Russell Pedrick named MD of Octave
News Broadcasting has appointed Russell Pedrick as managing director of digital audio marketplace Octave.
The move follows News Broadcasting’s purchase of Bauer Media Group’s stake in the platform in February.
Octave’s current joint venture model between Bauer and News UK remains in place until June, when the acquisition is expected to be completed. Bauer inventory will remain on Octave until 30 June, after which the marketplace will be wholly owned by News UK.
Pedrick has worked as News Broadcasting’s head of digital since 2022. Previously, he was The Sun’s head of digital and, before joining News UK, Pedrick spent five years at Disney’s ESPN in various commercial roles.
Accompanying Pedrick’s appointment, Zoopla director of ad sales Joseph Harake is joining Octave as head of digital sales.
Before Zoopla, Harake spent 10 years at Omnicom agency OMD, including as its director of digital.
Incorporating video
Speaking to The Media Leader at News UK’s office at London Bridge, Pedrick called the current transition period a “unique situation” for News Broadcasting, Bauer and Octave’s sales team. He has been tasked with communicating to current clients his team’s new vision for the marketplace from July.
Pedrick said the broadcaster intends to transform Octave into not only a marketplace for digital audio but for video as well.
“The vision for Octave is very much to create an audio and video monetisation business from 1 July,” he explained. “Doing what it does in the digital audio space at the moment with both connected listening and also podcasts, and then starting to layer in the other products that News Broadcasting has to offer.”
Octave will therefore represent an omnichannel offering inclusive of digital audio, VOD and connected TV (CTV) content across News Broadcasting’s brands. These include talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK, Talk and Times Radio.
“Octave has got a strong IP,” said Pedrick. “Fundamentally, we’re not going to change the crux of that product from an audience and segmentation perspective. We are obviously going to change from an inventory point of view.”
In addition, via News Broadcasting’s partnership with SiriusXM, inventory for popular podcasts such as Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy and Conan O’Brien’s Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend will also be accessible via Octave.
Pedrick hinted that News Broadcasting is in active discussions to sign more inventory partners, but declined to reveal details.
“We’re in a really good place as a broadcasting business, where we’ve already got scale in video across some really good brands,” Pedrick continued. “We want to enhance that in the coming months as well.”
News Broadcasting is working to “visualise” all of its podcasts by the end of the year. According to Pedrick, video podcasts have not cannibalised the existing digital audio market but have rather seen incremental consumer demand on their CTV channels and on YouTube, which advertisers have sought to buy against.
That said, Pedrick suggested that the digital audio market is currently “relatively untapped” by advertisers given the medium’s strong reach and addressability, and News Broadcasting is seeking to do more to promote digital audio as an effective media channel beyond selling Octave as a solution for clients.
‘Competition is healthy’
The digital audio market has quickly become a competitive ecosystem. After Bauer sold its stake in Octave, it announced its own new competitor digital audio marketplace, AudioXi. Global, the other leading UK audio brand, has operated Dax since 2014.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Spotify launched its own ad exchange, a programmatic offering that allows advertisers to access Spotify’s users via real-time auction, complete with a suite of addressability and measurement capabilities.
According to Pedrick, the greater competition will help spur product innovation, improve results for clients and better promote digital audio effectiveness.
“I think competition is healthy,” he said. “Competition drives innovation. It will make us better. It will hopefully make Bauer and Dax better as well.”
Still, he expressed confidence that Octave has a unique selling point compared with competitors.
Octave will be underpinned by first-party publisher data from News UK’s Nucleus offering, allowing advertisers to access and address the consumption habits of not just audio listeners but also Times and Sun readers.
While Bauer also has a publishing arm that owns magazine titles like Grazia and Empire, Pedrick suggested that data from News UK’s own titles is unique and scaled. And given Bauer’s recent foray into OOH following the company’s purchase of Clear Channel Europe-North, as well as Global’s own focus on audio and OOH, Pedrick said he felt confident that Octave is well-placed to benefit from its proximity to major news brands.
“SiriusXM has an amazing podcast portfolio and, when you add the products of News Broadcasting, it becomes quite a compelling podcast proposition,” he concluded.
