Season 3 of "Serial" is coming.
Unfortunately, we just don't know exactly when.
Pandora Senior Vice President Lizzie Widhelm teased the new season of the wildly popular "This American Life" series as she explained to Cheddar why her company sees a ripe opportunity in what remains a very young platform for podcasts.
"We think there's a huge opportunity there to grow listener hours, make those makers happy and have something for advertisers," she said in an interview with Cheddar's Peter Gorenstein at the Cannes Lions festival.
But many obstacles must be overcome, among them the advertising model.
"Anything that's early has a non-scalable ad model," Widhelm said, referring to the relative newness of podcasts as a medium.
But the content offers real potential for advertisers, she said.
"There's a lot of consumers right now that are moving into podcasts and loving them because their identity is becoming so important to them.
"When you're listening to content that really resonates with you and is really personal to you, any ad that sits in that format is going to have a better chance of performing than an ad that's stitched into something that's just a mass broadcast."
Discoverability of podcasts is another problem. "What's broken with podcasts is not the audience; the audience is there, they love it," she said. "They can't find anything from a topical standpoint."
She added that Pandora was in a "pilot phase" of testing different topical shows.
As for the launch date of "Serial" Season 3, Widhelm said, "I can't tell you; Sarah will kill me," a reference to one of the show's creators, Sarah Koenig.
"But you'll know soon enough; it's gonna be great."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/pandora-svp-lizzie-widhelm-on-state-of-advertising-for-audio).
Darden, the parent company of chain restaurants like Olive Garden and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, beat Wall Street estimates in its latest earnings report.
A former Facebook executive pled guilty to stealing more than $4 million from the company while she was employed there.
Rising safety concerns over water bead products marketed to kids have prompted major retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart to pull some toys off their shelves.
The Congressional Budget Office said Friday it expects inflation to nearly hit the Federal Reserve's 2% target rate in 2024, as overall growth is expected to slow and unemployment is expected to rise into 2025, according to updated economic projections for the next two years.
Intel is out with a new product to challenge other big players in the space like Nvidia and AMD.
Stocks fell after the opening bell Friday but will end on another positive week.
Cheddar News' Need2Know is brought to you by Securitize, which helps unlock broader access to alternative investments in private businesses, funds, and other alternative assets. The private credit boom is here and the Hamilton Lane Senior Credit Opportunities Fund has tripled in assets under management in just six months from November 2022 through April this year. Visit Securitize.io to learn more.
Americans picked up their spending from October to November as the unofficial holiday season kicked off, underscoring that shoppers still have power to keep buying.
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate dropped below 7% to its lowest level since early August, another boost for prospective homebuyers who have largely been held back by sharply higher borrowing costs and heightened competition for relatively few homes for sale.
Mortgage rates have dropped below 7% for the first time since the middle of August.
