Acquired Episode 16: Midroll + Stitcher (acquired by Scripps)

Apple's Role

David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert discuss Apple's inadvertent creation of the podcasting medium. They highlight how Apple, despite being the dominant player, has shown little interest in capitalizing on this opportunity. Ben notes that Apple inherited podcasting when it added a podcast section to the iTunes music store, which was merely a directory and not a hosting service 1.

It's so funny that it's still even called podcasting, right? Like, nobody has an iPod anymore, and Apple's just, like, accidentally had this nascent, huge opportunity unfold that they're really not taking advantage of.

--- Ben Gilbert

David emphasizes the dilemma faced by the podcasting industry, where starting a new company requires significant effort and contending with dominant players like Apple 2.

   

Future Potential

Ben and David speculate on how Apple might leverage podcasting in the future, particularly through dynamic ad insertion and APIs. Ben explains the potential of dynamic ad insertion, where hosts can pre-record ads and insert them dynamically into episodes, a method already being explored by companies like Acaas and Megaphone FM 3.

We started looking around. There really are some people tackling this right now. There's a company called Acaas that's doing dynamic ad insertion.

--- Ben Gilbert

They also discuss the high CPMs commanded by podcasts, which could incentivize Apple to make podcasting a monetizable platform. Ben mentions secret meetings between Apple and major publishers to explore this possibility 4.