Category: Misc
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RAJAR “MIDAS” Winter 2025
A couple of weeks after the regular RAJAR release, and we now have the most recent MIDAS release from RAJAR. First, a reminder that this uses a different methodology to the regular RAJAR release, based on a sample of 1,538 former RAJAR diarists who completed a 7-day online diary. 96% of the population consume some…
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Media Mergers/Takeovers
There are three different media mergers or takeovers happening right now that could seismically upset the existing media ecosystem to a greater or lesser extent. These are: While each of these three is different, in scale, and importance, whether they go ahead seems to me to rest on how you define the markets they operate…
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Spotify’s Top 50 UK Podcasts
Spotify Unwrapped is the company’s big promotional push at the end of each year, which dutifully allows listeners across the world to share their listening habits from the previous year (well – 11 months). As well as providing listeners with their own personal lists, Spotify also publishes a lot of cumulative data. Here’s what Spotify…
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“Half the people on the planet will be AI…”
Huh? This is a quote from the CEO of a new podcast company in a piece in the Hollywood Reporter. Jeanine Wright was formerly Chief Operating Officer at Wondery and is now heading up Inception Point AI which basically plans to flood the market with AI generated podcasts which might be produced for less than…
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Ice Road: Vengeance
I have watched this so that you don’t have to. Ice Road: Vengeance is one of those films that once upon a time would have been on the shelves of Blockbuster as you quizzically looked at the box, trying to remember whether you could recall the film’s cinema release. You couldn’t, because it didn’t get…
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What Is Adobe Doing About Audio?
I can’t help thinking that Adobe isn’t giving audio as much attention as it might. More specifically, the software giant is not giving its audio products as much attention as it should. Adobe makes a lot of software, and much of it is available to subscribers of their Creative Cloud bundle. I’ve been paying for…
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Archiving Podcasts
This week, it was announced that WTF with Marc Maron would be ending its run after 16 years. The show will end sometime in the autumn (aka ‘fall’) having produced more than 1,600 episodes over that time. Maron’s podcast was one of the big early titles, and it’s fair to say that although Maron was…
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The Infinite Dial UK 2025 – Teaser
There is a wealth of podcast data coming out for the UK at the moment. During this week’s Podcast Show, Edison Research’s Senior Director of Research, Gabriel Soto, and AdsWizz’s Regional Director, UK & Ireland, Ollie Chadwick presented some early findings from The Infinite Dial UK 2025 survey. This is a report that Edison runs…
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David Lynch
The first time I watched a David Lynch film I was 14. Dune had just come out, and I was a science fiction loving teenager who’d only just read Frank Herbert’s opus with a film tie-in cover. I lapped up the film, warts and all. Granted, Sting’s golden underpants didn’t quite sit right with me,…
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Sky and Warner Bros. Discovery Make Peace
Regular readers will know that I’ve been fascinated by what has been going on between Sky and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). In short, WBD is going to launch Max in the UK in 2026, but for many years now, there has been an output deal between WBD’s HBO and Sky. This has meant that massive…
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Did Podcasts Win the US Presidential Election?
In short: we don’t know. There have been several pieces that speak of the presumed importance of podcasts in the 2024 US Presidential Election. Even Elon Musk says as much. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Let’s start with a few figures. 47% of Americans listen to podcasts every month, and 34%…
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When Should Big Concerts Go On Sale?
Yes – two blog posts about an impending gig that I won’t be going to is probably two too many. But one of the things I’ve always wondered about is when should a concert put tickets to major concerts on sale? You’ve got to assume that tickets to an Oasis gig in 2025 won’t be…