Global increases podcasting capabilities through acquisition of Captivate

Global has “opened up new advertising opportunities for brands” through acquiring a podcast-hosting platform today.

Captivate, based in Sheffield, will be integrated into Global Player and has more than 14,000 podcasts with “a large user base in the US” for hosting and downloads.

The platform also has a range of features to help podcasters with distribution, first-party attribution and promotion tools providing more hosting, measurement and monetisation capabilities.

Captivate was founded by Mark Asquith and Kieran McKeefery who will stay with the business through the acquisition.

Podcast creators with Global’s Digital Ad Exchange (DAX) will also be able to use its scalable monetisation and measurement tools.

Stephen Miron, group CEO at Global described Captivate as “a best in-class self-serve platform for podcast creators”.

“This acquisition will enable us to support all talent in the podcast community from the very largest to emerging new talent. We believe that this platform, combined with the massive scale and reach of Global Player and DAX will give all our podcast partners an unrivalled advantage,” he added.

This acquisition comes as as IAB UK found spend figures for podcasts had grown 43% between 2019 and 2020 and another study from Edison Research and Bauer Media Audio found 41% of UK residents aged 16+ have listened to a podcast in the last month.

Global Player streams live radio and events, contains playlists and video content as well as Global Original podcasts like My Therapist Ghosted Me and Hunting Ghislaine.