Ariel Shapiro

The New York Times reported earnings yesterday, and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien told investors that “our digital performance, including podcasts, was impacted by marketers avoiding some hard news topics like the Middle East conflict.” The NYT has published extensive (and important) podcasts about the war in Gaza and surrounding conflicts. Conventional wisdom in podcasting goes that advertisers avoid politics and other controversial topics, which is perhaps why brands gravitate toward sports and comedy shows.

Always one to project its creator-friendly bonifides, Spotify issued a statement this morning saying that the streamer paid out $9 billion to the music industry in 2023. The company has released this figure the past few years in the context of mounting criticism that artists on the platform are not adequately compensated for their music. Spotify also recently announced major changes to its royalties system, including a new policy in which only songs that get at least 1,000 streams annually earn royalties, which the company says is intended to get more money into the pockets of working artists.

Katherine Maher, the CEO of Web Summit and former CEO of Wikipedia parent organization, Wikimedia Foundation, will be the new president and CEO of NPR. Notably, Maher does not have a public radio background. It’s an interesting choice for the networks, which went through painful layoffs and podcast cancellations last year. Although NPR previously signaled a “broadcast-to-podcast” strategy, her appointment could signal a further pivot into digital.