"Podcast advertising is pandemic-proof," as per Westwood One and Magellan AI's 2020 ad analysis. 

Highlights: 

• While April 2020 saw a dip in ad occurrences (-12%), recovery began in June.
• By September, total podcast ad occurrences were up 58%, as compared to January.
• Podcast ads have a low ratio of ads to content. The study shows that "podcast over-commercialism has not arrived" yet. 
• Magellan AI released Really Good Podcast Ads: a curation of podcast ads on which listeners can search for ads by podcast, genre, and brand names.

Resources on Podcast Advertising: 

• Podcast hosting platform Buzzsprout released their "Ultimate Guide to Podcast Ads in 2021." The guide covers podcast advertising end-to-end, from definitions to cost structures. 
• Sounds Profitable released an article on how to buy host-read ads, "effectively at-scale." The article uses the example of "The Jordan Harbinger Show" which invests nearly $40,000 per month on host-read ads. 

Apple launched "Time to Walk," an audio walking experience for Fitness+ subscribers on Apple Watch. Their press release does not refer to these as podcasts. 

More: 

• The audio series will center around guests "offering inspiration and entertainment to help users keep moving." Original content will release every Monday, through the end of April.
• Episodes are a mix of storytelling and music with pictures that appear on the user's Apple Watch screen. These will be automatically downloaded on Apple Watches with a Fitness+ subscription.
• The experience launched with four episodes from guests: country musician Dolly Parton, NBA player Draymond Green, musician Shawn Mendes, and Emmy Award winner Uzo Aduba. 

Earwolf's "The Office Ladies" was voted Podcast of the Year at the 2021 iHeart Podcast Awards. The virtual award show aired last week on Thursday. 

Winners include: 

• Baratunde Thurston, host of "How to Citizen" won the Social Impact Icon Award. The interview-style podcast focuses on "reimagining the word 'citizen' [...] and reminds us how to wield our collective power." 
• Other Icon Award winners were Serial Productions for Audio Pioneer and QCode for Innovator. 
• Amena Brown received the first-ever Seneca Women Podcast Award for her show "Her with Amena Brown." Brown promises a "living room conversation" with female guests from Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian communities. 
• Here's the complete list of winners across categories including Comedy, Business & Finance, Crime, Food, and Pop Culture. 

PODS ON THE BLOCK

• "This Being Human" is a new show produced by the team at Aga Khan Museum, North America's "first and only museum dedicated to showcasing the arts of Muslim cultures." Host and journalist Abdul-Rehman Malik will interview "cultural luminaries" including Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The first episode is out. 
• "REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids" is a new weekly show for children, based on questions about science, astronomy, and space from children. It features interviews with scientists and at-home experiments. Today's episode asks "Is Time Travel Possible?"
• Civic engagement podcast "Future Hindsight" is back for season 13, focusing on "systemic racism and structural inequality." Through a series of interviews, host Mila Atmost examines "how America sets its minorities up for failure" and what the Biden administration can do to right these wrongs. The latest episode features Robert P. Jones, author of "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity." 

QUICK HITS

• See how consumer electronics brand Nomad went headless with their existing Shopify store to increase their ecommerce conversion rate by 25%.*
• Spotify released a collection of exclusive audiobooks. These are mostly classics including Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" narrated by David Dobrik, Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" read by Hillary Swank, and Jane Austen's "Persuasion" read by Cynthia Erivo. 
• Jack Rhysider, host of cybersecurity and hacking show "Darknet Diaries," released his podcast's stats from 2020. The post compares performance from 2019 to 2020 and details his marketing endeavors. A Redditor said this is a "great inside look into the challenges of podcasting. 
• The "dot fm" websites with most visitors last year belonged to podcasting, not radio companies.
• Rephonic mapped data from the "Listeners Also Subscribed To" section in Apple Podcasts on to a 3D graph called the Podcast Audience Graph. This tells you which neighboring shows your listeners are listening to. 
• What are the costs of inefficiencies in your product release cycle? Read how top companies save over $1M each year.*

*This is sponsored content.