PodMov Daily: Tuesday, July 14

Episode 241: Testing, One Two-sday

The British Podcast Awards 2020: A Look at the Winners

This weekend’s fourth annual British Podcast Awards honored a wide variety of outstanding shows and creators. Per the Evening Standard, the “star-studded digital event” gathered the best in the industry to celebrate all things audio. Brown Girls Do It Too took home the top honor, Audioboom Podcast of the Year.

Over eighty international and UK judges chose the winners. BGDIT charmed with its “highly entertaining, intimate conversations to open up wider discussion around culture, gender and modern society.” Hosts Poppy Jay, Rubina Pabani and Roya Eslami were presented with the award by last year's winner, George The Poet.

This year’s Spotify Podcast Champion is Renay Richardson of Broccoli Content. Her acclaimed Equality In Audio Pact has made waves in the industry with its proposal of actionable pledges for companies to adopt. Richardson is the keynote speaker for today’s SHIFT event — tune in for insights about audio's better future.

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Buying Power: SiriusXM Acquires Stitcher for $325 Million

SiriusXM has reached a deal to acquire Stitcher for $325 million, report Ingrid Lunden and Anthony Ha of TechCrunch. The deal comes less than a month after SiriusXM’s purchase of Simplecast, and will net Stitcher owner E.W. Scripps “a return of more than double Scripps’ investment in podcasting.”

“The deal underscores some key trends in the area of podcasting,” Lunden and Ha observe. Namely, more companies based in music streaming, e.g., Spotify and iHeartMedia, are going all in on podcasts. Soon, “thousands of podcasts will move to the SiriusXM stable,” including Freakonomics Radio and WTF with Marc Maron.

With Stitcher comes its mobile listening app, the Midroll Media ad network, and Earwolf. SiriusXM says that with its satellite radio audience, plus Pandora, plus Stitcher, it will win “‘the largest addressable audience’ in the United States for digital audio.” The deal is expected to finalize in the third quarter.

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Here's what else is going on:

• Come celebrate: Today, beginning at 10:30 am CT, join us for SHIFT, PM University's kickoff virtual event. All members of the free Podcast Movement University platform are invited for conversations, networking, and keynotes from industry leaders like Renay Richardson.

• Fantasy draft: Tomorrow Audible will release the first installment of The Sandman. Known as “the greatest epic in the history of comic books,” the acclaimed series by British author Neil Gaiman has been adapted with a powerhouse supporting cast and rich sound design.

• Fact check: Kate Bueckert of CBC News introduces Amplifly, a new podcast network dedicated to peer-reviewed academic work. A joint project between two Canadian universities, Amplifly will develop robustly researched content “in an age of information hyper abundance.”

• Bounce house: The fourth annual IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report forecasts industry growth to drop by half, reports Anousha Sakoui of the LA Times. However, there’s still “a chance to make up ground this year,” given that in the US, Q4 tends to generate the strongest numbers.