Spotify’s Building A New Brand Safety Tool + 4 more stories for June 16, 2022

This week on The Download: Spotify’s building a new brand safety tool, Google Podcast removed an episode under suspicious conditions, and Apple tells us how their podcast search works. It’s been a rollercoaster of a week for Acast news. Let’s start with the positive. This Monday Acast announced a global Audio Pride Parade, celebrating Pride month for the LGBTQIA+ community via a series of podcast live shows in major cities across the world. Senior Partner Manager Alexandria Fuller said: “It’s also one day where you feel safe to be yourself. With hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people on the rise, we’re always wondering when it’s safe to hold hands. But there’s safety in numbers at Pride, and it’s really freeing.” Fuller’s heartfelt blog about the importance of celebrating queerness was undercut the next morning. Tuesday Acast announced a partnership with Spring to provide on-demand merch options for producers hosting on Acast, including Spring’s so-called Mint on Demand NFT service.  According to Hot Pod, most of the 11 podcasts in the pilot program have elected to not use Mint on Demand. Also on Tuesday, multiple tweets were posted providing evidence Acast is data mining email addresses tucked in the RSS feeds of podcasts to send an advertisement email suggesting the podcaster would be better off switching to Acast. So far podcasters on Podbean, Captivate, Blubrry, and Transistor have reported being targeted by this aggressive marketing push.  Transistor co-founder Justin Jackson has reported Acast to their email service provider, who Jackson reports have said this cold-calling approach is against their terms of service. Jackson - who previously worked for an email company - considers the Acast emails to be illegal under Canadian law and has filed a formal complaint under the government arm created to enforce Canada’s Anti Spam Law (also know as CASL).  A spokesperson for Acast told Podnews the emails targeting podcast of competitor hosting services are “... part of our continuing marketing strategy, which we don’t currently plan to change.” At Sounds Profitable, our goals are to lift up and improve the entire industry. Based on the actions and response from Acast, we do not feel like they share those goals. Until Acast discontinues these practices, we will no longer be covering Acast in Sounds Profitable or The Download. --- This Wednesday Integral Ad Sciences announced a joint project with Spotify to develop a new third-party brand safety tool for podcast advertisers, with UM Worldwide signed on to be the first company in line to stress-test the project. From the press release: “The companies will embark on a rigorous analysis to help the industry understand the tools and resources necessary to effectively deliver brand safety in podcasting and digital audio writ large.” Given IAS already has these tools for both the web and apps, we can infer this announcement refers to a net-new production. An overwhelming majority of podcasting operates on RSS outside of Spotify’s control, so this product is exclusively a brand safety play for content Spotify sells ads to on their own platform.  From the beginning of the press release:  “Ultimately, the firms intend to create the industry's first third-party brand safety and suitability reporting tool to bring more transparency and confidence to podcast advertising.” And then, later on:  “In the future, the results will be used to create a first-of-its-kind brand safety and suitability tool to aid in campaign planning, management, and reporting.” Spotify is no stranger to courting controversy when flirting with that safety, be it the actions of acerbic talent or the upcoming return of political ads. Brand safety is hot right now, but so is Spotify announcing things that don’t go live. Should we hold our breath? In keeping with Pride month-adjacent stories: Google has provided a cautionary tale in the unexpected consequences of using automated systems to filter inappropriate content. On Tuesday the tabletop roleplaying game actual play podcast RPG: Realms of Peril and Glory posted a screenshot of their newest episode showing an error on Google Podcasts indicating the content is unavailable for people under the age of 18.  As Podnews covered in October of last year, this is not necessarily new. Google Podcasts, in an effort to remain in compliance with some laws in Europe and the UK addressing children accessing age-inappropriate content, began restricting certain podcasts from being visible to users with underaged accounts or users who weren’t logged into a Google account while attempting to access.  This particular interest is noteworthy as the episode isn’t just blocked from users who aren’t logged in to Google Podcasts. As of Wednesday it was inaccessible to anyone on Google Podcasts. From the original tweet from RPG: “There is nothing adult in this episode. The only difference from our other episodes is the word Lesbian in the title.” RPG’s missing episode was the first of a Pride month-themed campaign titled Spooky Sword Lesbians. The description also mentions the indie tabletop roleplaying game Thirsty Sword Lesbians used to make the show. The game’s official description describes it as “a roleplaying game for telling queer stories with friends.” Evil Hat Productions, the game’s distributor, lists it as being appropriate for ages 13 and up. This unfortunate incident sparks memories of similar issues on YouTube, on which Google restricts videos from trending or getting traction in the recommendation algorithm if they’re deemed 18+. In recent years LGBTQIA+ content creators have widely reported basic words such as ‘trans’ or ‘gay’ are automatically flagged as adult, regardless of the video’s content.  Regardless of Google’s inevitable response to this issue, it stands as a cautionary tale to all podcasting companies: automation technology is a wonderful tool but it is also prone to developing unintended biases based on its creators and training. Unintended consequences such as removing the first episode of a podcast about gay characters halfway through the month dedicated to commemorating the birth of the gay rights movement in the United States.   Spotify’s gone shopping again. According to Tech Crunch’s Ingrid Lunden on Monday, Spotify is purchasing Sonantic, the company behind the AI speech synthesizing tech used to voice Val Kilmer’s character in Top Gun: Maverick.  While AI voices are the new hotness in entertainment, including Disney’s partnership with Respeech to synthesize younger versions of Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones for The Mandalorian and Obi Wan, Spotify hints at more grounded visions for Sonantic’s tech. The blog post cited by Lunden hints at it being used across Spotify, not in one specific application of a synthetic voice.

“One example that Spotify gives of how it might use the tech is to use AI voices to bring more audio-based recommendations and descriptions to users who are not looking at their screens — for example, for those driving cars or listening while doing other activities and not able to look at a screen.”  It seems Spotify might be aiming at constructing their own version of Siri or Alexa moreso than dipping their toes into synthetic podcasters. At least, not yet.  Once again, we bring you useful news directly from Apple. On Wednesday Apple posted a guide on the Apple Podcasts for Creators website simply titled “Search on Apple Podcasts.”  While the information contained therein is more directly useful for podcast creators more so than the wider industry, it’s important to understand the nuts and bolts of how such basic things work. Especially when large companies like Apple voluntarily step up to the plate to be more transparent about systems usually kept locked in secrecy for fear of bad actors exploiting the transparency for gain.  “The more listeners engage with your new shows and episodes, the higher they will rank for relevant search terms, so make sure to promote your shows and episodes on Apple Podcasts when they launch. Make sure your channel name, show titles, and episode titles are specific and unique so they may appear in relevant searches. Be distinctive and avoid using names that are too generic or too similar to existing shows. Avoid using emojis and repeated episode titles.”  While aspects of these two paragraphs have been known from public statements by Apple employees - Apple’s frustrations with people putting repetitive things like episode numbers in titles has been a long-runnin