that if the old method of lecture, repetition, and rote memory were sufficient.