Audio4cast

Wizzard Media, the largest podcast network, has made it easier for broadcasters to monetize podcasts with its newly announced partnership with Ando Media for ad measurement and ad insertion. Wizzard provides hosting and ad insertion services to podcast content providers, and broadcasts millions of podcast impressions each day. They currently distribute about a third of the top 400 podcasts on Itunes (the main source for podcast content).

Podcast Content on Wizzard Media Network

“Podcast audiences comprise the smartest, most product-aware consumer demographic in the world, with most downloads passingthrough Apple’s iTunes service. We’re excited to work with Ando Media and their ad partners to target specific products to the right buyers,” said Wizzard CEO, Chris Spencer. Non-intrusive advertisements will be stitched to the beginning, middle or end of participating audio podcast programming in the Wizzard network that now includes over 17,000 content producers and over 1.2 billion download requests per year.

Interest in listening to podcasts is growing, according to research by Pew Internet and American Life Project. Nearly one out of every five adults (19%) have downloaded and listened to a podcast, and that number is up from 12% in 2006. (See chart from my earlier post here.) Wizzard Media hosts content  and received an average of 2.75 million requests for podcast episodes per day in 2007, a nearly 300% increase over the daily average in 2006. WCBS sees 700-800,000 downloads a month and significant revenue from its podcast content. (reported earlier here.)

Podcasts are an excellent opportunity for broadcasters, who already produce lots of unique content, to connect with their audience in a highly engaging form. Because the listener selects, subscribes, and downloads the content to listen, the content-to-listener connection is greater. Podcasts should be sold as a more engaging, hyper-targeted  medium. Distributors like Wizzard Media provide easy platforms for audio content to be distributed and monetized.