As the world wide audio industry keeps expanding, the newest commercially viable category is Audio Books. It will be a major new topic at this year’s Radiodays Europe conference in Athens next month.
A recent US Court decision in a copyright case concerning Spotify has ruled that audio books can be bundled as ‘premium content’ and charged accordingly, pushing them into an important money generating category for radio, podcast and audio book platforms.
Amazon’s audio book platform Audible was one of the first into the audio book sphere, leveraging off its text based Kindle book catalogue. Then came book publishing media companies such as Australia’s ABC and Britain’s BBC, that already owned publishing rights for many titles and often also employed the authors of the books on their radio and tv shows.
Audio music streaming companies such as Spotify are the latest to the party, and this ruling now sets a precedent for some clear copyright parameters, at least under American law, for other audio services to produce and offer audio books.
Audio books are a new source of revenue for voice actors, audio production studios and media companies, and the category is likely to be a fast growing sector of the audio industry over the next few years.
The forward-looking RadioDays Europe conference next month will feature a significant section devoted to audio books. In 2025, radioinfo will also introduce a new coverage area called Audioinfo which will cover this growing revenue segment.
In RDE’s Audiobook Summit in Athens, the conference will examine how audio companies can diversify their business to drive content and profitability. Alongside creating and monetisation, there will also be a session about the different platforms available for all audio, so listeners get the best experience possible.
There will be discussions on the subscription sales model, how AI is impacting IP rights and ethics, plus how to create, distribute and market audiobooks. The sessions will also look at the main consumer segments.
Henriette Hoj Gharib, who is programming the audio book summit said: “Audiobooks should be a consideration for all audio companies, with many commercial opportunities as well as accessing audiences that you might not be reaching through other platforms.”
Sign up for the summit at the RDE registration page.
Explore other sessions at RDE, including the CEO Summit, hosted by radioinfo’s Steve Ahern.
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This story first appeared on RadioInfo.asia