According to a new report released last week, the Swedish advertising market for podcasts is set to grow by 40% in 2022, despite recording a growth of 60% in 2021. In total, market turnover amounted to SEK 282 million in 2021 – set to increase to SEK 400 million by the end of 2022. This entails that podcast is expected to be the fastest growing category of all in 2022. However, podcast advertising still accounts for a minor share of the total ad market – in 2022 1,1%.

Mediavision will soon release the first update on the Nordic pay market for podcasts 2022 – stay tuned!

In the US, advertising spend on digital audio (including audio streaming and podcasts) is approaching parity with investments in traditional radio. This represents an extraordinary growth, just three years ago Digital Audio stood for merely a third of the market. The increase is being driven in great part by ad spend on Podcasts, which grew +68% year over year in 2021 and now accounts for 8% of all Digital Audio spend. Further, Podcasts now lead all media categories in CPMs at an average of USD 26, topping even premium video ads on OTT, which have an average CPM of USD 25.

Spotify is testing a new discovery feed for podcasts, which appear to be based on technology from the platform Podz that the company acquired last year. The podcast discovery platform showed its users a vertical feed, similar to the setup on Tiktok, based on their preferences.

In other Spotify news – the new podcast series ‘Batman Unburied’, a thriller delving into the dark recesses of Bruce Wayne’s psyche and featuring classic Batman villains, is set to launch worldwide on Spotify on the 3^rd of May.

Further, YouTube has disclosed information on its future plans for podcasting – including tighter integration, monetisation, and analytics for podcasts. First, YouTube is looking at ingesting podcast RSS feeds directly, with a new podcasts homepage to be at youtube.com/podcasts. Second, YouTube is to feature audio ads, both sold by Google and other partner. Lastly, YouTube will supply analytics, particularly “new metrics for audio-first creators”.

On Monday, Elon Musk purchased a USD 2.9 billion stake in Twitter – which made him the biggest shareholder. Twitter’s stock rose 24.1% and thereby became the best performing stock on the S&P 500 after the announcement.

Then, on Tuesday – news broke that Musk was set to be part of the Twitter board. Under the agreement, Musk is prohibited from amassing more than 14.9% of Twitter’s stock as long as he remains a director on the board — forestalling the possibility for at least the next two years that Musk will mount an effort to take over the company.

The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, stepped down as CEO of the company in November 2021 – but will remain on the board until sometime in May. Parag Agrawal was appointed as the new CEO.

Following these announcements, Musk took to Twitter to poll users about adding an edit-button to the service – and Twitter confirmed on Tuesday that it is indeed working on a way to edit tweets. The editing option will be tested out in Twitter Blue Labs, a corner of the platform’s premium subscription product where it tries out new features. Twitter Blue subscribers can expect to see an edit tweet button “in the coming months,” according to the company.

Kun få danskere forventes at opsige Netflix efter prisstigning – Flatpanels

Netflix faces Nordic challenges – Broadband TV News

Swedish music subscriptions grew 7% in 2021 – High Resolution Audio

Så mycket dyrare har det blivit att strömma film och serier – SVT 

Tufft år för svenska ljudboksbranschen – tillväxttakten halverades – Dagens Industri 

Could TikTok spur growth of AVOD in the Nordics? – Senal News 

Bråket visar varför Spotify behöver Rogan – SVD

Poddarna – makten och pengarna – SR 

Därför kom Clubhouse-hysterin för ett år sedan – och därför dog den – SR

Hushållen tecknar fler abonnemang – rekordsiffror för S-SVOD under 2021 – Dagens Media