Podcasting News & Views

Just a quick one here this week – it’s a bit of a slow news cycle despite most people I know being busier than ever. I’m planning to publish next week, and then probably take off a couple issues during the holidays.

Courses, Webinars, and Learning Opportunities

There are a lot of courses and webinars happening right now, so I thought I’d plug a few. Now’s a great time to take a breather and invest in yourself a bit.

• [On Demand] – Jay Clouse, host of the Podglomerate’s very own Creative Elements, created a course called Podcast Like The Pros to teach people how to create a high-quality, professional-sounding show with a small team or a small budget. Creative Elements launched in March of 2020, and Jay has been able to interview the likes of James Clear, Seth Godin, Pat Flynn, and more. He produces a great show and teaches his whole process in this course.
• [Thursday, Dec. 17th] – Shifting to the brand side, JAR Audio is putting on a webinar next week called Original Podcasts for Brands 101. If you’re unfamiliar, JAR is a top notch branded production company out of Vancouver, working with clients like RBC, Lululemon, Expedia, Cineplex and more. For anyone thinking about starting a podcast for their company, or trying to get buy-in from a higher-up, this is a great opportunity to learn quickly and easily from some of the best in the business.
• [Thursday, Dec. 17th] – Bryan Barletta of Sounds Profitable is kicking off a monthly series of Product Deepdive webinars next week. The first features Podscribe, a podcast transcription service. This will be a great listen (watch?), as the world of podcast transcription is oddly contentious. Honestly, this topic seems to crop up in every meeting.
• [On Demand] – Dustlight’s Misha Euceph has also been hard at work continuing her series Poddy Training, most recently focused on how to voice a podcast. This is an amazing opportunity to learn from one of the best producers in the game (she’s fresh off executive producing the Michelle Obama Podcast).

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SiriusXM’s Ambitions Get Exactly One Howard Stern Stronger

This week Howard Stern and SiriusXM announced that Stern’s contract would be renewed for a five year term, and SiriusXM would get access to Stern’s archive for 7 years. This is a big story that a lot of podcast folks have been tracking for a long time, as SiriusXM has been on a buying spree only beat by Spotify. In the last few years, SiriusXM has collected in one form or another AdSwizz, Pandora, Simplecast, and Stitcher. It’s a bit cloudy as to what their overall business strategy is, but they have enough tools to make it work in most scenarios, and Howard Stern is really the lynchpin of that strategy (or strategy to come).

SiriusXM recently launched podcasts on their platform, including originals, partnered content with Marvel, and repurposed SiriusXM content from folks like Andy Cohen. While there’s not a Howard Stern podcast (yet), they have been repurposing his content as on-demand audio (i.e. podcasts). I assume this is why his archive was included in the deal and announcement.

I didn’t see anything about price, but I’d be curious to learn more.

Easy Listening: Israel Story

This show is a Podglomerate client, but I can’t think of a better listening suggestion than this for the first night of Hanukkah (pair it with some latkes – I make mine with yuca). Israel Story is a podcast that produces high-quality, long-form storytelling about Israel. Hosted by Mishy Harman, the show is produced in partnership with Tablet Magazine. It tells extraordinary stories about regular people living in Israel – the kind you won’t see on the news or read about online. Israel Story is often called “the Israeli ‘This American Life,’” including by Ira Glass himself. And that’s just it – the show presents quirky, unpredictable, interesting and moving stories about a place we think we know a lot about, but really don’t. Listen here.

Thanks for reading—see you next week.

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