Cheers ESPN evening featured new shows from Wondery and SiriusXM, as well as revealing industry statistics.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) had its 2024 Podcast Upfront in New York on Thursday, May 9. IAB gathered brands, agencies, and media buyers to deliver an exclusive look at upcoming podcast programming.
Wondery, iHeartPodcasts, Acast, NPR, SiriusXM Media, Libsyn Ads, Paramount Audio, Seekr, WNYC Studios, POD Digital Media, Cumulus Media, Better Collective, The Daily Wire, Claritas, Sonoro, YAP Media Network, and Cheers ESPN Podcasts all gave presentations at the event, which The Hollywood Reporter sponsored.
Jenna Kutcher of The Goal Digger podcast and Rachel Rodgers of Hello Seven, both from YAP Media Network, hosted the day. During the panels, it was revealed that Edison Research reports that 135 million people listen to podcasts on a monthly basis, with 60 percent of adults doing so. Meanwhile, Acast reports that 36% of individuals have never listened to a podcast, indicating that there is still untapped potential for audience growth.
The IAB created the day’s schedule with the goal of reflecting “pressing and current themes” in the podcasting market, such as expected revenue growth, developing advertising techniques, and video podcasts.
“You’re talking about an industry that’s been on a really impressive hot streak, both from an advertiser interest perspective, from a listener interest perspective, and from a revenue perspective,” Matt Shapo, IAB’s director of digital audio and video, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
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“What we did this year, as we were preparing thematically, was thinking about ways that we could continue to, from an editorial perspective, highlight the strengths of the medium for listeners and advertisers alike,” he continues.
Unsurprisingly, various networks debuted multiple new shows, including Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show, which was previewed by a show-stealing video message broadcast at the Paramount Audio event.
The former and current weekly Daily Show host joked throughout the video about what kind of advertising he’d be interested in (snacks and outerwear) and why he couldn’t attend the event (“When they told me about it, I didn’t believe there was an upfront for podcasts”).
SiriusXM announced a future Cheers ESPN podcast called Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes), which will be co-hosted by show alums Danson and Harrelson. The show will premiere in just over a month, on June 12.
Other significant announcements included Wondery’s The Offensive Line, presented by social media star Annie Agar, and Cheers ESPN’s new podcast Searching for Hobey Baker, which tells the story of the college hockey player and World War I fighter pilot. The podcast will be broadcast in June, coinciding with Pride Month, and will “re-contextualize the hockey legend through the lens of his lesser known struggles as a queer man in the early 20th century,” according to a release.
Overall, the IAB considers podcasting a unique medium for advertisers and consumers because to the unique relationship between hosts and audiences. “You’re specifically choosing one-on-one time with that content, as opposed to any other type of content,” says Chris Bruderle, IAB’s vice president of industry insights and content strategy.
Looking back on this year’s upfront, IAB identified a few noteworthy insights. “Podcast is now a multi-platform medium,” Bruderle explains. “It is not simply an audio medium. “It is both a video and an event medium.”
Bruderle stated that ad revenue growth for the year was 5%. According to Bruderle, that number is expected to rise for a variety of reasons, including video and events, with the IAB estimating a 12% increase.
Cheers ESPN Looking ahead from Thursday’s upfront, the IAB sees industry-wide patterns that will likely evolve over the coming year. According to IAB executives, one of the most important considerations is a genuine shift in thinking regarding which podcasts advertisers will want to invest in. Shapo stated that advertisers are starting to realize that some of the most effective advertising can be done on smaller events with highly engaged audiences.
“We are finally beginning to have a mindset shift, where buyers don’t necessarily think they have to only buy the top 10, 50, 100 shows that they’ve heard of,” Shapo explains. According to him, “You might get more sales out of a 7,000 downloads-a-month show, then you get out of a 100,000 downloads-a-month show, because it’s just the perfect environment in which to share that message.”
