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Nova Entertainment to buy and sell Acast inventory, claiming Australia’s ‘biggest podcast offering’

Nova Entertainment has extended its partnership with on demand podcasting platform Acast with a new deal to represent and sell both Acast and Nova’s podcasting inventory in the Australian market.

The two platforms include more than 2,000 podcast shows such as The Football Ramble, The Financial Times Shows, and My Dad Wrote a Porno with local 3.5m monthly listens.

O’Connor said the company will now work exclusively with Acast

Nova, which was previously a content partner, will now work exclusively with Acast.

Cathy O’Connor, Nova Entertainment’s CEO said as Acast’s “exclusive partner”, the company now represented the largest digital audio network in Australia, in terms of weekly audiences with “best in class” ad insertion technology, analytics, and native content opportunities.

O’Connor – who became aware of the platform at a radio conference in Paris last year – said Acast appealed to her as the company was already thinking broadly about “measurement, advertising standards, and creative standards.”

“Acast are a technology platform, and a very good one, and Nova is a business with its heritage in audio. All partnerships combine the best of what each has to offer, so there’s a lot of different facets to the content offering that will be brought to bare,” she told Mumbrella.

“Firstly, we have our own Nova Entertainment podcasts, there is new podcasts that we are creating, there is content that Acast are attracting to their platform that isn’t Nova produced, and of course these big global titles that are already part of the offering for Acast.

“I believe we are building a great network of scale. There’s plenty of people out there pushing podcasts but we have a good audience in Australia, already in Australia, and of course we want to build that in Australia.

“So it’s continuing to innovate the form that Acast is, continuing to find new content partners that want to be represented by a salesforce that has good credentials in the market in selling multi platform solutions.”

O’Connor hopes the new partnership will allow brands to target podcast listeners, not only though ad insertion, but through native content opportunities.

“The nature of the podcast user is highly engaged,” she said.

“Equally because the content is being created, there is a great opportunity to build content with brands.

My dad wrote a porno is one of Acast’s many podcasts

“I believe it is one of the most exciting native content channels that is there to be explored, and we want to be at the forefront of that exploration with brands and partners.”

Other traditional radio networks have also locked in partnerships, such as Southern Cross Austereo and PodcastOne, who launched PodcastOne Australia late last year.

O’Connor said while other podcasting operations were promising big audiences and “compelling content,” she noted Acast has already built audiences locally.

“I can only talk about actual listening right now. So the Acast platform in Australia is now currently delivering an audience in excess of 3.5m monthly listeners. Globally, it’s 56m listeners. Acast is already in the audience game, and that audience is already listening to podcasts on the Acast platform and its not being monetised right now,” she said.

“Really this audience has been there since Acast has been in Australia and some of these podcasts were found by Australian listeners, before Acast was in Australia.

“We actually have an audience and one that is there for advertisers and brands to connect with right now, so we’ll be doing that from day one.”

In a release, Isaksson added providing brands with “unique advertising solutions” was something that had been missing in the Australian market for Acast.

Asked why it was important for radio networks to build out podcasting offerings, O’Connor said it was important to continue building audiences.

“We know that its a behaviour that is building, and its supplementing radio which is fantastic. It’s add to this. It’s not replacing radio listening, broadcast radio audiences are in growth. We can see a change in consumer behaviour and we are building products to meet that change.

“Equally what podcasting is is digital listening, so we have a granularity, an addressability, and a a measurement attached to podcast listening.”

The news comes two weeks after Acast appointed former Spotify country manager Henrik Isaksson, as the platform’s country manager.

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