As podcasting continues to flourish , not only in popularity as on-demand content but also with the sheer breadth of choices now available, DGital Media has served up a steady stream of headlines with its recent high-profile partnerships. Recent agreements in the sports space alone span from Sports Illustrated and Learfield to talent such as Tony Kornheiser who join the lineup of programming partners that includes Yahoo Sports, IMG, Fox Sports Digital, The Vertical and UFC.
Cynopsis Sports asked Chris Corcoran, Chief Content Officer of DGitial Media, about the platform’s growth, partnerships and how advertisers are working with their partners.
On the growth of podcasting: I would almost position this question towards the explosion of on demand “content”, and not singling out audio in this rapid hunger for content how and when people want it. Audio, excitingly, happens to be a key part of this on demand growth and one of the hottest trending mediums… period. While DGital Media has partnered with some of the most influential minds and brands in sports, like Adrian Wojnarowski, Peter King, Tony Kornheiser, the UFC, Fox Sports Digital, JJ Redick, Yahoo Sports, SI and others, all of which we are extremely honored and proud to be with, we have also worked closely with other influential brands and talent outside of sports like Recode, Kara Swisher, Peter Kafka, Fortune and others. With sports, we feel that we have a platform that continues to grow at a rapid pace with a premium level of programming, giving fans and advertisers something very exclusive and compelling.
On the marketplace: Our company is positioned well in the marketplace, meaning that the ingredients that make up our leadership team are rooted deep in the audio industry. Most of our leadership team spent more than a decade in similar top positions at Dial Global/WestwoodOne and we use this very much to our advantage; this new world of audio in which we are well positioned allows us to understand the trends of audio listeners. What sports radio offers is very different from what a lot of our sports podcasts offer to fans, and this is a very healthy position. Fans have so many outlets to find game reactions, opinions, callers asking for managers to be fired, etc.
On leveraging college sports: College sports is definitely a key growth category as we just announced our wonderful partnership with Learfield Sports, a partnership that we view as another key part of where we’re going as a company. When you’re talking about programs like Alabama, UNC, Oklahoma and others, there is a real opportunity to tap into some of the most rabid and loyal fan bases in the world, and deliver insightful and intimate conversations around these programs that you can’t find anywhere else.
On sponsors: Advertisers have a lot of choices and opportunity to connect fans to their brands these days. And podcasting is still relatively new to a lot of advertisers, and we are just scratching the surface. With that said, we have had some incredible partnerships with many brands that are deep in the podcast space, because podcasts offer the intimate connection between the brands and the talent that listeners seem to be extremely comfortable with and react positively to. What these brands are starting to see, is something that we’ve recognized and been so passionate for a while… that fans are seeking this content out and those listeners are hearing one of their favorite talent/personalities speaking about a sponsorship in an extremely intimate and passionate way, without the clutter. These sponsorships are very organic and natural to the flow of the episodes without causing tune out.
