Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
Automattic, parent company of WordPress has acquired podcast listening app Pocket Casts from NPR and a consortium of public stations. The idea is to integrate a respected audio platform with the world’s dominant blogging platform, which already has text-to-speech capability. Lots of potential and interest here.
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UTA has signed signed podcasting/YouTube stars Zane Hijazi and Heath Hussar for talent representation. Additionally, UTA will represent ad sales for the podcast. Continue Reading
In an interesting piece of technology development, Audioboom introduced AdRip, a tool which removes host-read commercials from old episodes, creating a new ad break into which timely marketing can be inserted. The company says that 50% of downloads are from back catalogs. Continue Reading
Newsweek has formally launched its first podcast, a current events show called The Debate. This podcast actually dropped its first episode on April 20, with little or no publicity, in what the company’s PR describes as an experimental phase. The show springs from a magazine feature. Continue Reading
Twenty-eight 1st-place awards, and three times that many total awards, were bestowed over the weekend by the British Podcast Awards. VENT Documentaries won Podcast of the Year — a show in which investigative stories are told by young people from a single London borough. The winner list of nearly 90 shows provides great discovery browsing, especially for American audiences. Click for details and link. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released the June edition of its two monthly rankers: Top Podcasts and Top Podcast Publishers. Regular followers of these lists can probably recite the top three in each. Stability reigns both in the podcast and publishers list, and also in the overall measurements. Click for details and the lists. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia has disclosed a trio of launch sponsors for the company’s My Cultura podcast network, which seeks to amplify Latinx voices. In addition, four new shows with July launch dates are detailed. The company promises a monthly drumbeat of new My Cultura shows. Continue Reading
PodcastOne, an acquired unit of LiveXLive Media, is grabbing attention this week with two developments: a new content partnership, and a new self-serve podcast hosting platform. Click through for details about upcoming shows, and how the hosting platform works. Continue Reading
The rationale of branded podcasts is to build an audience around a show which is affiliated with a brand, but avoids outright marketing. In many, the brand is rarely mentioned. SXM packaged a Buick sponsorship production of a bonus episode of “Office Ladies.” Click for audio. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
If “findability” isn’t in every podcast creator’s lexicon, this guest column by Steve Goldstein will put it there. Steve details the search agony an enthusiastic and motivated user might have (and he did have) finding a podcast after hearing it advertised. An eye-opening read. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio is announcing a mentoring and incubation program called NextUp, to cultivate and fund what the program’s leader, Anna Hossnieh, calls “underrepresented diverse creators.” Hossnieh is an iHeart executive producer and host of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast. Continue Reading
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021 spans many media types, with global survey work displayed across 164 pages. Podcasts are a main focus of the Audio section. Click through for research results and graphs pertaining to podcast discovery and why some people don’t listen. Continue Reading