Audible discusses Podcasting (ADBL 2Q05 conf call quotes)

Audible (ticker: ADBL) derived 14% of its Q2 revenue from Apple's iTunes Music Store, the same percentage as in Q1. Despite that lack of growth, CEO Donald Katz was optimistic about the impact on Audible's sales from Apple's embrace of free podcasts. His comments about podcasts on Audible's Q2 conference call are interesting, particularly in light of the longer-term risks to Audible from Apple and podcasts. Excerpts:   

…Podcasting is a very positive force... We’re obviously excited that… the downloading of content to devices, which we’ve been doing for many years, podcasting… is getting a lot of press. The free content environment set-up at Apple has been great for us, because it’s actually boosted our sales, simply because… the premium for-sale content is next to the free stuff.

…it’s going to end up being an incredibly powerful environment for us to help podcasters seek paths to monetization.  And one of the things we’re going to be doing is offering… best-of-class tools and services, including… optimized file formats and stopping and starting and indexing, and even… accurate ad tracking...

I wouldn’t say there’s a huge effect one way or another at this point. But, we do think going forward it will be a very, very much of a positive thing…

…one of the things you… find at the beginning of these things, there are some people who are completely uninterested in revenue or payment of any sort for the creativity or information. But, even those people we can offer tools to. But the truth is most people who podcast do want monetization, and that’s our bread and butter.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

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Comments

[JeffShattuck]

I just bought some ADBL today. I think, despite all the risks, this company will have a great 4th quarter and, longer term, could very well be acquired. Check out my rationale at my blog
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