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Khurrum Malik, Head of Advertising Business Marketing, Explains Why Publishers Should Embrace Podcasts

April 8, 2022

Over the past few years, Spotify has unveiled more and more tools for enterprise publishers to embark on a new endeavor: audio content. When wading into new content formats such as audio, these companies are looking for two main things: to engage and grow their audiences and to expand their monetization strategies. Spotify’s podcast-hosting platform Megaphone enables publishers to create, monetize, measure, and grow their podcast businesses. Megaphone also powers the Spotify Audience Network, connecting advertisers with immersed listeners.

As we’ve increased these offerings, the number of publishers taking advantage of them has increased as well. Recently at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, Khurrum Malik, Spotify’s Head of Advertising Business Marketing, moderated a panel called “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio.” It featured representatives from Vox Media, Paramount Global, and Sony Music, all of which are Megaphone publishers. Each one spoke about how they built podcasts into their content strategies, what they were seeing in terms of audience engagement, and how they looked to the future. 

Spotify’s Khurrum Malik moderating “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio”

“I was there to facilitate conversation around how these leaders are innovating and engaging new audiences through podcast content,” Khurrum explained to For the Record. “How are the trends that they’re seeing serving their listeners? How can they work with other pieces of content and IP [intellectual property] at their company? Are they making podcast-first content and then expanding that into a potential video show? Are they taking video shows and making podcasts from them? That’s what I was there to help them explore.”

Read on for more insights from the panel and Spotify’s work with publishers from Khurrum himself. 

At Spotify, we’ve been thinking about the importance and impact of audio for content creators for a long time. What has adoption been like among enterprise publishers?

Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are major global publisher brands that have been leaders in the space when it comes to audio content investment and innovation. For them, IP—often in the form of television or video content—has been key to their strategies. As they turn some of that IP into podcasts as well, it’s now easier than ever before to expand their podcast monetization with Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network.

This stacks up to the numbers we unveiled during 2021 Wrapped: Our listeners spent 78% more time listening to podcasts in 2021 than in 2020. And when it comes to shows hosted on Megaphone (like the ones these publishers are creating), there’s been a 67% increase in the number of shows added. Recently, we’ve seen the addition of enterprise publishers like FOX Audio Network and Bababam join the ranks as well. 

What are some of the ways Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are integrating or thinking about integrating audio into their suites of offerings?

For CBS, now Paramount Global, it was interesting to hear how they are thinking about their existing television IP like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert as potential for podcasts. It was interesting to hear about how they’re translating TV content to this audio-only format. 

At Vox Media they’re mimicking some of their long-form editorial as podcasts. One show, Pivot, featuring NYU professor Scott Gallaway and reporter Kara Swisher, became a dual podcast that’s really starting to grow. And the big thing for Vox Media is always building content franchises. So in this instance, they’re thinking about the quality of the podcast, how much breadth they can get with it, how to scale it. And they’ve started to take that podcast and expand it into events. So the Pivot podcast has leadership events, for example, and a community that Vox Media is using to connect with people in the technology space. 

What jumped out for Sony Music was how their global footprint of music is going to allow them to move into podcasts that are regional-specific. They haven’t taken the opportunity to do that yet, but Emily said she could see how Sony could create podcasts with artists as hosts and build communities around those. She kept talking about doing more internationally, because the footprint globally is so big.

Spotify Is Building on Megaphone’s Capabilities With the Acquisition of Whooshkaa

December 16, 2021

Over the last two years, Spotify has been focused on modernizing digital audio advertising to drive growth for creators and publishers while delivering impact for advertisers. In November 2020, we acquired Megaphone, which enabled us to offer podcast publishers innovative tools to help them earn more from their content. Throughout 2021, we unveiled new features for Streaming Ad Insertion, unlocked podcast ad buying in Spotify Ad Studio, and introduced the Spotify Audience Network. Since the launch of the Audience Network, we’ve seen a double-digit increase in fill rates and a double-digit lift in CPMs for opted-in Megaphone publishers. 

Simply put, by modernizing ad monetization for podcasts, we’ve been able to help enterprise podcast publishers grow their businesses, with nearly one in five Spotify advertisers now participating in the marketplace.

We’re committed to continuing to help publishers worldwide grow their podcast businesses. That’s why today we’re announcing our acquisition of Whooshkaa, an Australia-based podcast technology platform that gives independent creators, publishers, broadcasters, and brands a cost effective, end-to-end platform to host, distribute, monetize, and track on-demand audio. Whooshkaa offers radio broadcasters a specialized tool that makes it simple to turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast content. As part of the acquisition, we plan to soon integrate this technology into the Megaphone suite. 

Here’s what it means for publishers and advertisers.

Supercharging publishing

Megaphone, the podcast platform of choice for leading enterprise publishers like AdLarge Media, the Wall Street Journal, and the Australian Radio Network, offers a comprehensive suite of powerful podcasting tools that can help publishers create, monetize, and measure their podcast businesses alongside our white-glove customer service. With the integration of Whooshkaa’s broadcast-to-podcast technology into Megaphone, radio broadcasters will be able to more easily and quickly turn their existing audio content into a podcast and access Megaphone’s industry-leading, differentiated suite of tools and technology.

Growing audience for advertisers

Audiences worldwide are tuned in to digital audio at record rates, with no signs of slowing. As the world’s most popular audio platform, Spotify is the place for advertisers to reach them.

With the Spotify Audience Network, advertisers are able to target audiences listening across our network of podcasts, including Spotify Originals & Exclusives, and third-party content via Megaphone and Anchor. Integrating Whooshkaa’s innovative broadcast-to-podcast technology means we’ll be able to bring even more third-party content into the Spotify Audience Network, helping advertisers to connect with even more audiences.

Just getting started

We believe we’re on the precipice of immense growth for the entire digital audio industry. To learn more about what the acquisition means for radio broadcasters, check out Megaphone.FM.

 

Forward-Looking Statements

We would like to caution you that certain of the above statements represent “forward-looking statements” as defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The words “will,” “expect,” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements we make regarding the potential benefits of the acquisition and the anticipated timing of the closing of the acquisition. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and include this statement for purposes of complying with the safe harbor provisions. Such forward-looking statements involve significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our historical experience and our present expectations or projections, including but not limited to the risks as set forth in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof.