2021 has certainly been an odd one in many ways, but we’ve seen loads of great success stories from the Captivate podcasting community.
It’s been Captivate’s best year yet too – we’ve smashed out some amazing features, broke new ground as a community & continued to support you in achieving your podcasting dreams!
We’ll delve deeper into all that later, though – let’s look at what you guys have achieved this year!
In this article:
Great success stories from you, our Captivate podcasters
You guys are what make Captivate, Captivate. We’re really proud of everything you’ve all achieved this year – every podcasting milestone should be celebrated, as they’re all meaningful parts of your individual journey.
So, what have Captivate podcasters achieved this year? We’d have loved to include everyone in this list, but there were so many success stories we’ve had to summarize and hand picked just a few of your personal stories.
You smashed your download targets!
Wow, you guys and your podcasts sure are popular! You’ve absolutely powered through the year, adding more listeners than ever to your communities. Let’s take a closer look!
Ian Harries from The Podcast Nobody Asked For
A good year for the film buffs! Ian hosts ‘The Podcast Nobody Asked For’, where he and co-host Graham talk (and argue) about movies.
“We managed to hit a total of 10,000 total downloads. Not bad for a podcast mainly recorded from a kitchen table!”
Sounds like someone did ask for it! Nice work gents, keep it up.
Andrey Ivanov from Business Games
Andrey, found himself going viral after interviewing a guest who had predicted the pandemic!
“Going accidentally “viral” overnight: great content, even better timing!”
The episode ended up quadrupling the download numbers Andrey was used to – the episode in question featured his guest making a further prediction, which turned out to allude to Omicron. Spooky!
Rich Cardona and Heather Parady from NFTs for Newbies
Rich and Heather really blew up this year. Their show, NFTs for Newbies, tapped in to something firmly in the public conscience this past year.
“Heather and I have been podcasting for years and never experienced such incredible success so fast!” – Rich.
Their show, breaking down the intense internet phenomenon ‘non-fungible tokens’, has taken flight, achieving 100,000 downloads in 100 days! Mind blowing!
You started your podcast journey!
The first step is always the hardest – everyone talks about starting a podcast, but you guys actually did it. Credit where it’s due, friends.
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Elisabeth Villiger Toufexis from Most Memorable Journeys
You may remember Elisabeth from our Podcaster Spotlight series – she took the plunge this year and put her plethora of travel experience to good use, creating ‘Most Memorable Journeys’!
“I absolutely love it and look forward to every new episode each week. I am 60 years old and a little proud of myself that I dared to start.”
I have had some really cool interview guests who are sharing their most memorable Journeys with my listeners.”
Very happy to have you on board, Elisabeth!
David Monteith from The Naked Geek
After a 15 year career in podcasting, David has launched his brand new show, ‘The Naked Geek’!
“That kind of listener investment was more than I had imagined, it’s humbling, indicative of a societal need and a triumph for the geeky genre.”
If there’s one thing we love here at Captivate, it’s geek culture – keep it up David!
Tae Kim from Be Here Project
Tae struggled to justify starting a podcast as it felt daunting to start with no audience and so much content already out there. We’re elated she overcame this hurdle to start “Be Here Project”!
“The project gave me purpose, it is inspiring to see how some words can help other people. Don’t underestimate the change you can be in this world. The best time to start a podcast is now.”
We couldn’t agree more.
You hosted your dream guests!
They say “don’t meet your heroes”. You proved them wrong.
Lori Adams-Brown from A World of Difference
Lori decided to get some new and exciting guests on board for ‘A World of Difference’ in 2021!
“I wanted to hear different perspectives from a variety of voices. We had authors who have written some thought-provoking books to challenge the status quo. It was a year that caused us to ask ‘why’ and ‘why not?’”
We couldn’t have said it better.
Gareth Davies from Creative Cuppa
Gareth’s show, has continued to grow throughout the year, and with that growth came more big name guests!
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“2021 has seen Creative Cuppa attract more international guests, including amazing people like Naomi Sunrise Filoramo, the TV & film editor – Emmy-nominated for her work on Mare of Easttown.”
Wow! Great work Gareth.
John Kehl from Song Surfing
John’s podcast is dedicated to showcasing independent musical artists from around the world!
“In our first year, close to 200 independent artists from 6 continents have been introduced to our enthusiastic listeners. There is so much good music out there to be discovered, and it feels great to be able to help these artists make some new fans.”
A noble aim, and well executed!
You published so many episodes!
Every episode counts! Whether it’s your tenth, hundredth or thousandth! Let’s whizz through some big milestones 😉
Richard Tubb
Celebrating the 100th episode of ‘TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants’!
Darin Hayes
Huge congratulations on 500 episodes of ‘Pigskin Dispatch’!
Chris Biddle
‘Inside Agri-Turf’ has reached 50 episodes! Amazing work Chris.
Phil Street
Phil is celebrating 100 episodes of ‘Hospitality Meets… With Phil Street’. Great commitment😁
Mike Morrison
Mike broke 300 episodes of ‘The Membership Guys’ this year! Fantastic!
You won awards!
We know you’re great, your listeners know you’re great, but now you have it in writing 😉
Pete from Get Flushed
‘Get Flushed’ secured the Bronze Medal in the Business Category at the NZ Podcast Awards! Truly fantastic work.
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Charles Commins from It’s All Cobblers To Me
The Football Supporters’ Association announced ‘It’s All Cobblers To Me’ as their Club Podcast of the Year at their annual awards ceremony in November 2021.
Robin, Mike and TY from Just Our Opinion
‘Just Our Opinion’ was the 2021 Black Podcast Award Winner for “Best Relationship Podcast”! Amazing!
You topped the charts!
Cream rises to the top
The Two Lauras from JFDI with The Two Laura’s
Their podcast went right to the top of the marketing charts frighteningly soon after its launch! You guys are fast…
Dan Malloy from Trust Me When I Tell You
‘Trust Me When I Tell You’ broke the top T00 on Apple for Improv shows! Amazing work Dan.
Corey Little from Real Life Weight Loss
‘Real Life Weight Loss’ cracked the Top 30 list for Nutrition multiple times throughout the year. Fab!
All around, it’s been amazing work from all of our podcasters! We’re very sorry if we couldn’t feature your achievement – we’re incredibly proud to support every single Captivate podcaster!
Bonus! What have we done?
At Captivate, we’re not content to be average or to ride on our past glories. You’ve probably noticed that.
We’ve had another record breaking year – altogether, you guys uploaded 246,006 hours of audio! You’re a friendly bunch, too – 10,872 Captivate podcasters joined a podcast team in 2021. And, of course, the juicy one… platform-wide, our best day for downloads was December 6th, with a whopping 594,103 listens in just one day! Let us know on Twitter how many you got that day.
Let’s take a look back at the year, shall we?
AMIE
AMIE, is Captivate’s dynamic ad insertion technology and Module 1 has been a huge release for us in 2021. Standing for “audio monetization & integration engine”, AMIE is a complete suite of dynamic ad tools that are included for free on every Captivate plan.
Captivate’s dynamic ad insertion technology allows you to easily manage all elements of your dynamic ad choices from one, simple interface. AMIE gives you the ability to manage pre-roll, mid-roll (in-content) and post-roll ads within individual episodes and en masse across your whole podcast catalogue.
Completely free for all Captivate users, you can use dynamic ad painters to replace baked in adverts, insert pre and post roll ads and bulk editing your entire podcast back catalogue. We have to say, we knocked this one out the park.
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Since its release, Captivate podcasters have dynamically inserted 18255 adverts. I think it’s safe to say you’re as crazy about AMIE as we are!
We don’t know about you guys, but we’re sure looking forward to Modules 2&3 dropping in 2022.
Global Acquisition
Yep, Captivate has been acquired by Global, one of the world’s largest media & entertainment groups!
Mark and Kieran are still at the helm, all the team are still here and we’re still the friendly, personal and innovative podcast host you’ve trusted with your shows.
This new venture will allow podcast creators to scale up monetisation opportunities with Global’s proprietary digital ad platform DAX (Digital Ad Exchange), the market leader in digital audio advertising and a pioneering platform in programmatic outdoor advertising.
“Our vision for Captivate has always been clear: to proactively help independent podcast creators build their audio brand and to deliver a diverse range of monetisation options for them. Joining Global allows us to continue to fulfil that vision by bringing DAX and Global Player to Captivate podcasters, while also providing more opportunities for the platform to positively contribute to future of the industry.” – Captivate co-founder, Mark Asquith.
It’s an incredibly exciting step for us, and pretty exciting for you guys too!
Shareable Captivate Podcast Player v2
Captivate is for everyone, that’s a principle which has been important to us since the creation of the podcast hosting platform.
It’s why we made the new shareable player completely accessible, with screenreader compatible, for our visually impaired podcasters, and transcription support! Everyone in our community is valuable to us, and we’ll always put you first.
On top of this, there were of course loads of other improvements: improved support across all devices, better oEmbed support and far more design options, just to name a few!
The Podcast Maker Day
How many podcast hosts spend a full day with their podcasters, working on specific areas you guys asked for help on? I can only think of one…
The Maker Day was the first of it’s kind – we planned the whole session around you guys, creating rooms with our experts to work on whatever you needed. Our team made sure everyone was getting all the help they needed to level up their show, and we loved doing it!
Everyone came with a specific goal in mind, and everyone left again with either that goal completed or a plan in place to get it done!
You can catch the replay here, and we look forward to some more fab events like this in the next year!
Interview Management & Guest Booking Platform for Podcasters
For International Podcast Day 2021, we dropped our in-platform Guest Booking and Interview Management platform, for free, to all Captivate podcasters. Our gift to you for being part of one of the most engaging industries out there!
Why should you guys, the podcasters, have to pay for two separate platforms in order to effectively manage your show? It’s always annoyed us, so we did something about it! No need for a third party platform now – book your guests, edit those bookings and broadcast your availability all from within Captivate. You can even set what days and times you’re free, and have your guests request time slots!
Cross-Promotional Feed Drops & Network Features for Every Captivate Podcaster
Over Summer, we released our professional-grade Network Features for all our podcasters to access (for free!!)
This allowed you to add your shows to a network, view analytics for that whole network and set up a team to manage it! Most excitingly, it allowed you to ‘feed drop’ episodes between shows in that network – literally taking an episode from one show and placing it in the RSS feed of another show in your network. Holy cross-promotion!
So that’s been our 2021 – it’s been a blast having you all along for the ride with us! We’ve got some big plans for 2022: let’s see what we can create together!
